Give Me One of Your Children

On Monday, I was walking along the road with my children. Kate was running ahead to the raised grass path, and Malachi was dawdling along in the dirt. Two Zambian ladies approached us, walking the other way. I nodded in their general direction; they greeted me and then one of them said, "Give me one of your children."

"Which one?" I asked.

She pointed at Malachi, the two-almost-three year old, decked out in his shorts, t-shirt, and hat, slowly scuffing his shoes in the dirt. "That one."

"You don't want him," I said consolingly. "He's too much trouble." We smiled amicably at each other and parted ways.

Swing Project

A project I have been meaning to work on for some time now that we are settled in Choma is to make a swingset for the kids to play on outside. Although there is a park nearby with swingsets, the swings are missing (the slides are a bit rusty, but functional; Michelle has photos on her blog). Awhile ago I put up a single rope swing, hanging from a large tree, but it only works so well.

The main challenges were finding timber and tools. I used pine planks (roughly 2x6 size). Everyone warned me that they would be eaten by termites, so I coated them with some black oily stuff. I made a couple of 'A' frames by chiseling out half of the top so that the two main supports would fit together nicely. For tools, I used a handsaw purchased with precious allowance money, as well as an electric drill MCC had bought, and some screws and a screwdriver. My hammer was a nailbar I had brought from Canada.

My design isn't perfect--there is slight horizontal play from side to side, but for swinging it is fairly solid--unless you get going a bit too high, when the whole thing starts to rock out of the ground--so that will need some concrete poured into the ground and around the legs. But the kids enjoyed their first swing--despite swings made out of rope and hardwood scraps--and I'm pleased.

Snow in Africa? I'd settle for a little Rain

It is now December, so the Christmas season is officially upon us. Here in Africa there are not too many signs of it, though. For one, there is the 30 degree weather with sunny blue skies and puffy white clouds! The rainy season is late and even the locals are complaining about the heat a little bit. Inside our house, however, Christmas is making some sneaky inroads. The tree is up, as well as an advent calendar that gives some candy and a new Christmas activity to do each day (today the kids made gingerbread cookies).

The Christmas spirit seems to be affecting Cookie, our three-legged mutt. She is not the friendliest dog I've ever met; in fact, I've never even petted her. She shies away when anyone gets too close. Ever since she hurt her leg somehow--her front right paw dangles uselessly as she hobbles around--she's been even more scarce. She's supposed to be our guard dog, but I'm not sure how much use she'd be against an intruder. She is, however, attempting to make friends with our new kitten, Fanta. I don't think she even knew Fanta was living on our porch for a few days, until I drew her attention to her at dinnertime. Ever since then, Cookie cautiously approaches, sniffing and wagging her tail, making strange, happy half-growl, half-whine sounds in her throat, with the odd bark. Fanta isn't scared of her, but doesn't get too close either. It's interesting watching them interact. I'm hoping Fanta will help Cookie be easier to tame. Cookie doesn't have a problem eating cat food, either!

I recently read 'The Dog Who Wouldn't Be' by Farley Mowat. Now there is a dog with some character!

Things are going well at Chodort. I'm working on some cabinets with another carpenter. They are going in a kitchen in a new duplex on 'The Plot,' a parcel of land close by where Chodort is building rental houses to help supplement its income. We are using white melamine for the actual boxes, but everything else--rails, doors, plinth, etc--is made of rosewood, the go-to hardwood around here. Rosewood looks okay when it is finished, but it is very time consuming to plane from rough planks, and cut into the right sizes. I'm enjoying my days 'off' at work--having two preschoolers home all day gets on my nerves sometimes!

A case in point: last Friday the kids were driving me nuts, and it was only the morning! Michelle was at her office in town for the day, doing Teacher Mentor work. The Lord provided a boy named Provide to play with Kate and Malachi. I got a little uneasy near the end of the day when he didn't seem ready to go home--and then he did the dishes, swept the floor, and asked me for a job--but overall he was a welcome distraction. He is an eleven year old orphan who lives with his aunt, and has school break now.

Well, enjoy the snow this Christmas, and don't forget to pray for rain for Zambia!

