Learn & Serve: New Retreat Programs Now Offered!

Learn & Serve is excited to announce two new programming options for retreats! To continue to provide a diverse range of experiences connecting our participants to our brothers and sisters around the world, Learn & Serve has begun offering participants the opportunity to participate in a Refugee Camp Overnight and an Urban Slum Prayer Experience.

Within the RCO program, participants will spend the night in a simulated refugee camp.

The Refugee Camp Overnight (RCO) program allows participants to experience a night in a simulated refugee camp. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in 2011, there were 15.2 million refugees in the world, many of those live in refugee camps. RCO exposes participants to the struggles of millions of men, women and children living in these situations. The experience was inspired by the 4 years that SIFAT Practicum graduate Sebastian, and his wife Lillian, spent in a refugee camp in Zambia, after fleeing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The experience includes dinner and breakfast, prepared over an open fire or cook-stove, along with purifying water for drinking, while living in conditions that Sebastian, Lilian and millions of people around the world have experienced or are living in today.

The Urban Slum Prayer Experience provides participants with an opportunity to connect with people living in slums around the world through interactive prayer stations within SIFAT’s simulated urban slum.

The Urban Slum Prayer Experience offers participants an interactive look at the issues facing people living in urban slums and encourages them to pray for those affected. Participants travel through our simulated urban slum and read stories of people living in such an environment. Each story highlights a specific issue such as unclean drinking water, smoke inhalation, and human trafficking. After telling the story and providing information on the issue, the station provides practical ways to pray for those impacted by such issues. The Urban Slum Prayer Experience lasts 2-3 hours, and offers return visitors and older participants a deeper way to connect to those living in urban slums around the world.

These experiences are simply the two newest retreat programs Learn and Serve offers. To learn more about these two new programs, as well as other  Learn & Serve retreat programming, click here. For general retreat information and to learn how to book a retreat or event for your group, click here or contact us at learnandserve@sifat.org.