E NEWS 25TH AUGUST 2023
Talofa lava. Well last weekend was busy with Central Presbytery being hosted by Tautai the cluster of Pacific Island churches within the Wellington region. It was good to meet up with friends and also a long lost second cousin whom I haven’t seen for many years. A female colleague of mine presented a paper on “Women ministers within the Pacific churches”. She was very honest when she basically stated that the Wellington Pacific churches are yet to call a female minister to one of their parishes and that so far all applications have been rejected. She said that one of the responses she got was “I wish you were a man”. Another time when she was being interviewed for a Pacific Parish, her husband interjected during the interview and asked, “what are the chances of you calling a Pacific woman to your church” to which they replied “zero, we will not be calling a woman.” He then said, “so why are you bothering to interview us at all?” and the interview ended abruptly. We broke off into ethnic groups to discuss “what are the barriers that prohibit Pacific women from being called by Pacific churches?” One minister, who is young and naïve said that when he trained in Samoa at Malua Theological College and the question of ordaining women was raised and one of the main objections was that they get periods and get pregnant and might not be able to conduct a funeral because she’s bleeding, or words to that effect. I had to bite my lip to stop myself saying something outrageous in response to his extremely sexist comment. Hmm, archaic, draconian and pathetic are the words that spring to mind in response to him. I’m very selective now with the battles I choose to get involved in, too much unnecessary time and energy can be wasted on deaf ears and people locked into cultural captivity and sexist, exclusive and oppressive ways.
Last Sunday was the Queen Margaret College’s annual Founders Day service. I had the privilege of preaching the sermon on “What does fullness of life look like? John 10:10. There weren’t as many people as I thought would be there but it was also the same day for their Open day and probably most people went home rather than walk over to St. Andrew’s. But the senior girls were there, Mark Stamper led the senior girls Voces Luce choir in the song “For me to Dare”. It was a wonderful piece.
On Tuesday evening I was invited to Parliament for the Valedictory Speech of the Honourable Aupito William Sio. He dressed in the regalia of a High Chief and his speech was brilliant. Afterwards we had celebratory speeches, food and entertainment and I can assure you it would not have cost the outrageous $40k that was previously spent on a farewell by the Ministry of Pacific Peoples. Lol, I know they have definitely learnt their lesson from that. Here is a picture of Aupito and myself on the night.
On Thursday morning Paul Barber, Sue Hirst, David Douglas and myself represented SAOTT at the Living Wage presentation to the Greater Regional Council Wellington meeting to present recommendations on GRCW adopting the Living Wage or higher for its employees, staff and contract workers etc. It was accepted in principle and will be carried out over a staged 3 year period.
This Sunday’s reflection is the “Midwifing of Moses”, the story of Shiphrah and Puah Egyptian midwives being tasked with the job of infanticide by Pharoah and the five women that became involved in the saving and raising of Moses.
Next week I will be taking leave in lieu of my days off. I’m looking forward to “doing nothing” to the best of my ability but I suspect I will mow the lawn, sort out the garage and many other tasks that have been put aside in my busyness. I am looking forward to attending Ross Scott’s Communion service on Father’s Day next week.
Ka kite ano, Fei.
You can read the full E-news here: https://mailchi.mp/26ca7443db2d/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-9394967
