LINEVILLE, Alabama (AP) _ In a rural nook of eastern Alabama, missionaries and community leaders from foreign lands are learning to save lives in the world’s poorest countries with mud, sand and leaves.

The training is offered by Servants in Faith and Technology, a Christian organization with ties to the United Methodist Church.

On a recent day, 19 trainees from 10 countries learned how to make clean-burning cook stoves from mud bricks. The structures replace open fires that the World Health Organization blames for

1.6 million deaths annually in the world’s poorest countries.

Trainees also learn how used tires can become the foundation for gardening systems that use only a little water; how sand can be used as a filter to rid drinking water of dangerous parasites; and how the ground-up leaves of some plants contain enough nutrients to save the life of a malnourished child.