On this page you will read and see the accounts of visits to SIFAT by Trinity members
Click on the report titles below to go directly to the account:
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PICTURES TO ENLARGE
SIFAT began in the tropical rain forest of the Amazon basin in the lowlands of northeastern Bolivia where Ken and Sarah Corson had established their Methodist missionary field. Not only did their work among the poorest members of that society bring them in contact with a people who had great spiritual needs, they found they had significant physical needs as well.
Well meaning donors in the United States tend to respond to appeals for help by missionaries like the Corsons with complicated equipment and perishable supplies which cannot be sustained, repaired or replaced in the third-world environment. A generator-run water pump will run out of expensive gasoline or break down and require replacement parts that are just not available. Basic housing, sanitation and the know-how to grow high-yield crops on poor quality soil do not exist. It's hard to win souls for Christ on an empty stomach!
Working first with the newly elected, recently converted Christian mayor of Sapecho, they created CENATEC (National Center for Sustainable Technology), a nonprofit Christian organization which attempted to find solutions for the great physical needs of the parish. Upon retirement from the mission field, the Corsons came home to Alabama where they located in central east Alabama near Wedowee and Lineville.
They felt the strong calling to develop an institute for the research and development of systems which would provide for the physical needs of the people served by missionaries in any part of the world by using simple technologies that employed materials found locally in the mission fields. An atheistic farmer heard about their goal and his way of supporting their laudable plan was to sell them the property on which the institute is now located for a ridiculously low price ($1 for quite a few acres, if I remember correctly).
First Methodist of Montgomery supports SIFAT heavily, and as a member of the Work Area on Missions, I chose to visit SIFAT on two occasions to tour the campus and validate the funding our church was providing. Here we are tramping through the field with one of their sanitary latrines in the background. That's me in the blue shirt on the left (the one without the hair!).
The SIFAT Administration Building houses guest reception, publication offices, video production studio and classrooms.
The SIFAT Cafeteria is the daily community gathering area for the noontime meal, sharing session and daily devotions. Actually, it's located closer to the county road which passes by the campus, because the experimental garden is located roadside.
When I visited last in the mid-1990's, the Technology Development Building was under construction. Here's where the research on new technologies takes place and prototypes are developed. Over winter, large barrels house the warm climate-loving tilapia fish which are farmed in the man-made lakes on the property in this facility.
Way out at the edge of the grass fields is the manufacturing shed where a variety of constructed equipment and products are made.
The main product is brick which requires a lot of straw to reinforce the mud in the brick-making process. This is Bob Stevens, a former Habitat For Humanity officer who was the SIFAT director on my last visit. He led the tour and is explaining the brick-making process here.
The brick produced by their method is a high-quality "queen-sized" brick which is used in many applications for the mission field needs.
This two-room brick home with roofed porch would be a mansion (or at least an upper-middle class dwelling) in the Third World. The indoors would be used for sleeping and privacy while most domestic activities would take place on the porch or in the yard in front of the dwelling.
One of SIFAT's finest achievements is the refinement of the design of an automatically sanitized latrine (outhouse), constructed of brick. The household (or village) would construct two of them in a sunny location, using only one at a time. When the brick-lined latrine reservoir of the one in use fills up, it is locked up and the other is put into use. That slanted glass panel near ground level allows sunlight into the reservoir chamber, and in about 2-3 months, the germs of the stool are killed, leaving a good supply of nitrogen-rich fertilizer.
Here the brick is used to construct a household or community oven.
This drippy smeared yellowish paste is a sulfur-bonding material which, when used to coat concrete blocks, produces a wall that is stronger than one made with structural steel. This can be life-saving in the earthquake-prone South American mountainous regions. All of the chemical ingredients are readily available in Third-World countries.
The experimental garden is located in the crook between County Highway 113, the entry drive and the community cafeteria. If you are familiar with Alabama highways, you will appreciate the red dirt shoulders of the road at a bridge (note the bridge over Wild Indian Creek at the left) are the least hospitable to vegetation of all types of soil. The garden was created in this spot to be a credible witness to the success of the methods being used and taught.
The chief of the agricultural programs is a former Registered Nurse who prefers to be close to the soil. He has developed a multi-layered high-intensity gardening technique, watered by drip irrigation, heavily mulched with harvested grass from the fields to prevent evaporation, and fertilized by the manure of chickens, rabbits, and goats housed next to the garden in the little sheds you see directly behind the tour docent. This is supplemented by "green manure" (weeds allowed to grow up to just before seed production in the unfarmed areas of the garden. This little plot provides all the veggie needs of the 40 or so staff and their families.
The water reservoir, located on high ground above the garden is kept full by a neat but simple old-timey ram-jet pump made out of PVC pipe and two leather pieces. A 3-foot dam was constructed on the "Wild Indian Creek" that runs next to the garden at the bridge seen in the photo above. This provides the kinetic energy to drive the water through PVC pipe to the reservoir--1 TEASPOON AT A TIME. Doesn't pump fast, but it'll get the job done over time.
