STUDY LEAVE - Best Travel Funds Application information

Kia Orana, Talofa, Fakalofa atu, Taloha Ni.

Information that may prompt you to enquire and apply for the above Funds to assist in your Continued Ministry Formation study and training.

As we move into a time when freedom of expression ix extended to Mission and Ministry, you are encouraged to explore recording something of your engagement with God's Mission and Ministry. The joys and lows of ministries, and how different aspect of ministries have presented themselves in your day, your time.

Such a fund maybe a means where you can realise these open expressions from you.

Go well.

Don Ikitoelagi

 

 

Best Travel Fund

The Overseas Travel Fund was renamed the Bill and Margaret Best Travel Fund in 1990 in memory of former Assembly Executive Secretary Rev. W.A. Best and his wife Margaret. The purpose of the Fund is to assist church workers to further develop their area of service to the Church. The Personnel Work Group administers the Fund.

Eligibility

Church workers must have been employed in an equivalent full-time role that is recognised by the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand for at least five of the previous 10 years. The term ‘church worker’ includes ministers, lay ministry and staff, and elders. Training and study courses should meet the minimum duration as set out in the table below:

Location of course/conference	Minimum duration
Within New Zealand	Seven (7) days
Australia/Pacific region	Seven (7) days
North America/Asia	Fourteen (14) days
Europe	Twenty-one (21) days

Applicants must complete their course and return to New Zealand within 12 months of the course beginning. Grants are for travel costs only. For assistance with course fees and/or materials, please contact presbytery/UDC council. Where the course is in North America, Asia or Europe, the applicant needs to demonstrate that the equivalent course is not available in New Zealand or the Pacific region.

Applications

Applications close 30 April and 31 October each year. Applicants are notified of the outcome of their application by early June and December. Applicants are encouraged to apply for their grant prior to travel. However, applications for travel undertaken in the past 12 months will be considered. All application must include a letter of approval from the presbytery/UDC. Applicants wanting to attend a conference as an official representative of the Presbyterian Church should provide the names of at least two referees.
Download the Best Travel Fund application form and guidelines.

Previous grants

Where an applicant has previously received a grant from the Fund, they must undergo a stand-down period before they are eligible to apply for a new grant. The stand-down period is as follows:

Location of previous travel	Stand-down period
Australia or the Pacific	Three (3) years
Asia	Five (5) years
Europe or North America	Eight (8) years

Study Leave Reports

At the completion of the course, applicants are required to complete a study leave report.
For additional information, contact Miki Seifert at (04) 382-8181 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (04) 382-8181 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting or miki@presbyterian.org.nz.

Women's retreat June 2013

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ.

 

 

PI SYNOD REFLECTION CENTRE PROJECT
First meeting of Pacific Island Women in the life of the PCANZ.

 

 

THEME: How can women pass on the torch from women leaders to daughters within the life of the Church, as was the case of mother to daughter that saved Moses who led the Israelites out of bondage.

In order for these treasures to be passed on, they need to be named, recognized and valued by the whole community and the church. The gifts of  motherhood, is synonymous with stewardship, leadership, resourcefulness and most importantly faithfulness to God.

How can building capacity among women be encouraged.

In the Pacific, the Pacific Conference of Churches are offering training to women, scholarship to study theology, and opportunities for Churches to consider women into leadership role for the whole church, however not downplaying the strength of the churches now with women managing women affairs that are reported to the whole church.

It is my belief that Pacific Women in the PCANZ who already are offering leadership in the life of the church as lay and ordained leaders, can help to encourage work of building capacity of women in the Pacific.

Pacific Women must therefore take stock of what God has blessed them with and bring the community with them to a better understanding of what scripture portrayed as being made in the image of God. “God created male and female in his own image.”

The gathered group of women from the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ as can be seen here, consist of three ordained ministers, two wisdom figures over the ages of 80 years young, minister's wives, elders and women leaders of the Uapou Fellowship, Niue Fono Motu, Fono Samoa, Fono Tokelau and Tuvalu, and English Speaking, and women from Newtown PIC Wellington.

