CATHOLIC WOMEN’S LEAGUE OF NEW ZEALAND MISSION
REPORT TO ANNUAL CONFERENCE:
HAMILTON 16-19 JULY 2008.

Kia Ora, Talofa lava, and good afternoon to you all. It is with pleasure that I report on what has been happening in the missions since the last conference.

I will start off with statistics. Our annual giving to the missions for the year to 30 September 2007 was $227,779.24 ($4000 up on the 2006 figure). Included in that figure was $3691 given to the Gizo tsunami appeal and $7067 given by branches to the World Youth Day. I would expect that there would be another sizable amount given in this years return to the World Youth Day as well. Over and above that, there has been a number of donations given by branches to their mission stations to assist young people from the islands to attend the event.
Since the last conference just over $450,000 has been given to missions both here in New Zealand and in the pacific. Congratulations to you all, you should be very proud of  your efforts.

Since the last conference 30 branches have received grants from the Mission Education Fund to assist with education in their Pacific Mission Station. At present there is $1725.50 remaining in the find. Branches seem to be up with the play now in this area as the last two years the money has all gone by about October each year. However, when that has happened, I have just advised the branches there is no more finds available and held on to the application which I have actioned in the New Year.
This year the Chanel Home of Compassion, Samabula, Fiji was the recipient of the National Mission Project collection. The amount sent was $2740.00. The sisters will use the money on urgent repairs to the roof and guttering especially on the ward in the Home.
The Golden Jubilee money of $759.76 was given to the House of Bethany in Auckland.
During this last year of my term of office as National Mission Secretary a number of events have occurred. I will talk about my trip to Samoa last.

Firstly there was the sad passing of our ex-President Geraldine Scott who I had to pleasure of working with for two years. She was a lovely lady and a very interesting one as welL I wonder if the younger members of CWL realise what a hard road to hoe she had when she started off as the first President of the new Hamilton Diocesan CWL. I don’t know whether she ever wrote it all down but someone should before it is too late.

I spoke at my own Diocesan Conference earlier this year. There is always something special about speaking on one’s own Home patch.

Also in late January 1 was priviledged to meet Bishop Chris Cardone, who is the Bishop of the Auki Diocese in the Solomon Islands. What can I say! He was such a wonderful man doing such wonderful work under the most trying of conditions and without any expectation of gratitude. He spoke of his work over the past 20 years that he has been in the Solomons for over two hours and I just don’t know where the time went. Everyone who attended the evening with me agreed that he could have spoken for another two hours and we would have still been entranced. Not only was he a great guy he was also good looking!! For those of you who met him I am sure you will remember him and what he had to say for a very long time I know I will. For those who were not able to meet him you really missed meeting a very special person.

Now my (no I should really say OUR) trip to Samoa on behalf of the League to visit the 10 mission stations we support there. Firstly a little about my preparation for the visit.
I wrote to all the branches which had mission stations in Samoa and asked them to complete a questionnaire. The reason for doing this, was to ascertain how much the branches actually knew about their station and also enquire as to what they would like me to find out while I was there. The answers varied from two branches who bad visited their mission stations on a number of occasions and knew quite a lot about Samoa and their station to the other extreme of a couple of branches who had not had any contact for a couple of years and in one case had had their last letter returned to them. In between were some who knew a little, had reasonable communication but all of the other eight branches had never been to < so had not been to visit their mission station.

I also wrote to Archbishop Alipati Mataâ eliga in Apia and told him I was coming and that I would ring him when I arrived. As well I discussed my trip with Sister Marietta Parsons SMSM of Christchurch who had worked in Samoa for some years and was able to give me some valuable information about the country.

Armed with as much information about Samoa as I could absorb plus lots of little gifts for the stations things like stickers, pencils and crayons for the teachers, soap for the elderly folk, and biscuits, chocolate and sweets for the station personnel, we (my husband Vince came with me) took off on Saturday 4th August.

We arrived on the island of Upolu in Samoa at 1am on the same day because of the dateline and eventually got to our hotel about 2.3Oam. The airport is about an hours drive from Apia.
We stayed at what was described in the Lonely Planet as a Budget Hotel but we found it very comfortable. The staff were very friendly and although we were the oldest guests by about 40 years the other guests were really good company.
We had no car for the first two days so spent most of the days walking around Apia. By the time we had been there two days our bodies were starting to acclimatize to the heat.

The first day I was there I rang the home of the ?rincipal of the only school who had all lay staff and she suggested that we come down to the school on the Monday morning after we picked up the car. We found this was the best policy, try to contact the mission a day or two before we actually visited. On the whole it worked really well.

We were able to visit all ten Mission Stations while we were there. There were 6 schools (1 Secondary Girls College and 5 primary schools which also had preschools attached), two parishes, a Home for elderly and retired Sisters and a Home for the elderly run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. We contacted all of them apart from the two parishes a day or so before we actually visited. We were not able to get any reply to the parishes so just turned up and the Good Lord was looking after us as one priest had just returned from planting taro and the other parish had a relieving priest but at least we had someone to talk to.

I asked the questions and did most of the talking and Vince took copious notes for me. He also did all the driving (they drove on the opposite side of the road). The station personnel didn’t mind us taking notes and were pleased to give us as much information as we wanted.

The first mission station we went to was Papanui Branch’s Au Agelo Pre-School which is attached to St Peter’s School at Falefa a very poor village about 1/2 hour drive out of Apia. Both Vince and I were appalled at the conditions the poor teachers worked under (eg. There were no desks or chairs in the first four classrooms, the old style blackboard and one textbook per class so that everything had to be written on the board for the pupils to copy from — and of course they sat on the flax mat on the concrete floor to do their writing and the teachers were down there as well no matter what age they were) However we were impressed how devoted they were to the children and teaching in general. We thought oh boy if this is what is awaiting us we will be going home very depressed. However that was the worst school (basic conditions wise) we struck. Although they had very little the staff put on a lovely morning tea and honoured us with a kava ceremony. One of the staff had handpainted lava lava for both Vince and I so were very privileged indeed.

