• Home
  • About
  • Give
  • Photos
  • Subscribe
  • Contact

  • 
  • 

Rejoice with the Menya and pray for us!

May 23, 2018 by Joel Potter

//If you’re interested in watching a video version of this update click here//

News about our family, what we’ve been up to and what we’re praying about doing this summer.

Let’s start somewhere else though…

On the other side of the world in Papua New Guinea, the Menya people live.

Api and Tema

They’ve had a team of church-planters developing a relationship with them for the last few years. This team has been able to teach the Menya in their own language from God’s Word for the last 6 weeks. And they just finished…which means that a church has been ‘born!’ The Menya have responded to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Praise God with us for this miracle!

The creator of life, the creator of all people desires for all of His creation to know what it feels like to be loved by Him and by His grace, the Menya now know what this feels like!

The team living with and teaching these people made an incredible video of the day that they taught the final evangelistic Bible lesson and it is SO worth watching. Check it out here

What’s going on closer to home?

The last time we updated you, we talked about traveling.

Well, I’ve done a lot of that which is a good thing.

One of my goals this year was to deepen relationships with other people in Ethnos360 who are working in social media and my trips have all been about that.

This meant four different trips to five states and later this summer I’ll travel to our Pennsylvania location and be a part of the annual enrichment conference hood missionaries who are just back in North America on their home assignments, encouraging them as story-tellers and helping them connect with their communities.

The potential of all of these new and reinvigorated relationships is a sweet thing as I continue to serve as a sort of brand ambassador.

Existential self-portrait?

I’m also really pumped to have an intern that I will be working with for the summer! Isaac and I will work closely as he explores what building relationships through Social Media can look like. I’m also anticipating the chance to invest in this young man’s life as he prepares to serve in the future with Ethnos360.

And, having an intern works out GREAT because we are in the early stages of planning a coast to coast road trip in order to visit family, friends who are like family and supporters who are also a part of our family. We plan to be gone for three weeks so my intern will be a HUGE help while I’m gone.

Three weeks on the road is crazy right?! But since we see so many of our missionary friends making these epic road-trips, we decided it was time for one ourselves AND we’re really looking forward to showing our family more of the beautiful country we live in.

Jack’s health

Thanks for praying for Jack. He’s doing better today…but his condition means that can change quickly. He just saw yet another doctor, a motility specialist, this week as we try to get a better handle on how to help him feel better long-term. That appointment yielded some new possibilities as well as some more tests that he’ll undergo later this summer. But he’s had a lot of tests already and is apprehensive about these next few. Would you pray for his heart and mind as he undergoes these challenges?

Jack continues to live with primary immune deficiency and so his condition isn’t curable. But it does provide a bespoke opportunity for him to learn the nature of his loving Father in heaven who is in control and loves him wisely through everything in life.

Jack the ‘baby-whisperer’

The next few weeks

We’ve mentioned in a prior update, the need to complete some house repairs after last year’s hurricane Irma. It’s time and so we’ve already kicked off work (I should say that Bethany has done it all!) to replace roughly 200 feet of fencing. Our shingle roof is being replaced this week and we also repaired a long-leaky irrigation system.

I mentioned the coast-to-coast trip already. We were already planning to travel as a family to California this summer to connect with our support team out there as well as with our family. Lynn and Bethany are originally from San Diego and we will kick off our time there. But, as Bethany and I drove for hours through the southern half of Arizona on a recent trip we made, we were struck by how beautiful the terrain was and it made us think that maybe now is the time to take that epic road trip with our family that we’ve considered and put off for so long. 

We prayed and thought more about it and see that the time is right. So we plan to actually fly Jack and Lynn out to San Diego (it’ll be better for both of them based on health factors and the fact that Jack would be so disappointed if he didn’t get to finally fly in a plane again ????) five days after Bethany, Owen, Kate and I head out via van. Then we’ll travel extensively in CA before turning around almost three weeks later and at this point, we will ALL drive back home together.