 

Apologies  were received from three of the women from Wellington, and a guest speaker from the Knox Centre of Ministry and Leadership, The Very Rev Dr Graham Redding.

 

Speakers at this inauguration forum for the mission and ministry of women in the PI sector of the PCANZ were approached for specific programs that they have either attended, their experiences in women ministries at Fono and Congregational level, a voice of a young women sharing how she see this transition encouraged, and a speaker who spoke of ordained ministry of women in the PCANZ.

   Rev Marie Ropeti              
Miss Masele Bukalich        
Mrs Lealofi Setefano

    

The weather was not very kind to us where three of the Wellington women were not able to attend due to canceled flights, and the Rev Dr Graham Redding was not able to attend due again the frozen state of Dunedin at the time.

 

Rev Ere Talagi-Ikitoelagi                         Mrs Jane Poa

(I will forward scripts from the speakers on their presentation in the next week or so depending on when I receive these)

 

As far as the presentation from the absent presenter Rev Redding, this was done with the aid of the use of skype, which proved very useful.

 

A general overview of some of the issues raised in the retreat:

 

Bible Study was based on the topic of Eradication of violence against women in the pacific.

Why did the serpent give the apple to eve?

 

Mrs Lealofi Setefano spoke passionately about her sense of call to serving God she found in her marriage to a minister. She saw her ministry as tied up with her husband in serving God by taking the leadership role of women in the congregation. How her husband appear in terns of his vestment and his general attire is the role she managed with pride. Ensuring that his ministry needs are in no way be effected by his health and domestic duties. He need to be focused in his calling, even to ensure that her whole attired is that of a minister's wife, where everyone would know that she takes very good care of the minister. Other women's ministers also share how they themselves ensure that the only person the minister sees in the congregation as he leads service is his beautiful flower in the minister's wife sitting in the front row of the church.

 

Such a beautiful portrayal of the faithfulness and the team spirit offered by the minister's wife to what it is obviously a shared ministry.

Rev Marie Ropeti spoke of the pathway of women taking up a sense of call into being an ordained minister. She offered a good illustration of the empowerment journey she had experienced in being called not as supporting someone else, but as a woman minister with the capacity of taking leadership of the congregation which is inclusive of women, youth and the Ekalesia.  She offered as a challenge to the women in the retreat this pathway of saying yes to God's call. Marie also shared some of the challenges faced by ordained women ministers in terms of working in traditionally male structures. She highlighted the slow moving of some of the Pacific Churches to call as their minister Pacific Women ministers.

 

Role of women in the life of God's Mission is clearly multi-faceted. When one makes an observation of women's aspiration to serve God, one need to ask what the particular class of women  saw as their mission in life.

Some may see the pathway to be an ordained minister, the other may set their objective of service is vested with giving their husband support in what seem to be a shared and team ministry[Minister's Wife model]. It seems clear that  in both pathways, women do need to see their roles as complimentary, and not to see them in competition with one another. 

 

The role of women represented by the minister's wives and the respected networkings within the church must be encourage and supported. The Church at large need to recognize this model of ministry as an effective role with Pacific Churches in Aotearoa NZ.

On the other hand, there is also a need for the PI Synod and its work within the PCANZ to encourage women who feel called to ordained ministry. This pathway is a recognized ministry in the PCANZ, however there is a slow movement of Pacific congregations to calling such women ministers to Pacific congregations. Just as much as the wider Church needing to recognized ministries of ministers wives, the Pacific congregations need to support and embrace women ordained ministers into their charge. 

 

The voice of the young was represented by one young woman who has grown up in the PIC Newton Church. Masele did a wonderful presentation illustrating how ministers and congregations need to use illustration, and multi media to convey the message of Jesus to the young. There are many young people who have left the churches that they grew up in, and either joined the Pentecostal Churches or just enjoyed the Sunday with family approach.

 

Masele has involved herself with youth ministries for many years now, and she shared how she has been employed by a congregation at Glendowie Presbyterian to be their youth leader.  Her involvement at Newton has been with both the Samoan group as well as the English Speaking Group. Masele await constantly the torch from her mums and aunts of PIC Newton. She tries to receive it with humility, acknowledge it with love, and pass the gospel to the next generation with gratitude.

