Lloyd Ashton has been learning about a remarkable relationship…

As marriages between parish and vicar go, the match contemplated in 2006 between St Mary’s Waipukurau and Leo Te Kira looked unlikely.

On the one hand, you had a Pakeha congregation – average age about 70 – in a Central Hawkes Bay country town. A group of retired farming folk and country people: conservative, surely, and not much contact either, you might think, with Maori.

On the other hand, you had a Maori priest in his early 40s.

A Maori priest who had little experience of Pakeha rural life – or, for that matter, with Tikanga Pakeha: Leo was born and raised in Wainuiomata, in Wellington, and as long as he’d been an active Anglican, he’d been immersed in the Pihopatanga.

If that sounds like an unlikely matchup, there was something else, too. Leo also lives with a significant disability. He has cerebral palsy. He will never drive, he doesn’t handle or serve the sacraments, and his speech has been affected.

On the surface, Leo’s fit to fill the vacancy at St Mary’s Waipukurau didn’t look entirely convincing.
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Back in 2006, Shirley Wynne-Lewis had her doubts, too. She was on the selection committee to choose the new Vicar for St Mary’s.

“I’ll be honest with you,” she says. “I did a bit of research on Leo, as you do, and I thought: I suppose we could cope. But when he arrived for the interview, and was making his way to us from the car – I thought: ‘Oh my goodness… No. There’s no way.’

“He’d been inside, talking to us for about five minutes, and I began to think: ‘We’ve got to have this man, somehow. We’re not letting him go. And by golly, I’m glad we didn’t.”

As you’d expect, there were doubts about how a priest with Leo’s disabilities could get around the traps, and make his ministry calls.

One somewhat sceptical examiner took up that theme: “Let’s say I need you to make an 8am visit to my home. How are you going to manage that?”

“How far away do you live?” inquired Leo.

About 4km from the vicarage, was the reply.

“Well, in that case, I’d start walking at 7am, join you for breakfast at 8am – and I like my eggs sunnyside up.”

The people at St Mary’s liked that attitude.

Even so, the obstacles still loomed large, recalls Malcolm Davies, the Vicar’s Warden.

“Part of me was saying: ‘It’s just not possible. It’s just too big an ask for a man with his disability’.

“But we all prayed about it, and the idea of Leo as Vicar of St Mary’s just wouldn’t go away: I think the Spirit was working on us.
“When it came to the point we just said: Yes – we’ll give it a go.

The thing is, at St Mary’s Waipukurau they recognised courage and an overcoming spirit when they saw it.
They recognised a man who doesn’t try to cover up, apologise or seek sympathy for his condition – lurching movements and slurred speech included.

They recognised pretty early, too, that Leo has a strong, simple faith, and that he’s a natural communicator.

Having seen those qualities, they weren’t prepared to let a little obstacle like the lack of a driver’s licence stand in the way of getting a good parish priest.

In fact, Leo was almost embarrassed by the congregation’s willingness to help. Because when he needs to head out and about, he can call on any one of a list of about 30 volunteer drivers.

The parish has rallied around in other practical ways.

“We had to do a few alterations to the vicarage,” says Malcolm Davies. “We put in a couple of heat pumps, for example, because Leo couldn’t handle firewood.

“He’s now got a mobility scooter, too. That had been left to Christian Fellowship for the Disabled by someone who wanted that to go to someone doing ministry. That’s a big help. He can get down to the local hospital, and he’s now got a degree of independence within Waipukurau.”
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Peter Ashley, 66, is St Mary’s rep on the diocesan synod. He’s also the parish maintenance man – and he’s Waipukurau’s resident Liverpudlian. He came out to New Zealand in the mid-1970s and, as Peter explains, they’re an odd couple who are good for each other:

“Not long after Leo arrived, my wife died, you see? This was a blow to the system. But somehow, somewhere along the line, Leo has helped fill a gap.

“I do more at church now than I ever did. I’m his driver about 75% of the time. We go tiki-touring together all around the place.

“My oop-bringing (Peter didn’t leave his accent in Liverpool) and the work I’ve done before enables me to do what I do for Leo.
“I was trained as a fitter and turner in a Newcastle-upon- Tyne shipyard, and then I went to sea. And when I came back to land, I drove an ambulance for 10 years.”

He learned, early, to be accepting of people in every shape and condition.

“When I first started ambulance driving, my father said to me: ‘Treat everybody the same. No matter whether it’s the mayor you’re picking up, or the wino on the wharf, treat everybody the same.’

“As far as I am concerned, Leo’s joost a normal human being. He might want his food cut up, or he might want something else – well, I’d do that for anybody.”

Because of his cerebral palsy, Leo faces some difficulties with the mechanics of priestcraft. When it comes to the Eucharist, for example, he doesn’t set out the vessels, pour the wine, or distribute the elements. He restricts himself to consecrating the sacrament.

But as far as the people of St Mary’s are concerned, that’s no big deal, either.

“It just means,” says Peter Ashley, “that he’s pulled extra people out of the congregation into service. As we’ve got round to saying: He does the magic bits, and we do the rest…”
Leo is, as we’ve said, a natural communicator. And he’s also a great cultural translator and interpreter:He’s got a knack for making Pakeha folk feel at ease with Maori folk, and for somehow translating Maori experience so that it doesn’t feel too strange, or even fearful to Pakeha people who aren’t familiar with it.

Peter Ashley is one who’s often benefited by that gentle education. He cites the time, for instance, when they’d both been down to Takapau, and Leo dropped a comment to Peter:

“’I’ve got a little job to do,” he said, “just up the road.’

