E NEWS 22ND NOVEMBER 2024
Malo le soifua. What an extremely busy week it has been. Our AGM has come and gone for another year. Thank you to everyone who has made 2023-2024 a successful year, everyone on the duty rosters, members of Parish Council, Pastoral Committee, Worship Committee, Sustainability Group. To the facilitators of Social Justice Group, Exploring Faith etc. My apologies if I have missed anyone or any group. Give yourselves a huge pat on the back.
The Hikoi was like no other 42,000 plus participants including our small group from SAOTT. We had SAOTT people march from Te Papa, others joining elsewhere and a small group leaving from church. Afterwards we had a few join us in the church for soup and buns and cup of tea probably up to about 30-40 people many from Te Moana Nui Akiwa from Dunedin and Auckland. Thanks to our folk for your hospitality and for making yourselves available to set up beds, make soup and stay around to greet and fellowship with our hikoi visitors. It was a special day.
Wednesday night was the Third and final reading of the Samoan Citizens immigration bill which was passed unanimously bt Parliament. Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono was the author of the bill and much thanks to him for bringing this historical decision to fruition. In 1982 the Privy Council ruled that Samoans born between 1924 and 1949 were British subjects and therefore entitled to New Zealand citizenship. But that same year the Muldoon Government nullified the decision. This has now been rectified with the passing of the bill at its third reading.
I had a QMC Board of Director’s meeting also on Wednesday evening and we were supposed to have our photos taken for the website, but the photographer sent his apologies. I then managed to catch the last of the Samoan citizenship celebrations at St. Paul’s Cathedral afterwards and congratulate Green Party MP the Hon Teanau Tuiono on the successful passing of this bill. My dear Aunty Tili in Samoa will now be able to become a NZ citizen if she chooses to do so.
This Sunday Afioga Dr Karl Pulotu Endemann will be our special guest commemorating Transgender Sunday. The Glamaphones are singing and we are having a shared lunch afterwards. I hope many of you will be able to join us. Here’s an excerpt from an article about Fuimaono:
“I was always a proud fa’afafine and a proud Sāmoan. And, actually, being Sāmoan and fa’afafine are the most powerful things about me. Because I believe that if you can survive the anti-Sāmoan and anti-fa’afafine things that come from the schools, come from the churches, and sometimes come from your own family, then you are a very strong and powerful person.”
Next Sunday is Communion Sunday and the start of Advent, it is also St. Andrew’s Day. We will have the special envelopes available for you to put your special offering into on that day. There will be no shared lunch because we will be doing so this week instead.
The following week 8th December is the re-launch of our Rainbow Room Programme. The theme is “Be the Light”. Please bring along your children, grandchildren or great grandchildren to join us that morning. They will stay up until the passing of the peace and then go to the Rainbow room with Caroline and her helpers. They will return at the end of the service to show us what they have done. I’m going to visit the littlelies in their class rooms Friday morning at Queen Margaret College and introduce myself to everyone.
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to put my feet up before the onslaught of junior school at QMC. Have a restful weekend. Ka kite ano. Fei
You can read the full E-news here: https://mailchi.mp/bd305dd87bca/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-10131660