 

Jane was given the opportunity to share ministry from the mothers of the Uapou Fellowship: the Vainetini. I will forward her paper that she presented on the day. Thanks Jane.

Ere's paper and bible study also will be forwarded in the follow up email.

You have made evaluations and passed these on, however I would still encourage your comments on how you liked the program, the speakers, the hospitality and of course the organiser (smile). 

You can even suggest if you would like such a retreat to be planned for the future as an on going passing of valued information from mother to daughter.  Please forward these to my email: don.ikitoelagi@gmail.com

 

I would like to thank the following presenters:

 

Rev Ere Talagi-Ikitoelagi,

Mrs Lealofi Setefano,

Mrs Jane Poa,

Miss Masele Bukalich,

Rev Marie Ropeti

Rev Dr Graham Redding (Principal of KCML)

Mrs Moana Pule Dunn and Lafulafu (Vanila) Ekenasio (PIC Newtown Wellington)

I speak on behalf of all who enjoyed the meals provided by Jenny Talagi for the tasty meals on both days of the retreat.

The members of the Women's Retreat thanked me for the contribution you all made to make it a very special couple of days of learning, in which they  enjoyed every minute of it.

 

May God bless you for sharing your talents with the women of the Pacific.

 

There is thinking of running a similar retreat in Wellington, as we were unable to invite many of our mothers and their daughters to travel to Auckland.

I may approach one or two of you to present in that forum, with the possibility of inviting local speakers to be co-presenters.

 

All the photos will be made available for all our attendees in the next few days.

 

Kia monuina mai he higoa a Iehova Sapaota

 

 

Rev Don Ikitoelagi.

(Pasifika Misionare.)

Christmas Message to friends and families of the 

Pasifika Misionare Office.

Monu, Monu, Monu Tagaloa, koe Atua he tau Tupuna Niue, Blessed is our God known to my forebears as Tagaloa, the Almighty, All knowing, All powerful and All caring Yahaweh, Eloheem, Jeshova that we know from our Christian traditions and Christian lives.

What a year we have had as Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ members. We have time and time again surprised ourselves by the very acts of love in mission that we have undertaken over this 2012 year.
A biggie was the decision of the General Assembly GA12 to grant the PI Synod a Presbytery status begun an exciting journey for Pacific membership of the PCANZ. This was not an easy decision that the commissioners of G12 were asked to consider. For many would have held onto the view that we ought to be together as a Church.This was to be expected, as every definition of unity that we have come to know in this church PCANZ was about together, and followed by the notion that Jesus came to remove all obstacle to this unity.

Fortunately, the work of the special committee that was convened by the Very Rev Graham Redding assisted the church to look at this proposal of the PI Synod to be granted status of Presbytery as something that  allows its multicultural make up to value God's gifts in culture. tradition, ethnicity, gender, age, theological preference, as well as carrying varying competencies such as languages, expressions of faith, theology, and worship to our community.

So let us be a faith community that carries with us the special Pentecost experience in Aotearoa New Zealand today.

Advent is about Christians experiencing the coming of God's living child, Jesus Christ. It invites us to look at the way in which our own lives have have been transformed by this wonderful man.A man so full of life, kindness, hope and love. A man willing to give up his life for you and for me, despite ourselves and live lased with sin, hatred, prejudices, and lack of compassion and kindness.

He came to us as a baby born to a Jewish mother, ministered among Jews, and opening salvation to all God's children, this same mission transitioned into outward mission by and through  the London Missionary Sociery, and upon receipt of this gospel message by Pacific communities and leaders, we find ourselves in Aotearoa NZ, making Jesus known as we have come to know Him, to a multicultural, multi-faith and multi ethnic society.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST, and please continue to promote the Gospel message, particularly to our fanau, aiga, and extended families.

Kia monuina

Rev Don Ikitoelagi
Pasifika Misionare
PCANZ. - Presbyteries and PI Synod advocate.

POST PIC SYNOD -  IMPRESSION I HAVE OF THE PCANZ:

 

 

Te Aka Puaho and the PI Synod have journeyed a long way towards acknowleging our kinship.