Zambadian Comparison Microeconomics

Some of the striking economic differences I have noticed between BC and Zambia are:

Wages--minimum wage is now $10/hr, I think? in BC. Here in Zambia we pay our gardener the equivalent of 50 cents an hour. He works hard outside in the sun...we're giving him a small raise this month. Labour here is cheap.

Cell phones--I never bothered with one in BC. They are expensive, even on a pay-as-you-go plan. Michelle had one for emergencies. Here in Zambia I bought a simple one for $20. SMS (texting) is free to receive and only 4 cents to send, on a true pay-as-you-go SIM card plan. Most people seem to constantly be running out of airtime, though.

Food--Prices for western food are comparable. However, if you eat two meals of nshima per day with pumpkin leaves and groundnuts, you will not be spending very much money.

Rent--our 5 bedroom house on a large lot is a steal at $400 US/month. However, it's a bit of a fixer-upper. :) Rent for a similar place in BC--maybe $1300?

Prescription Drugs--ridiculously cheap in Zambia, though probiotics seem to be more expensive. Most drugs available over the counter, prescription or not...

Hardware prices--comparable.

Trades--we had a plumber fix a couple of things in our home. He worked for about 2 hours and charged us 60 kwacha (about $12). All of his tools fit on the back of his bicycle. In BC the plumbers I met generally had a large van or a trailer to transport all their tools, and charged upwards of $200 an hour.

Employment--Unemployment is very high (I'm not sure of the number, but judging by the number of people who have come up to me on the street and asked me for a job, it's big). In Canada I have felt the sting of different recessions a bit as layoffs at work have continued. It's still nothing compared to Zambia, though.

Glamdring the FlyHammer

Week 3 in Choma is complete. This past week went by quite quickly for me. Some things are settling into routines, while others are still waiting to happen. We have set up language lessons for the next few weeks, for two hour sessions in our home. (We will keep the kids busy during lessons with the ipads, but I'm not sure they will last for two hours so there may be a few interruptions.) We also went back to our church today as a family--last week it was just Malachi and myself, as Kate was not feeling well. It is a very small church that meets in an L-shaped classroom in town. It is almost more like a Bible Study--but it works for us because it's in English, and shorter so the kids have a better chance of sitting through it. There doesn't seem to be 'sunday school' here for the kids--it's all together before church services begin.

There continue to be a few challenges with our house, which we are slowly trying to meet. We have some friends in the attic who like to make noise at night sometimes. Sometimes the noise is quite considerate, so we call them ROUSes (see Princess Bride). Probably it is just a mouse or two. I made a homemade trap for now instead of searching in the local stores for a mousetrap. It is a bucket with a wire stretched across it and a jar suspended on the wire. I spread peanut butter on the jar and put some water in the bottom. Then I put it in the attic with a ramp leading up to the edge. (My uncle and aunt in Brackendale have used this in their basement with good results). The mouse climbs on the jar to eat the peanut butter, but the jar turns and sploosh! the mouse drowns. I've had this trap in the attic all week and most of the peanut butter is gone, but no mouse. So I've modified it so the jar turns easier, and hopefully this week we'll meet our furry friend.

The flies have also been a challenge, and again, I have not found a flyswatter or flypaper in the stores yet, so I made a homemade swatter one out of some electrical wire attached to heavy cardboard. It works okay but I only have about a 10% success rate. Still, it's therapeutic, and there are many less flies bothering us as we prepare supper, etc. I call the swatter 'Glamdring.' I think that's Bilbo Baggins' sword?

On the work front, I have been asked by the carpentry instructor at Chodort to teach a session on cabinetry. So last week I made a model of a cabinet out of 8mm plywood, and on Tuesday I will attempt to teach the class about kitchen cabinets and countertops. The students will have the opportunity to make their own model for future reference. It is not high quality joinery like they are used to, but I feel it will be very practical for their future occupations. Plus it's good practice for me, as part of the rental agreement with our landlord is to install new cabinets in the kitchen!

