Because everyone in the parish is encouraged to develop and contribute their talents, we regard the whole church family as being part of the wider team. We have grown, both as people around in numbers, since we stopped depending on one paid person.
What's the best thing about being a church minister?
It's a great privilege helping to lead a warm, caring, faith family where everyone supports everyone else and also cares about the wider community.
What does Easter mean to you?
It reminds me of the events that have transformed my life. Jesus not only died and rose, but also gives me a share in his eternal life through his Spirit. I know that there is nothing in life or death to fear because God is in control of the whole show.
Why is Easter so important to recognise?
It celebrates the greatest event in history since Creation. God's answer to evil was not to weigh in with divine power from the outside, but to become human and through self-giving love, to deal with evil from the inside. Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead is God with skin on, defeating death and offering his eternal life to all who want to accept it.
How will you be spending Easter weekend?
I will be sharing in a Last Supper meal on Thursday, joining the Ngongotaha Procession of Witness on Friday, and helping to run a stall at the Ngongotaha Easter Market on Saturday, raising money for the Solomon Islands. Then on Sunday I'll be joining the St Barnabas family for a joyful celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.
Tell us three things about yourself most people wouldn't know?
Because my father was in the Burma Forest Service before the war, I was born in a small town near Mandalay, became a refugee in India with my family when Burma was invaded and was educated in England after the war.
The Call the Midwife series brings back memories of training as a midwife in England around that time, cycling out, delivery bag on the back, in the middle of the night to wolf whistles from the local drunks.
Last year I dug about 30 post-holes, with enthusiastic help from my neighbour's two poodle puppies (who love digging up lawns and vegetable beds) and put up 60m of picket fencing to keep my unsuspecting helpers out of precious parts of my garden.