Mili Te Kaawa was taken here at the farewell party of the Rev Bill Cuthers in Tokoroa.

The responsibility of leading Te Aka Puaho into an exciting foture as the PCANZ is now in the shoulders of someone whom the Church has become aware of an emerging MANA coming from  a wise and a young maori Churchman Wayne Te Kaawa.

Kia Ora papa Wayne

 

POST GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2012 will be remembered as a time that the Pacific members of the PCANZ raised their hand and accepted the responsibilities that comes with the granting of Presbytery status.

 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE PCANZ?

 

 It is an indication that we are a community of faith that are working towards a church that values its diversity, and is prepared to build on what can be achived by the whole, while drawing on the innovation and passion of its members.

 

 Apostal Paul in his writing described a body(Church) that has many body-parts , assigned different body functions, however syncrinised and operated by the direction given by its head (Jesus), consciously or sub-consciously in order to be a human being, a perfect creation of God.

 

 

 For the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, we recognise that as we continue to witness the growing multicultural socierty around us, we are covernant to embrace Te Aka Puaho in an unique wayas the TANGATA WHENUA, those who have opened the land of the "long white cloud" for all those who have arrived onto its shaw a place to be and a right to be called their kin.

Wayne in his memorable address at the GA12 spoke of a greater kinship that goes back to our tupunas. A further indication that our heritage is one that has origins far beyond our recorded history.

The nurture of one who is born into a family is one of unconditional love, where time is allowed for the infant to grow into prominence within the order of the whanau.

Somehow this graphic illustration of nurture, love and of parenthood depict for me a classic image that I am reminded of our growing re;lationship with the borth of a new identity, a new Presbytery that has come in the form of a PI Synod.

The PI Synod will learn how to crawl, walk, run and mature into an active member of this family, so I would expect this time of its journey to be one where Presbyteries and Te Aka Puaho assume the role of older syblings showing Synod the ropes and helping it up when Synod falls.

 

That is my impression of this journey as the BODY OF CHRIST.

Kia Monuina

Rev Don Ikitoelagi

(Pasifika Misionare)

group foto at the GA12

 

PACIFIC ISLAND SYNOD GRANTED PRESBYTERY STATUS

Pacific Island Presbyterians rejoiced today in Assembly's overwhelming support to grant presbytery status to the Pacific Island Synod.

More than 200 people from around the country travelled to General Assembly to to support the proposal.

The Synod now has status and powers equivalent to a presbytery, or Te Aka Puaho, and can govern and self manage its contribution to the life of the Church.

The Church's Pacific Island Congregations will be able to choose whether they will belong to the existing regional presbytery or the new Synod, and individuals may also choose to be members of the Synod, however ministers must be under that same court as their congregation.

In commending the proposal to Assembl, the Rev Asora Amosa used the metaphor of a mat with many strands - each strand being different and unique, but when woven together was strong and unified - to describe the relationship between the Pasific Island Synod and the Church.

Moderator of Te Aka Puaho the Rev Wayne Te Kaawa gave an emotional address to Assembly in support of the proposal to give the Synod Presbytery status.
He acknowledge the strong histporical links between Maori and Pasific peoples, saying  "you are our tuakana, our elders.

We have been where you are right now; we have been looking for a place to stand in the Church. We stand in solidarity with you".
"to the people of Cook ISlands, Samoa, Tuvalu, Niue, Tokelau, welcome home. Welcome home to the home of your ancestors."

The decision to grant presbytery status was welcomed by the Church's Pacific Island congregations, with the Rev Ere Talagi-Ikitoelagi, Moderator of Pacific Island Synod, saying the move will strengthern the Synod's ability to resource the life, worship and mission of the Church.

The Right Rev Ray Coster expressed to the task group, led by the Very Rev Dr Graham Redding, deep gratitude for bringing the Church to this place.

Following the decision, moderators Wayne and Ray invited Ere to join them at the Moderator's table.

Following this offical report of this memorable event I would like to add my congratulations to Rev Doctor Graham Redding and the Assembly Committee with the work that has brought about this welcomed outcome. FAKAUE LAHIMAHAKI. (Thank You)

The General Assembly can be remembered by all those who attended, as office bearers, commissioners, associates, and observers as the Assembly that recieved over 200 Pacific Islanders from Wellington, Hastings, Tokoroa and Auckland to support the special report to the General Assembly to grant to the Pacific Island Synod a status of a Presbytery.

