PDF version is here. Japanese version is here.
The secret’s out
Well, things have been a bit quiet for the past few months - my last newsletter was at the end of February, and there have been all kinds of things going on since then: another leadership seminar, my mother visiting Japan, our missionary conference... but I wanted to hold off telling you about those things because I wanted to wait until I could add another piece of news.
And now I can.
I am getting married
I first met Henrietta five years ago, through a friend’s introduction. We were both living in Oxford and both interested in mission in Japan. I had just come back from a short-term mission trip with WEC, and told her how great the agency was. We met up a few times in that year, but there things lay for a while.
Two years later, I was at Bible college, and Henrietta had started applying to WEC. I had begun praying for a wife, and Henrietta was visiting a missionary friend in Oxford who asked her if there were any men on the horizon. “Well, there is one guy, but I hardly see him.”
Quite by coincidence - or was it? - I happened to be in Oxford that day, and just as she was returning from meeting her friend, we met on the street and ended up having dinner together. But still things lay for a while.
The happy couple
In the summer, I was in Oxford again for a short-term mission, and that’s when God brought us together. Since then we both joined WEC and came to Japan - Henrietta six months before me. She has been in language study in Kyoto and now has a church placement in west Kyoto, about an hour away from me. In March, God confirmed to us that it was right to go ahead, and on the 24th of March, I misled her onto the top deck of a boat in Otsu harbour, and asked her to marry me. For some reason that I’m sure she’ll live to regret, she said yes.
We’re still working out most of the details of how, when and where things will go from here, but as Henrietta will be at Bible college for a year early next year, that seems like a natural time to come back and get married. Please pray for us as we work through the various decisions, preparations and discussions that need to happen until then.
Other news in brief
It seems strange to continue with a normal prayer letter, but let’s try to sum up the past few months.
The other big news for me was that my mother visited in April, and as well as sightseeing around Nagahama and Kyoto, got to meet with some of our church members and our missionary team.
Just before she arrived, we had our missionaries’ and pastors’ retreat, where I gave another leadership seminar; and just after she went home, a group of us newer missionaries met for three days to think about a new orientation programme for missionaries joining WEC Japan.
Nagahama church hosted a one-day soccer school, taught by an Argentinean pro coach, and we saw 51 people come to brush up their soccer and to hear his testimony. The day after that, we began our annual conference, where we got to welcome our first South American worker to the field... and where we publically announced and celebrated our engagement.
The Maibara house group will begin this month, but really, it pales into insignificance. There are more important things!