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Waipounamu Anglicans renew mission

Māori Anglicans in the South Island have transformed the ministry of their Hui Amorangi base at Te Waipounamu Centre in Christchurch City into a buzzing hub for community care.
• Ōtautahi church works to keep up with needs of whānau

Julanne Clarke-Morris  |  17 Aug 2022  |

Māori Anglicans at the Waipounamu Centre in Christchurch’s suburb of Philipstown have turned a small foodsharing ministry into a growing hub of community care operating at the heart of their Hui Amorangi centre.

Today the Māori Anglican Church’s base for the South Island, the Te Waipounamu Centre has renewed its care for neighbours through a pouaka kai at the gate ­(a food pantry), community-feeding gardens, food deliveries to whānau in the area, and since this March, acting as a South Island-wide distribution hub for pandemic health essentials.

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Back in 2017 Archdeacon Mere Wallace arrived at the Hui Amorangi base in Christchurch’s inner city with her husband, the newly ordained Bishop of Te Waipounamu, Richard Wallace. 

Surveying her new surroundings, Mere stood at the Waipounamu Centre gates and asked, 

“God, what do you want me to do with this place?” 

Even before Richard’s ordination as Bishop of Te Waipounamu, Mere had begun to see the glaring needs of people in the Waipounamu Centre’s neighbourhood. 

“I knew we had people sitting outside all along here, and down at the shopping centre, and we had people begging.”

And Mere says while whānau that were struggling back then, many are doing it really tough now.

“I meet people here and it worries me that mothers, families who own houses, who had good jobs, they’ve never recovered from the earthquakes, never got their insurance money. They were ten years backwards already – and then Covid came.”

When she asked that question at the gate, Mere heard an answer.

 “I started thinking about the fruit trees in the grounds of St George’s Jerusalem.

And that’s what I got told: ‘Turn it into a Garden of Eden.’”

Mere quickly responded, getting planter boxes built on the back section of the fields at the Te Waipounamu Centre and establishing vegetable gardens. 

“We were visiting people in prison – and when we told them about our plans they gave us plants from their nursery. Oderings helped us too. We said, “We’re a church planting gardens to feed whānau that we visit – and they helped us with plants they could spare.” 

So Mere and Rita Biddle went to work on weeding and watering, as well as planting a stand of harakeke along the boundary. That’s now sought after far and wide for its long, strong leaves for weaving. Then the Waipounamu team gave plants to all the weavers who had spare ground to plant harakeke.

Finally came the flowers and the fruit trees, which produced abundantly almost straight away. 

When the first harvest came round, the Hui Amorangi team wanted a way to share what they had grown. Then Mere spotted the solid frame and glass doors of a fridge that was headed for the skip. Before long it was installed in the front fence, thanks to a crew of PD workers on site that week. 

Te Waipounamu had a new Pouaka Kai – a street pantry ready to feed any hungry passers-by. If Mere doubted the need for their pouaka kai, the answer was immediate, and soon the garden couldn’t keep up with demand. 

So Susan Wallace – who manages the Hui Amorangi o Te Waipounamu as its Manahautū – reached out to Foodbank Aotearoa who came on board to deliver stock for the Pouaka Kai’s shelves: bread rolls, loaves, veggies and fruit, and an assortment of donated goodies.

Now each Monday and Friday Rita Biddle and Maria Potaka join more Hui Amorangi volunteers to stock the Pouaka Kai.

“We fill it on Fridays and Mondays, because the weekend is a time of pressure and stress for whānau,” said Susan. “They might be at the end of the pūtea that they have after paying their bills, and the weekend is when they don’t have the support of school-based food programmes for their children.”

The Hui Amorangi puts no limits on who can use the Pouaka Kai at the gate.

“You would have seen some of our people this morning at the gate.

All kinds. We’ve seen all ethnicities, so it’s not just Māori people we support.”

“We don’t distinguish, we don’t know who God’s going to send to us on a daily basis or a weekly basis.”

Once the Pouaka Kai was established, the Te Waipounamu Centre quickly became known as a community go-to for kai. So when a local Māori social service group needed a distribution centre for their food share operation, they went straight to the Māori Anglican Church.

Today 30-50 food parcels go out from the Te Waipounamu centre each Friday forming a vital part of the wrap-around services offered to whānau through Putahitanga - Nga Maata Waka, a network of Christchurch-based Māori social service organisations. 

Mere believes that the Church’s position as a step removed from ‘official channels’ makes it easier for people to come for help.

“There’s something around not being inquisitive. We don’t spy on them. We don’t ask them a lot of questions, because these are people who usually have to answer a lot of questions to get what they need.”

“In most other places, you’ve got to go to WINZ and you’ve got to get permission – and somebody else is making a decision for you. We don’t do that. Because of that I think they feel safe here.”

The team at Te Waipounamu Centre also host a Pokapū kai project that shares food through iwi healthcare navigators who distribute food to whānau on a daily basis.

This year, the Putahitanga Whānau Ora o Te Waipounamu has invited the Hui Amorangi o Te Waipounamu to partner again. This time they have become a distribution hub to share  pandemic healthcare packs through Māori Anglican communities across the South Island. 

Huia Tahere is the one who makes sure those health packs get posted out to every Mihinare ministry team across Te Waipounamu.

“We aim to get these essential health needs out to our people before Covid hits their whānau.” 

“So we have distributed thermometers, oximeters, Vicks, cough medicine and nasal sprays as well as lozenges and other health needs that are provided through Whānau ora.” said Huia.

 Archdeacon Mere is amazed at the way God has multiplied the Hui Amorangi’s efforts to care for whānau using their site, all from stopping to ask that first question.  

“The normal thing for us to do is to take the gospel to the four corners of Te Waipounamu – and to do that we have to listen to God and have a loving and grateful heart.”

“But it is also about ‘Te Oranga Ake’, our ministry approach, which is around thriving ministry in challenging times. We have to get people to thrive, not just in the church, but outside the church.”

Mere is clear that anything Christians can give still pales in the light of what God has given to us in Jesus. But when Māori Anglicans at Te Waipounamu are at work in the community, she says it’s working to share God’s love – not as a means of forcing people’s hand.

“It’s just letting people know in little snippets what Jesus did.”

“I do say: You’re always welcome: same place, same time, 10.30 on Sundays!

But we don’t push to convert them,... we just let them know they’re loved.”

“And because God loves them, our job is to help them to thrive.”

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