Here are some of the images that we will remember this occation by.

 

 

Group from Auckland.

Group Photos

Oversease Visitors

 

More photographs of Assembly can be available from the Pasifika Misionare.
don.ikitoelagi@gmail.com

Shared Parish Ministry as a migrant husband and wife team.

 “Sea of joys and turmoil in shared Parish ministry as a migrant husband and wife team”

Rev Don Ikitoelagi (Director of Cross Cultural Mission and Ministry-Synod of Victoria and Tasmania)

 [this was a paper that I prepared and presented at the "TALANOA" conference (Sydney) while I was working as the Director of Cross Cultural Mission and Ministry with thw Uniting Church in Australia]

 

“The sea of joys and turmoil in shared ministry.”

 

Introduction and setting the context to this paper.

 

Brief comments of subjects namely Rev Ere Talagi-Ikitoelagi & Rev Don Ikitoelagi.

 

• Sense of Call – Personal and Communal

 

• Family commitments: 8 Children with the eldest being 34 and the baby 6 years old
• Strong traditional background. (Niuean/Samoan ;  Niuean)
• Personalities: Very strong personalities with often opposing views on matters.

 

• Feminist movement within the Church at the time (extremely militant)

 

Strength: wide diverse subject in the varied disciplines of study; often we don’t do the same subjects.  Provide a good base for shared resources in ministry.

 

Weakness: Shared ministry invariably gets influenced by personality and domestic relationships. When the home front is experiencing a storm, the ministry gets affected.

 

What happens when two individuals with all the above personal traits begin the task of mapping how to minister cross culturally with three Anglo Congregations;  given the sea of change, turmoil, challenges that surrounded them.

 

I began my journey into training for ordained ministry when candidates were still fighting for a place in ministry.. In the year I was assessed, there were 26 candidates for six places as determined by the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ.

The process was gruelling and foreign for me and a few other non-Anglo candidates. Questions were asked of MY sense of CALL when I carried within me a sense of a communal approach to a CALL (I was nurtured to this by my father, mother and the whole community) “ Response from the Assessor: “…. So you are here because your family pushed you to this ministry… and so you do not have a clear sense of call from God for this ministry?” big issues that needs some unpacking.

 

Upon arrival at the Knox Theological College, I found myself struggling with issues of God; particularly in the engaging with the concepts of “WHO GOD IS” I felt that I was really in the wrong place. Such approaches to God were blaspheming at the very least. The disciplines of exegesis was cutting through to the core values of who I was and my belief. Systematic was sounding more like a joke with all its jargon and foreign concepts.

 

There were no certainties in theology and this really troubled me.…. As long as you offer supported answers from ideas and remedies offered by the many theologians pre-selected as reading material, one will pass the assignment. Having an accounting background where answers were definitely clear and remedies often prescribed gave me such a feeling of inadequacy at this early stage.

 

There were women candidates that were acting in such a militant fashion within the college. Any miss statement of God as him or father was highlighted with a mass walkout from worship or placards flashed around the square.  Mother god? Even brother Jesus doesn’t sit right with me at the time.

 

Without any pre-warning, I was thrown into a sea of uncertainty and confusion. Nothing was at all certain.

 

Ere on the other hand, as I thought was revelling in all of this. She had betrayed my trust (as I thought at the time) when instead of studying accountancy as agreed was taking 4 papers in Theology. Instead of offering to feed me and our 6 children she was disappearing at the same time to her own classes.

Don wake up son and smell the coffee!

What happens if I failed because I wasn’t cared for at home? Really, what a baby!

Who would wash, clean and fend for the 6 children. Get a life Don!

How dare she undermine what was my call, our community send me to train… not her. The community, the society, the culture had really made an impression on you son!

 

As I was busying myself in my self-pity, Ere was engaging with her own struggles.

