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