African Church Service

Today we went to church! We knew most churches started around 10am so we headed out a bit early, looking for one we had heard about. We couldn't find it so we followed people who were walking with Bibles until we found ourselves on a dirt road. I realized we were heading to one of the BIC (Brethren In Christ) churches that I had been to recently, so we went there--there were a few other churches along the way that would have worked as well. It was hot and there was no shade but we found the church and were welcomed inside. It turned out that we were catching the end of Sunday School; the service started soon after. Most of the service was in Tonga but there was some English as well, so I had a general idea of what was going on. We didn't realize at first that it was a special 'revival' service, which was fine except there were several choirs singing songs, a soloist, offering time, and it all took about two hours and then a special guest got up to preach. The kids were done with it all by that time, fighting with each other, so we left a bit early. We had a long walk in the hot sun and we were all hungry, so I jogged on ahead and brought the vehicle back for the rest of the family. After we all got some food in us we were happy again and the kids did a puzzle for quiet time:

It was interesting and good and I enjoyed the part of the sermon that I heard, and the singing (I think I recognized the hymn even though it was in Tonga). But we're not used to the length. I think we'll still try to find that first church because I've heard that it's a bit more informal and all in English.

Below is a picture of the front of our house, as well as the backyard. We hired a gardener to tame the backyard, and he has done an enormous amount of work in three days. I'm hoping to have a fenced-in, level grassy area with swings for the kids to play in, as well as a large garden (behind the big tree). The house in the background belongs to a different tenant, and there are two dogs that came with the house that no one really owns or feeds...which we're a bit nervous about (around the kids), although so far they've been fine; our landlord is trying to find a new home for them.

So far there have been some challenges but Zambia really is a friendly country and we feel welcomed. Our house is starting to feel a bit more like home. Our actual work here will commence more in the next couple of weeks.

Almost There

We packed. We packed some more. We drove to my parents house for supper and to see our kids once in awhile. We packed. Then we moved our boxes with some help from Dad and church friends. We went to the MCC Relief Sale. We had Kate's birthday party a bit early. We cleaned. We had a send-off at church and a good-bye party at a friend's house. We ran errands and tied up loose ends. We said good-bye to my family and home in general. We flew away!

But we are not in Africa yet! We are in Alberta to say good-bye to Michelle's side of the family. I spent today doing some final paperwork and then rode Michael's bike to town to use the bank and post office (I do love small towns!). Then I worked on supper preparation a bit while everyone else drove to town for slurpees. It's been quite a relaxing day after the last whirlwind week of getting ready.

We have had many people giving us words of encouragement, and I think only one giving us a word of warning...we have felt very supported by our family, friends, and church community. Christian Community is indeed a wonderful thing! Many people have also given us some cash to help with our moving expenses, which are a bit more than I anticipated, but it looks like everything will work out about right. When you leave a first world country for three years, you have to take care of lots of things, such as making sure your medical, vision, and dental health is all up to date. Then times that by four if you have four people in your family! Then there is the matter of immunizations for strange diseases you may pick up in a third world country. Don't forget to load up on meds for malaria and other things you normally take. It's a lot at once!

Anyway, I hear the call for supper...Turkey Quinoa Meatloaf. Mmm.

The Daring Adventures of the Potts in Zambia (Volume 1)

Hello! You probably think it’s Christmas because that is when you usually get a letter with our picture. But don’t worry; it is not quite autumn yet. We are writing to inform you of a rather big change in our lives. We are moving to Africa!

It all came about rather innocently; we had been ready for a change for a little while. We have always had a desire to serve God and people overseas, partly because we both grew up as missionary kids. We applied to MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) last year in a general way and were told to re-apply when we found a volunteer posting that we felt was a good fit. We couldn’t find any so we looked around at Missionsfest Vancouver, and waited some more. In March Michelle felt led to re-check the MCC postings, and found her ‘dream job’ in a teacher mentor position, so we applied and were eventually accepted as a family. Since then we have been busy trying to rid ourselves of some of our extra possessions, store others, and figure out what to do with our condo. There has been a lot of paperwork and preparation. In July we attended Service Worker Orientation in Akron, Pennsylvania. This was a good time to get to know MCC as an organization, as well as some other Service Workers who were about to go all over the world. We then took a vacation at a camp near Denver as part of another MCC-related reunion. Now we are ‘tying up loose ends,’ taking the last few steps to move to Choma, Zambia for three years. We fly to Zambia in September.

Michelle will be mentoring teachers in several Brethren in Christ schools in the Choma area, focusing on the primary grades in the areas of literacy and mathematics. The goal is to see improvement in the students’ learning so that they can pass their exams to be able to enter Secondary School. Andrew’s assignment is to be primary caregiver to Kate and Malachi, as well as half-time “To Be Determined.” Likely he will be working at a trade school for vulnerable youth, mostly in the carpentry shop.