She struggled for acceptance by her own family, husband community and Niuean ministers. She was also fending off all the feminist candidates at the time by laying claims of her rights to bring about the debate among her own people without being pushed to a big us and them Church debate at the time. Woman of great inner strength.

 

Getting to become a candidate was also a heart wrenching moment in her life, when her own community were not able to offer support and that she needed to be sent by the Anglo (palagi) Parish that we were worshipping with at the time.

By this time, I believed that I had in many ways turned my life around, undid many of the cultural conditions, gender issues, and supported Ere in the journey of testing her sense of call into ordained ministry. Hurray Don, there is a God after all!!

 

While studying, there was the issue about her resuming of her maiden name as Talagi. Little changes that were life changing for me at the time.

What was an attempt in Ere’s part, to carve a life in study for herself, that she didn’t have to operate under my shadow had been for me a challenge to my whole being and my family traditions. (Although I knew taking ones husband’s was really a convention rather than the law it being a legal requirement that one need to comply, it didn’t make any difference to me… she was just being pigheaded about all these feminist outbursts.)

For a time I contemplated adding her maiden name to mine so that she can be seen as my wife, sharing at least one name even if it was hyphenated.. Don really, you are real piece of work, just when one feels that you have changed you come up trumps again!!!!

 

It was hell at the time to also be struggling with what I considered core pointers to our identity.

Ere after completing her study (without any prompting) changed her name once more to be a hyphenated name Talagi-Ikitoelagi. By then I had learned to respect things that were important to her. I would not have asked her to, yet families, the community were not going to rest until Don become a real man and get his silly wife to resume his family name… how dare she…)

 

When we were both called to our first Parish (Wanganui West United) I though that we were seasoned, that we had sorted out all there was to shared ministry. (I was in particular feeling quite chuffed that I felt I have changed enough to manage shared ministry) Was I wrong! People started to address me as the minister and Ere as the assistant.  

There were moment in our ministry that I felt a strong need to protect her and fight off all those who dared to question her. What a champion Don, wow!!!

mmmm…. I learned the hard way that she needed to challenge these issues and fight her own battles.  On the other hand, I learned that this does not mean for me to abandon my support of her. Offering support after she had made her call is where I found safety. (But leading up to this moment of truth, I felt that I was dammed if I did and dammed if I didn’t)

 

Our strengths were clearly identifies as we worked together, that we were complimenting each others skills. Our openness to choose what area of Parish life that we could pick up the task was usually strength.

I said usually, because there were some specific areas that our personalities and domestic arrangements caused strain on our relationship.

 

Weddings, Baptisms and Funerals were areas that we agreed, for whoever takes the call will follow through and conduct the said activity. Instead I found myself doing ALL of the funerals and Ere attended to all Baptisms and Weddings. As it was Ere’s decision that the two she was attending to were areas that only she could do justice to them because of her skills as a woman and her understanding as a mother.

 

In frustration one day I spurted out, for goodness sakes Ere, I also want to do the celebrating evens and you need to get your hands dirty with the deaths and the dying. Was that an introduction to a domestic flare-up?

 

Personalities, being extravert while the other is introvert can be the cause of both domestic and ministry debates. “I should know Don” is always a starter for Ere when she believes she is going to be involved in something that calls for a feminine touch as she puts it.

“I should know that weddings and baptisms are my department, because I am a mother and also I am a woman.”  

HOW CAN YOU ARGUE WITH THAT?

A response that often leaves my lips was “and what has that got to do with the price of fish?”

 

 

Let me recap what I have listed:

 

Ministry is about one’s sense of call:

In many instances, when you come out of communal background, one also includes into this sense of call an element of the call being encouraged by family and friends.

 

Men are generally accepted as those in which God selects to enter ministry and wives as supporters to the shared (ordained/lay) ministry.

 

Such calling is celebrated by family and community. You are often given a send off with all the glory and the gifts fitting for celebrity and ministers.

 

When one is called, one takes with  one the family and extended family. One tends also to lose ones identity and assumes an identity and the attributes of a Holy man of God that will serve God endlessly and faithfully. (faceless)

 

There is both celebration and a sense of loss at this instance;  for the acceptance of the call is regarded as a gift to God from the family, but a call is also a moment in life that one leaves behind all that one has build up in wealth and status both in the community and in the home and family.

