Read letters from Lucretia Meece
May 19, 2008
March 2008
January 17, 2008
November 2007
September 7, 2007
May 2007
Lucretia Meece
Email: Lucretia Meece
Lucretia ended her term of service as a long-term volunteer wit hthe Amity Foundation July 2008. She is willing to travel to locations near her home in northern New Mexico and is available to speak as her schedule permits. Email her to extend an invitation to visit your congregation or organization.
Lucretia Meece was appointed in June 2006 to serve as an English teacher with the Amity Foundation in China, where she serves at Jiangxi Normal University, in Nanchang.
Lucretia and another Amity teacher share responsibility for teaching about 50 middle-school teachers who are sent to this special university program for a semester of oral English and American and British culture.
“The teachers are chosen to come to the university from their rural schools,” writes Lucretia, “because they are English teachers themselves, but they may never have spoken to a native English speaker before.”
Lucretia describes Nanchang as a provinical capital and a growing industrial city of 3 to 4 million in the hot, arid corner of southeast China. Most of the province is rural and poor and is covered throughout by mountains and lakes.
Lucretia’s call to mission service began at a Bible study, which “reawakened some areas that needed strengthening — tithing, mission, focus on service.” Then, “prayerful study and meditation led me to use the next chapter of my life to continue to follow Christ, teach, lead a Christian life as a disciple and be available to serve.”
She found her first opportunity to serve overseas with the Peace Corps and worked in the Ukraine from 2001 to 2003, where she was a teacher trainer at Volyn State University in Lutsk.
Her experience in the Ukraine made her realize the importance of community. “I became part of the community at many levels,” she writes, “from my teaching jobs to shopping at ‘my’ thrift store and bazaars, developing relationships with the bread lady, the commandant at my hostel and my neighbors.”
Prior to enlisting in the Peace Corps, Lucretia taught English as a second language at Dekalb Technical College in Clarkston, Georgia (1994 to 2001).
She was a senior secretary at Emory Crawford Long Hospital of Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, Georgia, where she gave administrative support for pulmonary function, EKG, neurophysiology and respiratory therapy. Prior to that, Lucretia was the subscription services manager for the Presbyterian Publishing House in Atlanta, Georgia (1981 to 1990).
Lucretia began her work life as a teacher in Rochester, New York, where she served for 13 years in the 1960s and 1970s in the Rochester City Schools and the Gates-Chili School District.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in elementary education from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee, and has a TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) certificate.
Lucretia was ordained to the office of elder at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where she continues to be a member. She is the mother of three adult sons.
Birthday: August 10