“I says: ‘Ah. Ok. I’ll drop you off and sit in the car.’

“‘No,’ he says. ‘You’ll come in with me.’

“I says: ‘What’s this?’

He says: ‘You’ll see. Just do what I do.’

“And I says: ‘Hey. Wot are we going to?’

“He says: ‘We’re only going to a tang-ee’.

“Oh crikey… I’m rather wary of putting my big foot in it. But I’m thrown in the deep end. Every time!

“But I’m learnin’. I’m learnin’ quite a few things. And we have some fun. There’s no doubt about it: We have some fun.”

Shirley Wynne-Lewis thinks there are cultural benefits to be gained, too.

“Leo’s got a different view of things from the rest of us,” she says. “He’s learned a lot. We’ve learned a lot. He gives us a broader view, and an understanding of some Maori practices – which is great. And he extends us.
Off course, when a parish goes looking for a new vicar, they’re principally looking for a man or woman who can be their leader in faith.

And Leo has – according to one observer – a “simple, radiant faith that is quite compelling. The simplicity of his faith, in the best sense of that word, and his ability to communicate it just wins people over.”

Malcolm Davies agrees: “He’s very spiritual, and he’s got a great sense of humour. His sermons are pretty deep but not lengthy. He just gets in there and hits hard.”

Shirley Wynne-Lewis likes that succinct, leave-them-wanting-more approach, too: “His sermons are always simple and to the point. People take them in. And relate to them.”

Part of the secret of those sermons, perhaps, is to do with generosity of spirit.

And Leo’s willingness to give is manifested in other ways, too says Shirley.

“Like lots of churches, we have trouble raising funds. Leo is generous to the parish. It wouldn’t be right to name the things that he gives – but he’s extremely generous.”

The fact that Leo Te Kira is making a go of things at St Mary’s is a measure of the man.

It’s also, of course, a measure of the parish. It was the parish which had the insight and courage to appoint Leo, and that was a decision that other parishes might not have been ready to make.

In part, perhaps, that’s a reflection of Waipukurau’s nature as a caring community.

“If you’re in trouble,” says Shirley Wynne-Lewis, “it’s just amazing how people here club together, and are there for you.”

Of course, it’s not all sweetness and light at Waipukurau. It has its share of problems, its share of social issues. There are ‘at-risk’ youth in the town, and there’s been some gang disturbances.

There are problems too, of another sort, at St Mary’s, because they’re not attracting young people. Not yet, anyway, though Leo’s working on that one, too.

Shirley tells a bitter-sweet story that illustrates the point about an aging congregation:

“My four-year-old granddaughter was going somewhere with her father in the car the other day, and they were singing as they went.

“She turned to her father and said: ‘Dadda – you should come to church, because you like singing. They sing a lot in church – and Dadda, they’re gentle songs.

“‘And they have things to eat at church, too. Just for the adults. Not for the children.

“‘But then again,’ Shirley’s granddaughter mused… ‘It’s nearly all old people. In fact, they’re nearly dead.’

“She’s right, too – the average age of our congregation would have to be 70. Sad, isn’t it?”
As we said at the outset, back in 2006 a marriage between St Mary’s and Leo looked unlikely. But when you look into the matter a little further, the stereotypes break down, and you can see that the planets have been quietly lining up to make that possible.
Take the nomination process itself, which took place during Bishop John Bluck’s time at Waiapu. St Mary’s had put out the call for a new vicar, and there’d been a number of possibilities, but nothing had gelled.

Then one day, without knowing anything of St Mary’s search, Bishop John’s brother-in-law – who heads up a big Wellington institution – started talking enthusiastically to him about a Maori man he’d interviewed for a job as a personnel manager.

The only reason he didn’t get that job was because they felt his talents would be wasted. And the funny thing was, this man was an ordained Maori priest, who’d previously served for years in the Maori side of the Anglican Church… a disabled chap called Te Kira, in fact. Leo Te Kira.

That, as you can imagine, set John Bluck thinking. In November 2005 Jack Papuni, Waiapu’s regional ministry convenor in Eastland, made contact with Leo and invited him to apply for Waipukurau… and that led to the selection interview that we talked about earlier.

Then, of course, there’s something providential about Peter Ashley’s role in the Leo at St Mary’s story – there Peter was, at a loose end, willing to help, with all those years of ambulance driving behind him.

You can go back further still, and you’ll discover that Leo isn’t the first Maori priest to serve at St Mary’s. That was Bill Naera. He’d served at St Mary’s from 1979, until he died in office in 1981 – and the parish had good memories of him, too.

Then there’s the fact that, to a remarkable degree, Waipukurau is a town that understands people with disability, and is open to the creative possibilities those folk can bring.

Because for 40 years, from 1958-98, people from all over the country came to Pukeora Home for the Disabled, a sanatorium on the brow of Pukeora, the hill that overlooks the town.

Finally, Leo being at St Mary’s is a connection to the Diocese of Waiapu’s heritage and history. Because in its earlier years, and long before the 1992 three-tikanga constitution, Waiapu was a synod that often had a Maori majority. In fact, at its first five synods, te reo was the language used.

So maybe, we shouldn’t be too surprised at the fuss-free way Leo has moved into ministry at St Mary’s…
Maybe the last word could go to Shirley Wynne-Lewis, Leo’s Licensed Lay Assistant: “I said to Leo the other day – ‘your physical ability has improved, hasn’t it Leo, since you’ve been here? We think it has.’

“‘And he said: ‘No. I’m just happy here’.’’