YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Amy Atta

By Tim Wesley

As a teenager growing up in the Republic of Ghana in West Africa in the 1980s, Amy Atta had her sights set on the United States.

“Over there, we thought of America as the land of opportunity,” she said.  “My ticket was to come to the U.S.”

Amy punched that ticket in 1986 at age 19, leaving her native country and beginning a circuitous journey that included stops in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Arkansas before coming to Cranberry Township in 2011 with her then-husband and their two sons.  The family soon found a church home at Dutilh.  Now, fresh off earning a degree in Communication, Marketing, and Design from LaRoche College, Amy is a cabinet specialist at Lowe’s in Monaca, where she’ll have the opportunity to apply her lifelong creativity and artistic flair in a new career.

“I’m very excited about this new job,” she said.  “My goal is to become an interior designer specializing in kitchen and bath design, so this is very exciting to me.  It’s what I want to do.”

Amy’s version of the American dream didn’t come easy.  Her mom moved to the United States after graduating from nursing school in Ghana, when Amy was just a toddler.  Amy stayed behind and lived mainly with her father and step-mother until she graduated from secondary school (the equivalent of American high school).  Then, the 19-year-old young lady took a courageous leap and moved to Long Island, N.Y., to live with her mother, who was married and had two sons.

“Coming here wasn’t an easy transition,” she said.  “There was an adjustment period and it was difficult, living with my new family and assimilating into the culture of the country.  I had never lived with my mom before, and now I lived with two brothers, too.”

While adjusting to her new life, Amy enrolled at The State University of New York, New Paltz (SUNY) and majored in visual arts.  (As a youngster in Ghana, she was always “doodling and drawing.  All I wanted to do in school was art.”)  She graduated from SUNY in 1991, but her dream stalled, with the U.S. economy still weak from a recession and something new called the Internet that was about to revolutionize graphic communications and design.

“Graphic design companies were changing, and everything was becoming computer-based,” she said. “Looking for a job was really tough.  I couldn’t get the job I wanted, so I had to learn a lot of new software and figure out a different way to get into the field.”

Eventually, Amy landed a job in New Jersey as a technical support specialist for the Associated Press, where she worked for three years.  She married in 1999 and became a mostly stay-at-home mom soon after her first son, Justin, was born in 2000.  A second son, Ethan, came along in 2006.  She loved caring for her family and still made time to use her artistic and design gifts in volunteer roles.

While in Arkansas, Amy designed T-shirts, posters, and other art projects for fund-raising activities at the kids’ schools and for the local chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America.  For friends and family, she designed wedding invitations, compact disc covers and booklets.

“When you volunteer for something, it can be scary at times,” she said.  “There are deadlines and you have to deliver if you open your mouth and say, ‘I can do this.’ One of my projects was a T-shirt for a 5k race for the Lupus Foundation.  I did the research and the design and then pitched my idea to them.  They loved it, and seeing people wear it was great.”

After attending a Baptist church in Arkansas for 10 years, the Atta family moved to Cranberry Township in 2011 and planned to visit a church each Sunday until they found one they liked.  Dutilh was the second one they visited, and it turned out to be the last one; they attended for about a year and then became members.

“The people were welcoming and it just felt like home,” Amy said. 

That feeling was validated early on, when she spent some time in the hospital and Dutilh’s then-pastor Dwayne Burfield not only visited her but arranged for some church members to provide meals for the family. 

“That helped to give us a real sense of belonging,” she said.

In 2016, Amy returned to the work force part-time at The Tile Shop in Wexford, and she also enrolled at LaRoche.  Fate intervened again with her goals, this time in the form of a global pandemic, and she was laid off from the shop in 2020.  She maintained her studies, however, and earned her degree in May 2021, which eventually led to her new position at Lowe’s.

And all along at Dutilh, she continued to say “I can do this,” volunteering for a host of projects and activities to fulfill a personal commitment she made with herself to become more involved.  Over the years, Amy has been responsible for keeping the pews tidy and stocked with offertory envelopes, prayer request cards, and pencils; the boys and she have served regularly as greeters before services; the boys have participated in FISH, youth group, and Vacation Bible School; and Amy has volunteered in the kitchen for VBS.  She’s currently one of the adult leaders for Dutilh’s Student Ministry, where she enjoys providing love and encouragement for the youth; and she’s on the marketing communications ministry team, which offers opportunities to showcase her gifts for design and photography.

“I’m passionate about both ministries because each means something very special to me,” she said.  “I attended Dutilh’s ministry fair and looked around to see where I wanted to serve, and I knew right where I wanted to go.  When I am using my gifts as an artist and photographer, I am the happiest.  And it brings me equal joy when I have the opportunity to interact, speak, and encourage the youth.”

Also giving Amy joy is a framed memento, dated June 25, 2011, that sits on a shelf at home; it’s a gift she received from her church in Arkansas as a going-away present.  The treasured keepsake includes pictures taken with some of the church youth, a poem about encouragement by Edgar A. Guest, and a letter of appreciation for the words of encouragement she always shared with the youth.

Amy finds it easy to offer encouraging words, but she doesn’t often find herself quoting scriptures to people.  Instead, she prefers to live by example, as demonstrated by her volunteer work in her various ministries.

“My faith influences the way I want to live my life,” she said.  “I call myself a Christian, but you have to actually live the life.  I feel like I’m at the stage where my faith is making more sense to me.  When I read a Bible passage, I hear them, and it resonates so much and it makes sense.  So now when opportunities come, I can actually live it.”

She also strives to remember Dutilh’s mission – Love God, Love Others, Love to Serve – as a set of guiding principles.

“Loving God to me means trying to live my life in a way that pleases my Father,” she said.  “It’s not always easy, but I am getting better at it as I mature in my faith.”

A growing spiritual maturity and a greater understanding of the Bible.  A church home in which to volunteer and to become immersed.  A new job in a chosen field.

Seems like that teenage girl from Ghana is busy living her version of the American dream.

If you or someone you know in the Dutilh family has an interesting story or profession, send us your ideas! We would love to help tell the story. Email: communications@dutilhumc.org.