September 2023: Raphael Returns to SIFATEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Tom Corson, executive director SIFAT Graduate Raphael has returned to SIFAT various times since first participating in our 10-week training practicum. He has taught in our trainings after using what he learned and implementing appropriate technology in his ministry in Nigeria. In his heart and mind, he believes what SIFAT believes is the Heart of the Gospel: sharing God’s love in practical ways—love for God, for everyone, even for our enemies. And wherever Raphael lives, a little part of the Kingdom of God develops around him. He came to SIFAT this September to visit and to serve us by repairing the Nigerian houses he helped Learn & Serve youth build in our Global Village during a previous visits. When he leaves SIFAT, he plans to visit friends and supporters.  Raphael, a SIFAT graduate from Nigeria, spent two weeks with us this September. Our staff loved spending time catching up with news from his ministry and family, as well as having his help on campus.
Years ago when Raphael returned from SIFAT to Nigeria, he was moved to see migrants escaping from the part of the country where terrorists were taking over farms and killing people. These people had lost everything and were fleeing for their lives, hungry and destitute. SIFAT’s Graduates’ Project Committee partnered with him to raise money to buy 24 acres of land, which he divided into mini plots on which 30 migrant families could grow enough food to eat and have extra to sell for profit. In three years, the average migrant family worked these tiny farms, harvested their own food and sold enough to provide for their needs. Additionally, most were able to save enough to buy their own farms, which freed the land Raphael was loaning them for others to begin this process. This plan is still working today! The migrants believe in Raphael’s testimony, because he not only told them about Jesus, he lived out the Gospel with them every day. June 2023: May Field Study Returns to SIFAT CampusEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Kathy Bryson, International Training Director, and Kaitlyn Glenn, Learn & Serve Program Assistant We recently completed our May Field Study, “World Hunger and Malnutrition: Practical Skills to Make a Difference.” This training equips participants to serve in their communities and empower citizens through public health and community development. Students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham earned college credit when they joined us for 10 days of training. Prior to the UAB students’ arrival, international community leaders finished a week of training. Many UAB participants commented that the May Field Study was not only a valuable experience, but it was enlightening about the issues that so many people face around the world and the ways we can help.  SIFAT co-founder Ken Corson (center left) and SIFAT trainer Bayron Morales lead a class during our May Field Study, which was comprised of 48 participants representing 14 countries. February 2023: SIFAT Grad Peter Impacts Lives in KenyaEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Sarah Corson, SIFAT Co-founder SIFAT works with our network of graduates helping them raise seed money to start their community projects. They expect these projects to become sustainable in the future with community resources. During the past six years, we have partnered with 29 of our graduates living in 16 different countries. Many of them have led more than one project successfully. An example of a graduate who has reached hundreds of needy people for Christ and with new hope for body, mind and soul is Peter Kirui in Kenya.
 Peter’s projects are wonderful examples of how seed money helps our training graduates get their projects started to make a difference in their communities.
September 2022: From Witchcraft to Worker for ChristEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Sarah Corson, SIFAT Co-founder In 1994, SIFAT began training Christian workers at El Renuevo in Venezuela. Several years later, we had to close it because of terrorists in nearby Colombia, who had begun coming into Venezuela and kidnaping Americans for ransom. This summer, Yurima Alvarez, one of our El Renuevo graduates, came to SIFAT to teach youth during our Learn & Serve Summer Experience and to learn more technologies to help her people during this difficult time in Venezuela. She brought us news from a number of SIFAT’s graduates from those years we worked in Venezuela. Yurima encouraged us, telling us that the SIFAT training was still going on in different areas of Venezuela, as our graduates with whom we had lost contact were still training others using the skills and knowledge that they learned more than 25 years ago. One especially caught my attention. “Remember Oscar?” she asked. We could never forget Oscar! He was from the Yanomami, deep in the jungles bordering the Orinoco River. His tribe still dressed in the ancient loin cloth, but he got clothes like we wear to come to the SIFAT training sessions. They were still hunter-gatherers and did not know how to farm. Their tribe was in danger of dying out because their hunting and fishing territory was becoming smaller and smaller as homesteaders were pushing into the area. The Orinoco River was becoming polluted from the oil drilling companies.  Sarah and Oscar spend time together at El Renuevo in Venezuela many years ago. May 2022: SIFAT Graduates Overcome ObstaclesEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. In Nigeria, our SIFAT graduates Pastor Blossom and Aina are building a fence around their mission school, an action required by the government for all schools because of the terrorists who are kidnapping schoolchildren. Through our approved graduates’ projects program, SIFAT sent a grant to help with the fence to enable this Christian school to continue operating. But an anti-Christian group did not want a Christian school in their village. They invented a false story that the land the fence was on was not the school’s property. They sued Pastor Blossom, which stopped the fence building for several weeks until the court ruled it was a falsehood. The attackers got what they wanted—construction was delayed and materials ruined. Without extra funds, Pastor Blossom and Aina could not continue. We believe in self-sufficiency, in working and making a living by doing so. But, there are so many different problems our graduates face before they can succeed. We are constantly amazed that these graduates, who have many obstacles to overcome, have so much determination and perseverance. They often say, “With man it is not possible, but with God all things are possible!” Though it may take longer than originally planned, still it happens! Our graduates keep trying, and with God’s help, they overcome! |
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