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Japan Prayer Fuel
May 2015
Not all OMF missionaries are involved in full-time church planting or direct evangelism
of the Japanese. Quite a few serve God and their colleagues in different ways. This
month we’d like to put the spotlight on what we call “Specialised Ministries”. Thank
God for these dedicated missionaries who support and bless their colleages through
their service, while also trying to be involved in local churches and outreaches.
Ichikawa Guest Home, Fredy & Anuk Abt: Renovation work at the OMF Japan Headquarters (JHQ)
started at the end of April, so the next few weeks will be very busy with lots of additional tasks. They
were asked to coordinate the logistics of moving work places. The Guest Home runs as usual and will
host Project Timothy May 11-15 under these somewhat challenging circumstances. Please pray for extra
strength, wisdom and mercy in the midst of messiness. May they all be light and salt to the workmen.
Life&Ministry Coach/Structure Implementation Group (SIG) Manager, Mike & Rowena McGinty:
Mike’s responsibility as the SIG Manager ends May 31st with the launch of the new structure, but one
building project (JHQ) will be halfway completed and the other one (Hokkaido Center, Sapporo) still
needs additional time to finalize plans. Pray that time set aside for training the new Field Leadership
Training (June 2-3) will be well used and that Mike will have wisdom in his current coaching
commitments.
Serve Japan, Wera Laschenko (Japan Coordinator), Karen Viljoen (Hokkaido rep.) Wera and Karen
handle all matters relating to short term workers – be they teams or individuals – from initial emails to
finding churches/missionaries they can serve with to practically orientating them to Japan when they
arrive. Please pray God would send an urgently needed admin assistant.
Medical Advisor, Martin Seccombe: The Seccombe family will be on home assignment for a year from
July 2015. Dr Edwin and Alice Low will visit Ichikawa and Sapporo May 17th – 23rd in preparation for
covering Martin’s role during that time. Please pray for a good handover to them and for the ongoing
health of the Japan field members.
TCK (Third Culture Kids) Care Coordinator, Helen Lyttle doesn’t only provide counsel, advice and
practical help for many missionary families, but is also involved in the Satsunae Lighthouse Church in
Sapporo. Pray for blessing on her cooking class there on the the 13th. From 15th-20th she visits families in
Hanamaki and Sendai. Pray for energy, wisdom and safe travel.
Japanese Language&Culture Center (JLCC), Peter & Janet Dallman: The Dallmans will start to hand
over leadership of JLCC to Jim and Terui Grace from June and are already busy getting ready for that –
on top of their heavy daily workload. For many years, the Graces were involved in student ministry in
Sendai. The Dallmans are preparing to take on a new role under the new leadership structure. Those are
significant changes for both couples, as well as for students and teachers at JLCC. Please pray God
would give much wisdom, grace, patience, love and insight for everyone involved in the process.
Please also pray for two other ministries which seek to help and strengthen Japanese believers, as well as
reach out.
Aomori Christian Center, Luke & Yuko Elliot: A month ago the family (five children) moved into the
staff house at the Aomori Christian Center. There is still much work to be done, both in terms of
unpacking and in fixing up the house. When visiting the church nearest to them, they met a Christian
high school student from Kenya there on a sports scholarship. After two years of living in the
neighbourhood, he had finally discovered the existence of the church. Also, one of the elementary school
students Luke taught in Kazamaura is now a student at the university down the road. Could that be the
beginnings of a student ministry?
Counselling&Care Team, Tomomi Wong, Yeo Hwee Joo: The third member of the team, Kaori Chua,
has been on home assignment for over a year. Sadly, her husband, our dear colleague How Chuang,
was found to have cancer last year and was called home on March 5. The whole field grieves with her
and their little 3 year-old daughter Airi. Please pray for God to sustain and comfort them and show the
way forward. Kaori had started to write a book on listening which is still in the process of being
published. Pray she’d find the time and energy to proofread it again so that it can be published in
autumn. Pray, too, for Tomomi who holds a seminar on emotional self-care in her church on the 31st.
She also needs God’s help to be able to bring cases to a good closure before July when she’ll leave the
field to move to Singapore with her husband and three boys.