After returning, the remaining summer months are slightly less packed so we hope to recoup a bit as a family. The kids will all three head back to summer camp for a week in there too!

Prayer Requests

  • Menya Believers: They are taking their first steps into a big and sweet world with much to learn yet and also the potential for persecution and cultural resistance. Pray for your new sisters and brothers!
  • Travel: Please pray for our safety on the highways and in the air. Pray for better than average health and refreshing connections with friends and family!
  • Jack: Insight into how we can help him manage his symptoms and grow wise as he ‘grows up’
  • Wisdom: As we manage financial obligations, needs and our ministry support
  • Stewardship: Of our home as we make repairs. This takes energy and coordination
  • Wisdom: Like yours, our life right now is complex. Caregiving for a parent, caregiving for a child and raising kids all while serving in full-time ministry is a heavy load we crave your prayers for!

Thanks for sticking with us!

It would be our honor to pray with you in what’s on your minds as well. Please let us know!

Kate and Gramps, peas in a pod!

SaveSave

SaveSave

Filed Under: Family, Tribal News Tagged With: Ethnos360, Family, Florida, health, Hurricane, Kids, Menya, missions, Papua New Guinea

More Posts:

« How is Jack? An update after Monday’s Appointment
After 4,000 miles what could possibly be next? »

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

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
After learning of this book, I had to read it. Not After learning of this book, I had to read it. Not reading a lot of books, I used every renewal cycle that the local library allowed (it is due tomorrow) to finish this one and boy am I glad I finished it. 

@andrewpetersonmusic wrote a book about trees (and SO much more) and moved me at a time when I needed moving and reminding of how the God who created me and knows me intimately, is carefully tending the garden of my own being. 

There were moments when I gasped as I read his words and his realizations which I found paralleled some of my own. 

Having been transplanted from Pennsylvania and it’s temperate woods to Central Florida and it’s weird mix of prairies and swamps at 11 years old, I identified with his interpretation of his childhood. 

Two huge realizations will remain with me. The first is that the God who admonishes me to “be slow to speak…” is entitled to the same right to be “slow to speak.” The second is these imagined words from Jesus to me: “I love you. Let me love you.”

I’ve always loved trees and only love them more now. In fact a week ago I took the chance to go visit some of trees that AP mentioned in the book; the somber remains of our truly ancient Bald Cypress, “the Senator”, that tree’s younger (but still 2,000 years old) sibling, “Lady Liberty”, and the youngest of the family, a clone of the original, the relative sapling, “Phoenix”. (Big Tree Park, near the Spring Hammock Preserve)

I commend this book highly and again, pass my thanks to Andrew Peterson for it. 
______
#andrewpeterson #thegodofthegarden
#plantmoretrees 
@bhpub 
______
The tree in this photo is the pride and joy of our backyard, a Chinese or lacebark Elm (Ulmus parvifolia)and was planted by us not long after we moved to this house and provides lush shade to the eastern side of our backyard and filters the early morning sunrise light beautifully!
After running for a long time, like since 2002, I After running for a long time, like since 2002, I finally found a partner to train with, someone who although they live states away, knows the value of partnership and how to push another person to do better. I’m pretty excited about what’s to come as he and I work towards a goal that will be a lifetime highlight when we achieve it. Until then, here’s some highlight runs of the last month. 
______
#runwithstrava #floridarunner @strava @altrarunning
Load More... Follow on Instagram
  • About
  • Blog
  • Home
  • Give
  • Photos
  • Subscribe
  • Contact

Disclaimer: This personal ministry website is provided by Ethnos360 as a courtesy to its members. Ethnos360 makes no warranty regarding the accuracy of the information on these pages. Opinions expressed are provided by members in good faith, but are entirely those of the member and do not necessarily represent policy, doctrinal position, or opinions of Ethnos360. If you encounter information that you consider questionable, please e-mail the Ethnos360 web team.

© Copyright 2023 Ethnos360. All rights reserved.

Log In

  • 
  • 
  • 