Our work is part of MCC’s Global Family program, which supports communities in providing their children with quality educational programming. Please visit globalfamily.mcc.org for more information. Feel free to sponsor us—write us for more information. MCC covers all of our costs, so we don’t need to raise support, but Global Family’s work does need support. We also covet your prayers for our family; and that the work we do would be helpful and effective.

Love, Andrew, Michelle, Kate, and Malachi Potts

E-mail: amkmpotts[AT]gmailDOTcom
Blog: offeringupmylife.blogspot.ca
or eatabean.blogspot.com

Denvvvver

The Journey Continues: We fly to Akron for Orientation tomorrow. We drove down to Denver in two days and stayed the day here with our friends, Ted and Rachel. The drive down was not too bad, considering the first day was about 15 hours of travel and the second day was about 13. The kids were pretty good there, in the back seat of the Civic, and anytime they got a bit unruly they were given iPhones to keep them quiet (until the batteries ran out!).

There's still so much to do; I'm glad we have some time after Orientation to finish up all the things that need doing! Such as, moving, figuring out what to do with our condo (if it sells or not), doctors appointments (getting things up to snuff for some time away from the System), saying goodbyes, sending out prayer letters, wrapping up banking, Power of Attorney, etc.

We used a Notary for the first time last week; it was a good experience. All he had to do was certify a bunch of documents for a travel visa, but he only charged us $50 though the bill could have run up to $170. Now we have someone that I feel a little bit more confident going to for wills, Power of Attorney, transfer of Title, etc. We got some grace in regards to our visa because we thought it would take about three more weeks to get the documents sent off to Africa. But our police checks came back in three business days instead of ten, so all was ready in time! And another piece of grace was that we have two of our three missionaries covered while we're away--a family member and a friend have volunteered to cover them so we don't have to drop their support for three years. Anyone else want the last one? :)

Zzzzzambia

Most of you faithful readers know that our family has been invited by MCC to serve in Zambia for three years. More on this can be read on my wife's blog at http://offeringupmylife.blogspot.ca/. We got rid of a lot of our STUFF on Saturday. We had invited some friends, church, coworkers to come and help themselves, by donation. So it was kind of a condo-moving sale. We had all kinds of kids stuff, clothes, games, books, kitchen appliances, dishes, etc. strewn all over the living room. And people came, and took some stuff, and made generous donations. Then my parents and another guy from church helped us take it two blocks away to the MCC Thrift Store. It was so nice to be free of all that extra stuff (even though some of it was hard to let go of)! The sad thing is, we have just as much still sitting around that we 'need' for a few more months. But, at least the clutter is a lot less as we try to list our condo for sale. While it was good to get rid of things, it was also good to connect with the friends that came by. Friends are good!

During this whirlwind of packing and sorting, I got a bit sick. Just didn't feel good. I was fine for most of the day of our sale, but my tummy hurt a bit in the evening. The next day (Sunday), I got the runs, and I don't mean the running to church kind like I was sort of planning. I cancelled playing bass on the worship team and still planned to teach Sunday School, but our Kidzone Leader graciously took over the class for me. The church also prayed for us (and others) during what I felt was a 'holy moment' of listening to the Holy Spirit. Church is good!

We get to go visit the Travel Doctor tomorrow and see what kinds of weird medicines we'll need for three years in Africa. The main things to worry about are malaria, and to a lesser degree Yellow Fever, though that's more of a travel ticket vaccination, it looks like. We're also trying to figure out our Orientation in Pennsylvania in July, combined with our vacation in Colorado in August, and then a bit of time back home before we head overseas in September. Lots of preparation to do.

Deliciously Different Book Reviews

I finished reading the following books in the space of a few days:

Evolving in Monkey Town

by Rachel Held Evans. This book was given to me by a family member who said that instead of giving out tracts, they give out books. My wife has been following this author's blog for some time and had also wanted to read it.