A high point of the overnight stay of visitors is getting to live in "The Third World Village." Here are examples of the type of housing construction available to the people before and after SIFAT teaches them the techniques of building brick homes. The building on the left is made out of "found" materials. On the left side of this building is a small business enterprise (a "store"). The building on the right is the brick two-room house seen earlier. The touring group is gathered outdoors in the social center of the village--a typical arrangement in the rural agricultural areas of the Third World.
Another view of "the living room" with yet another form of housing in the background. This is more like the Adirondack shacks that many Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts remember fondly. The open weave of the tree-trunk construction favors cooling breezes "indoors."
This habitat is dug into the hillside and heavily thatched to keep out rain. The sleeping facilities are net hammocks.
A British linguistics scholar from Oxford University was obviously thinking about cooler mission climes when she designed her dwelling out of concrete and water-filled glass bottles on walls that catch the sun. The program fosters innovative designs that meet needs of the particular mission field.
The Fletcher Home with the glass bottles is roofed by more "found" materials--old rubber tires.
Aquaculture is avidly pursued for areas not blessed with fertile land and cattle. This man-made lake is not very deep, but by using a fast maturing fish that voraciously devours plankton and algae that grow in relatively stagnant water heated by the tropical sun, an abundant supply of protein can be produced with high efficiency. You enjoy this fish in your favorite restaurants, too--tilapia. It is vulnerable to temperatures below 40 degrees, so it would be more useful in the tropical mission fields.
The community bath house has running hot water, passively heated by the solar collectors.
At the time of my visit, touring groups brought their supplies for the lunch we enjoyed in the community cafeteria before heading home. Our visits were day trips designed to introduce the visitor to the wonders of SIFAT and did not allow time to attend teaching programs or to experience the things that are created here. Overnight stays allow more time to experience the program, but becoming a student SIFAT summer volunteer would be the most intensive way to get first-hand knowledge of how SIFAT is making the lives of missionaries and their charges more livable.
My visits to the SIFAT website show me that this organization has leaped into the 21st Century with its programs that train missionaries and international students from the mission fields--both at the home campus in Wedowee and in centers around the world. Their practicum programs at the Wedowee campus offer training and introduction of American students and church members to "appropriate" technology, that is, technology that doesn't need supplies from the United States or any other First or Second World nation. The L&S ("Learn and Serve") summer trips to foreign mission fields have been developed since my last visit, and it allows students from the Sixth Grade to High School seniors who have an interest in the mission field to get first-hand experience. In a move that is a stroke of genius, SIFAT has teamed up with UAB to provide instruction sessions in recognizing and treating diseases of the tropics, skills that are desperately needed by missionaries in areas that have no health care facilities or providers.
SIFAT is a unique program with a comprehensive set of training products that assist missionaries truly fulfill the command to do (acts of charity) to the least of these (Christ's) brethren. The social gospel of John Wesley is acted out alongside Wild Indian Creek in Wedowee, Alabama.
You cannot spend your time more profitably as a Christian than by visiting SIFAT. You will be a better servant of Christ with a better sensitivity to the plight of your brothers and sisters in foreign lands and have a better understanding of how simple solutions created in this laboratory right here in Alabama can help provide the succor that will elevate the lives and spirits of these brothers and sisters.
The first in a series of reports from the Trinity team that visited SIFAT October 28, 2007
The Least of These – The Rest of Us
Our Trip to S.I.F.A.T.
Matthew 25: 31-40
Though
a popular tourist destination, Haiti is one of the poorest countries on
our side of the globe. Day by
day, the abject poverty of the native Haitians collides with the wealth
and extravagance of their tourists. The
people of Haiti reconcile their misery in relation to the wealth of the
world with this proverb: “Bon dye komn bay men li pa koon separe.” Literally translated, “God gives, but doesn’t share.”
In other words, God gives humanity all that we need to thrive as
God’s presence on this earth, but it is up to us to share God’s bounty
with each other.
In
this scripture, Matthew 25:31-40, Jesus speaks to those of us who have
something to share. Jesus
calls us, as receivers of the bounty of God’s love and grace, to make
sure that those who have been isolated from basic needs have those needs
met. In meeting the needs of
others, we also meet God’s basic need from us – that those who are at
a vantage point to help or hurt, to see or turn away, to love or remain
indifferent, choose in every way to help, to see, and to love.
We
are all called to help, to see, and to love.
We are called to share, and that can be really difficult.
I met this difficulty face to face when our group visited S.I.F.A.T.
last weekend. It may be hard
to believe, but all eleven of us, from 5 years old and up, had a
phenomenal sharing experience as we lived in a simulated third world
village for a day or so. Among
many other lessons, as we learned to rely on each other and to share our
food, our shelter, and our time, we became aware that God is present in
the sharing. God is tangibly
present in a gift of food or firewood or tires that can be cut apart for
hundreds of uses. God is
present in the sharing, God is present in the giving.
Watch
for more stories about S.I.F.A.T. and life changing stories about sharing.
Watch for more opportunities led by your Mission & Mercy
Cluster for you to meet God in the act of sharing.
It is the least the rest of us can do for the least of these.
In Christ,
CLICK HERE or click on this logo,
and spend some time reading about
this wonderful program at their website.