A MINISTER is leaving New Zealand to take up a new post at Rawdon.

The Rev Derek Allan has been appointed as minister at Trinity Church and will be greeted with an induction service led by the Rev Graham Ensor, the Regional Minister/Team Leader of the Yorkshire Baptist Association.

Among those attending at 2pm on Saturday, February 7, will be Horsforth and Aireborough MP Stuart Andrew. The event will be followed by afternoon tea. Everyone is invited.

Derek, who was born in born in Stockton-on-Tees, trained as a teacher after university in Cambridge. In 1968 he married Sally and they have two sons – Mark, a development worker in Afghanistan, and Nick, who is a minister at Philadelphia Centre, St Thomas’, Sheffield.

The new minister’s career includes a short-term mission as a teacher in the Democratic Republic of Congo.