Heaven is for Real

by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent. Michelle picked this up at the thrift store the other day; I had heard a bit about it and wanted to give it a read. Michelle thought it was funny that it was the first book I picked up over the other three Ted Dekker books I had chosen. (puns intended, Ted Dekker fans)

Some Comparisons

These books have many similarities. They are both written by Evangelical Christians. They are both centered around topics of faith and belief. I find both authors to be humble in the presentation of their work. I find both to be well-written, engaging, not too heavy; enjoyable. And both use their subject's uniqueness to draw the reader in with curiosity.

Some Differences

As you can tell from the titles, the subjects of faith are different. Rachel Evans discusses her journey from a conservative apologist to an open-minded believer who's no longer afraid of the difficult questions. Using the example of the Scopes Monkey Trial that took place in her hometown before she was born (which fined a professor for teaching evolution but also seemed to poke some holes in the Creationist doctrine), Rachel describes how faith itself must evolve to survive. I identified with the author because she is only a year younger than myself and had similar experiences learning about God in school and Bible College. Lately I've been finding my faith stretched as I am confronted with some of the grey areas of my theology. The answers aren't always as clear as they used to be, and I am encouraged to live in the questions a bit more.

Todd Burpo's story about his pre-schooler who experienced heaven firsthand during a near-death experience is very interesting. For those of us who dream of going to heaven someday, it is very encouraging. For the skeptics and the people whose faith is evolving (see above) and don't know what to believe any more, it is still encouraging because it offers confirmation to some of the church's common teachings about God, His Love, and what children can teach us. Personally I had a bit more patience with my own pre-schoolers tonight when they took a few hours to settle down to sleep, because between the yelling for 'Daddy!' and the complaints about things hurting, etc, I was reading about a man who almost lost his young son in a hospital. (Now whenever my kids have the flu, I'll be scared it's appendicitis. Incidentally, I thought I had appendicitis once and went to ER for it but it turned out to be some other stomach pain.)

Conclusion

They're both good reads. Read them! (Especially if you get them for free or for under $3) Let God speak to you through the authors' vulnerability and humanity. Learn from their wisdom and mistakes. Grow closer to "Jesus and his Dad."

"I have a great idea!"

"I have a great idea!" This is a line that Kate has been increasingly using with her brother. It generally involves a change in whatever game they have been playing together. Sometimes the new idea is brilliant, and other times it seems designed to distract Malachi from some destructive tendency and redirect his interest into something constructive. I'm not sure if this is a leadership quality developing in her, or simply part of preschooler play. But it's interesting. And it usually means a new mess being created somewhere, so at times I inwardly groan. However, anything that keeps the munchkins busy and happy is usually good!

February Picnic

Literally growing up in his sister's shadow

We were given a beautiful spring day here in the middle of February, so I wanted to get to the park at some point and enjoy the sunshine. However, Kate and Malachi were busy eating and playing and drawing, and then Kate wanted to put on a 'show' before we left, so Malachi and I grudgingly participated in story time, tinker-toy lollipops, train track building, play-doh ice cream and present wrapping. By this time it was almost lunch time, and after lunch is Malachi's nap, so I knew we were running out of time. I lured the kids out the door with the promise of a picnic, and off we went!

We strolled along, Kate sitting in the sit-and-stand stroller, and Malachi walking along nicely while holding onto the side. When we got to the park, I put a blanket down on the sunny grass and passed out lunch containers--crackers, cheese, and green peppers, along with water bottles. That seemed to satisfy everyone; Malachi sat and munched quietly, while Kate hopped around, only finishing her lunch when she noticed her brother get a granola bar for dessert. But then a fly or two joined us and, since Kate is not fond of flies, it was time to play a bit on the playground before heading home for naptime. This is the day that the Lord has made!

christmas work

After a wonderful, cold, chocolatey, white Christmas in Alberta, we got back home and went to work with a few days off we had at the end of December. Michelle did some work at school and I did some work at home for her school. She was looking for a certain shelf for her classroom, and I was able to make one cheaper than the one she liked in the catalogue, so we got the OK to go ahead, and I started cutting and gluing and nailing. Then there was the issue of delivery. I'll let this next picture do the talking:

One side of the shelf is a regular 3-story shelf; there is a divider behind it:

The other side has 25 compartments for plastic buckets (filled with center time activities, toys, games, etc.)

The top is a smooth surface for writing or storing stuff. I made it out of 1/2" plywood with a small oak edge on the ends, and lacquered the whole thing. It was very stinky for a few days!