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This was crazy!

March 31, 2015 by Joel Potter

[Guest post by: Macon Hare, Editor NTM@work, originally posted at NTM.org]

Katy and I were in the middle of our missionary training when we received an urgent call from the vice chairman of New Tribes Mission. He asked us to leave the training early, move to Colombia and replace one of the field leaders.

This was crazy! Impossible. But I replied, “Yes, we will go.”

I was 28, and Katy just 20. Having grown up in Brazil with missionary parents, I spoke some Portuguese but no Spanish. We didn’t have a penny to our name. There was no money for gas to drive our red Volkswagen van to Wisconsin, or to obtain passports, visas, shipping and airfare. We were also in debt for school tuition, and had only $50 a month in promised financial support.

It was impossible. There were too many obstacles. Yet Katy and I made the decision to leave in four days. We trusted that if this was His will, He would undertake. Still, taking that first step in faith was overwhelming.

We will never forget the Tuesday morning we were ready to leave. We had no money for gasoline. The car was packed, our apartment spotless. Katy and I stood there silently, looking at each other.

A knock at the door brought us back from our thoughts. One of our instructors and his wife said good-bye, prayed for us and wished us a great trip. As they left, they dropped some money on the chair near the door.

One by one our incredible fellow students and instructors came to wish us well, say good-bye, and quietly dropped money on the chair as they left. I knew that for some, it was all the money they had. Yet they graciously shared it with us. We were speechless.

I grabbed a paper bag and stuffed the bills and change into it. A few moments later our little red Volkswagen was chugging up the hill to the nearest service station. Day by day we watched God work. An anonymous donor paid our tuition debt. Another sent a gift large enough to get us to Colombia.

Three weeks later, we were sitting in an apartment in Bogota.

How awesome is that?

Many times since that first year as missionaries, we have found ourselves in impossible situations. Many times Katy and I have looked back to that Tuesday morning landmark, then taken another step of faith, trusting God for something much bigger than we could handle.

Filed Under: Ministry Tagged With: Colombia, Communications, missions, Moving, Thoughts

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The Potters…

are missionaries helping every people group around the world have the chance to understand the gospel and have access to a thriving church. We are serving with the International Ministries Office as it assists Ethnos360 and its Global Partners.

joeldpotter

We lost my wife’s mom, Lynn, this past Saturday We lost my wife’s mom, Lynn, this past Saturday morning. It was simple. She was there, Friday night. Then she was gone, departed from her body, just 12 hours after we said goodbye. That seems simple.

—It’s anything but simple in these days following. In our case, as her immediate family, as the ones who watched her agonizing struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease, who cared for her through it, there was relief. But we feel the empty space where she was in our minds, in our hearts, in our memories. There’s freedom; we could move north like we’ve always talked about, we don’t have to think about the logistics behind every trip and getaway we take. But we won’t be sharing those new spaces with her either. 
—And there’s the knowledge that others will grieve this loss with much more sadness and finality. She was the third and final member of a sibling group, all three of whom died as a result of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her husband died exactly 14 years minus a day…from complications due to his own dreadful form of dementia. I sit with this weight of numbers and probabilities as the husband of their daughter and niece. Is this in the future for my beloved too?
—But there’s a house full of joy filled with the beautiful and sometimes comical memories of living with “Noni". Living with my mother-in-law for 12 years really wasn’t that bad. And I remember some sweet times she and I uniquely shared over the past three years when caring for her was much more hands on. Reading devotions together, praying with her as if she was my daughter, before bed, sifting through years of beautiful ephemera and photos with her, and even, towards the end of her time at home, she and I would go on drives in the country, just to change the scenery. I could play my Starflyer 59 albums and she didn’t care. 
—In the end, my heart, mine alone at least, is at rest when I think about Lynn. I’m grateful for her current whereabouts, thankful to have had the chance to love her, thankful for that over-generous Nespresso Pixie machine she gave me for Christmas in 2014 and thankful for the love she gave to us. We do not grieve as those who have no hope!
🗓️ September Highlights 🗓️ What a mont 🗓️ September Highlights 🗓️ 

What a month! From a hurricane near miss (which wasn’t a miss for Florida’s Nature Coast) to Kate’s first ever volleyball games, to visits with Lynn and ridiculous stops to take pictures of cars, the month held a lot. And if you know us, there’s way more that happened than what we can include in an IG post.
Late last week, we shared a "Can we be candid..." Late last week, we shared a "Can we be candid..." update, this time about a BIG ministry change. Many of you read that and wrote your sweet prayers back to us. For some of you, email is not your thing and so we don't want you to miss out. So, there's a link to the full post on our blog in my profile link or you can read the brief overview of update if you just want the basics.

Shortly after we returned from our trip to Missouri in June we had some realizations that led us to conclude, with the counsel of others, that our time serving with the Equip Asia team was coming to an end. The Lord had already been putting desires on my (Joel’s) heart to pursue a role that would allow me to serve our wider global missions community in the area of media and communications and we knew that with Kate starting to hybrid homeschool, she was going to need much more support as a homeschooled student. We also realized that Bethany needed to pursue some side-jobs and employment to supplement our very tight financial state.

So, for now, I’ve had my new ministry role approved and am making strides at getting an audio and video studio setup here in Sanford as well as beginning to make many plans for upcoming projects both here and abroad. I’ll be able to use both the experience I gained working with the Communications team for 8 years as well as the newfound skills in videography and media production to serve many different teams in what we call the “Global Partners” family (all related to Ethnos360).

Bethany is also off to the races, so to speak, helping to homeschool Owen and Kate, working several small jobs on the side, all while keeping our incredibly busy household sane and well organized. It’s a different scene for sure after the last three years, but there are some blessings that come from it.

Again, there’s more detail at the post you can get to in my profile link. 
______
#thepottermission @ethnos360
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