The Missionary Seccombes

For weeks we've had on the calendar "Missions Presentation at Youth" - the Seccombe family are missionaries in Japan in a medical support capacity (living in a city far out of the reach of the earthquake). They've long been known to us as photos only but are now in New Zealand for a few weeks on home assignment before heading off to the UK and then back to Japan, so we took the opportunity to grab Martin and Sam and the kids while they were in Timaru to tell us about their life and ministry in Japan. It was all extremely interesting and is not an easy mission in so many ways - one of the biggest frustrations being the language barriers. We had opened the evening to the whole church and had a really good turnout; we started with an informal kiwi supper before Martin took up the podium. We also heard from Raphael and Georgie about their schooling, and Sam gave us a short language lesson which was more than enough for us to see just how complicated it all is. It was super to meet them all and get to know the family in the flesh!(Aaron working on his preaching skills - will have to grow in more ways than one before he's quite ready!)