 

When a woman feels the sense of call, I believe she starts off with sorrow and great pain for her credibility is often taken from her husbands or fathers’ standing in the community. Only when she feel that some recognition of her worth from those she loves and trust, that she begins to enjoy the sense of call that she feels strongly to be a gift form God.

 

Ere has become a much respected minister within the Niuean circles, and the whole of the PCANZ. Her skill and her abilities have led her to many crucial roles within the life of the PCANZ. These roles spans from National, Presbytery and Parish.

 

Her final hurdle I suppose was getting the confidence to apply for a position in the inner-city Parish of Auckland with a component of Niueans within the Palagi Church.

It is fare to say that many of the Pacific Island women ministers both in NZ and in the Island homes are still experiencing difficulty in accessing congregations as Ministers. They land themselves appointments to Chaplaincy work, not that this was not an achievement in itself. Traditionalists in churches still consider ordained parish ministry is the domain only for men. (The process was interesting, as the Niueans in this congregation were dragging their feet while the few Palagi members made the decision to call Ere even if it is against the will of the Niuean elders. What a wonderful God we have!

 

Shared ministry in a multicultural church.

While Ere was ministering to the Niuean and Palagi congregation, I continued to support her by performing some of the minister’s wife’s role.

I was often manhandled out of the kitchen by women who think that it is not becoming of a minister (man) to do cooking or even cleaning.

 

I must confess that I had a lot to relearn, in terms of the role that men and women play in the family and in the community. Both Ere and I are still learning.

 

Un-conditioning ones mind is a necessary process. Society and what is considered normal do change, however it is often necessary to encourage such changes to occur.

 

The Palagi was obviously leading the debate of women being equal in every aspect of life to men. The ethnic in this case Niueans, what was an understanding of role play was mistakenly understood as men being superior and women being subordinated to a supportive role only.

 

The Church of Aotearoa NZ was clearly supportive of the equality debate for it legislated against prejudice against women in all of its positions in the church..

 

 

Having made special mentioned of the frustration of shared ministry, let me for a moment touch on the Joys of shared ministries.

 

Reaching past the immediate issues of change, I can recall the joy of embracing the richness of the joy of knowledge. To engage in a river of change, when TABU issues were opening up to critique.

The joys of identifying each others strengths and building on the attributed of partnership.

Having a different perspective to an issue was something that we found coloured by our own intellect and gender makings. The joy however was still there embraced by our love for each other.

 

We had a large family of 7 at the time, which added both joy and anxiety,  because of the needed discipline to run a tight ship given our busy lives.

 

Our personal and ministry relationships would have failed if we did not take seriously the need to communicate effectively with each other and with the children. We learned the art of having conversations in the manner and the excitement of two people who had only just started out in love. (maybe that was also contributory to our family being large as it is.)

 

Often the difficult issues in our shared ministry get a hearing in our personal relationships. As hard as it was to engage with respect for each other as people of the cloth, the domestic flavour sometime win hands down. We often need to both calm ourselves with reason and logic, even a bit of pacific humour to begin weaving back the issues to where we started with.

 

The winner was definitely the Parish, for there was no sick leave in our watch. I couldn’t recall us both being sick at the same time, and we always filled in for each other in our half time ministry count. There was clearly a benefit to the Parish of having two ministers for the price of one.

 

Being Pacific Islanders in a Palagi Parish also had its moments. We both got away with many necessary changes to the Parish Council because we sense the members saying  “they don’t understand our ways”

 

In conclusion this paper is my journey; reporting what I perceived to have been the path to our ministry as two Pacific Island Ministers in a Palagi Parish. Joys and concerns swim in the same river of Change. We both benefited from it. We both made personal sacrifices from the experiences. We both enjoyed the growth around us when the Spirit of God kicks in and work the power-plant of the GOSPEL.

 

(NOTE)

 

Reading material to be read prior to the elective.

 

The following (power-point) presentation will be used to draw open discussions.

 

Rev Don Ikitoelagi

(Director of Cross Cultural Mission and Ministry)

Synod of Victoria and Tasmania

UCA