Reverend Nehe Dewes, here with his wife, Lucy, in 2018, died this week. Photo / Paul Rickard
Reverend Nehe Dewes, here with his wife, Lucy, in 2018, died this week. Photo / Paul Rickard
Presbyterian minister and Aotearoa’s first Māori senior prison chaplain Nehe Dewes will be farewelled at his home marae of Rāhui at Tikitiki on Thursday.
Reverend Nehe Kururangi Dewes (Ngāti Porou) died over Easter, aged 88.
Many referred to him as a “gentleman” – that simple description preceded by wordssuch as “wonderful”, “beautiful”, “true” and “absolute”.
East Coast-born and raised, Pāpā Dewes touched the lives of many through his work as a minister in Auckland, the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington and on the East Coast.
It was a calling inspired by tragedy while working on the land in Taupō in the 1960s.
“A workmate died in front of me and it made me re-evaluate what I was doing with my life,” Dewes said in a Gisborne Herald story in 2018.
He decided to go into Presbyterian church ministry, spending four years at the Māori Theological College before being ordained as a minister in 1970 and initially serving in Ōpōtiki.
While visiting two “Ōpōtiki boys” at Waikeria Prison in the Waikato in 1974, Dewes decided to move into prison ministry.
He worked at Waikeria, then Mt Eden Prison, and in 1993 became the country’s first Māori senior prison chaplain, based in Wellington.
Nehe Dewes and All Black Christian Cullen exchange hongi at a fundraising golf tournament for Te Puia Hot Springs Golf Club member and Tairawhiti and Poverty Bay-East Coast representative Andrew Higham. Dewes loved his golf and was a stalwart member of Te Puia.
From there, he moved on to Rotorua as a parish minister and police chaplain before retiring and returning “home” to Tikitiki in 2003.
By his side over the years was his wife, Lucy (of Tolaga Bay), who died last July.
The pair met at a community hall dance in 1956 while both were working in Wellington – Nehe having left Tikitiki “with just a few bob in my pocket” and getting a job with New Zealand railways.
It was “love at first sight”, the couple told the Gisborne Herald in the 2018 article, and they were married at St Paul’s Cathedral in Wellington in September 1957.
The pair renewed their wedding vows on January 20, 2018, at the historic St Mary’s Church in Tikitiki – a church with which Dewes had a long and special affinity.
It was also a celebration of their 80th birthdays – Lucy’s on the day itself; Nehe’s in August the year before.
The pair had six children – one of whom died in 2009.
While immersing himself in Coast life, including the church and a passion for revitalising and strengthening the ongoing use of te reo, Dewes remained an avid golfer and was a stalwart member of Te Puia Hot Springs Golf Club.
He was a fixture at the club’s premier tournament – the East Coast Open – delivering karakia and inspiring speeches that regularly featured a joke or story.
He was also a dedicated supporter of the Waiapu rugby club.
Social media has been filled with tributes to him.
“In your well-accomplished life, you touched many souls, including mine,” Ikaroa Rāwhiti MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel said.
Others described him as “a pillar of strength”, “a beautiful, humble man”, “a gentle saviour”, “the true gentleman in all respects”, and “a wonderful human being”.
Dewes was farewelled at a service in Gisborne on Tuesday, then taken to Rāhui Marae at Tikitiki for a final service on Thursday, followed by his burial alongside his wife at Kahukura urupā.
