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!