We found as a general rule that all the primary schools had average class sizes of between 45 and 50 children. The school day starts between 6.30 and 7am in the morning and finishes between 1 and 2pm. Some children leave home as early as 5.30 to get to school by public transport.
Maybe I could just give you a little of the information that I gained about a couple of the other mission stations.
WESTPORT: Old Folks Home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor at Mapuifagalele, Vailele.
Mapuifagalele, Vailele is on the Main East Coast Road and about S kms from Apia.
Sister Rita (an Indian Sister) is the Sister in Charge. There are 8 Sisters at the Home (two other Indian, as well as Malaysian and Samoan). This is the only Old Folks Home in the whole of Samoa and there are 50 residents (male and female and of any religion) who are looked after by 30 staff (including the S sisters. A number of the residents appeared to have some form of dementia. The Home is set right on the coast and is in beautiful surroundings. However the interior is very basic 1mb floors, curtains for doors in the cubicles (this is the Samoan way it has to be open), very simple furniture, but everyone and everything clean and tidy. The Sisters receive no monetary support from the Government and ask for none from the residents.
Two Sisters go round every day to collect money from businesses etc in Apia. It takes about ST$50,000 (NZ$30,000) a month to run the home.
The Sisters work on the precept that God will provide. The Home was the recipient of the National Mission Project  money for 2007 and we saw some of the mattresses the money was able to obtain.
The Sisters live very simply (all sleep in one big room in the small convent adjacent). While we were having a cold drink with Sister we heard some beautiful singing outside. Sister took us out and nearly all the residents were in the chapel singing it was truly moving. Sister said that between 4.30 and 5pm every day they gathered and singing was their way of praying. They had no music just their blend of beautiful voices, male and female and of all or no religion.
ORAKEI/EASTERN: St Mary’s Primary School, run by the SMSM Sisters at Savalalo, Apia
Savalalo is a suburb of Apia St Mary’s is a huge primary school of 920+ pupils all girls.
It is the only all girls primary school in Samoa so possibly that is why it is so popular.
Sister Felisita is the Principal. There are 5 Sisters in a total of 30 teachers. Years 1 to 4 have 2 teachers to a class. Years 5 S have 1 teacher per class. One of the Sisters told us she taught Year 6 and had 57 students!!
The school also runs Home Economics classes for Mums. The last lot of money that Orakel/Eastern had given to Savalalo was used to replace screens on a house in the grounds which has not been used for some time, Sister hoped to do it up enough to rent out to get a little money for the school. Sister asked Vince to look at the tubs they had for washing dishes and clothes as she wondered if they could be fixed!!! They were enamel tubs the sides were fine but around the plug-hole they are entirely rusted through on all but one of them. We bad trouble keeping a straight face when we saw them. We took over a cheque from the branch so maybe they would have been able to replace at least one or two of them.
My thoughts on the stations visited. I felt the Parishes were reasonably well provided for and probably didn’t need our support as much as the schools. The Bishop and parishioners seemed to support the parishes pretty well. On the other hand all the schools and the Sisters and Teachers who run them need our support some more than others. I might be wrong but I did get the feeling that the schools did not get that much support from the parish priests which in most cases were adjacent to the parish churches. The only exception in the schools we visited was the parish priest at Leauvaa where the priest was a Polish Salesian priest and be was a great support to the school next door.
We were in Samoa for two Sundays. The first Sunday we went to the English speaking Mass at the Cathedral in Apia. There were many Palangi (European) as well as Samoans there and the singing and music were beautiful. The second Sunday was Father’s Day and a Big Day in the Samoan church calendar. We were invited by the Salesian Sisters who are based in Leauvaa to come for lunch that day so decided to go to the Samoan Mass there. It was a very grand affair. All the Fathers were asked to sit up the front andat the offertory Sister ha (a Salesian Sister who was sitting with us) told us that all the children would come and put ula (leis) around their Father’s neck. Some Fathers had many as they got them both from their children and their grandchildren I was feeling sorry for Vince as he had none of his children there to give him one but the sisters had thought of that and we both got them as honoured guests at the Mass we were the only palangi there.

We called to see the Archbishop a few days after we arrived and his Secretary told us that he was in New Zealand for medical tests and would not be back till after we returned to New Zealand. However she was aware we were coming and said the Archbishop was sorry be could not be there to meet us. We met his Secretary Tina Mauga a couple of times later in our visit.

On the Public Relations front we attended the Catholic Pre-school Festival in Apia and were treated as honoured guests which was a little embarrassing as we thought we would just sneak into the back of the hall. However we were made to come up the front and given ula and some food (which none of the locals seemed to get!!?)

Also a bandsman friend of Vince’s from Whangarei was over there the second week we were there to train the Archbishop’s band. He has asked Vince to come along and train the trombone players. Frank was interviewed on the local radio one morning for half an hour and be said that a bandsman friend was over with his wife and mentioned our names. He went on to say that I was from the Catholic Women’s League in NZ and there to visit the mission stations that the CWL have supported for many years. So that was almost a bonus.
I have a photo album here which you are all invited to view. I also have a copy of all the reports I sent to the branches on my return which you are welcome to read.

My thoughts of our trip. It was an amazing experience to visit Samoa for the League. Both Vince and I learnt so much about the country and the culture. We were humbled by the friendliness and generosity of the people some of whom bad very little. We have come home very much enriched as a result of our visit. It is a trip that both of us will never forget.

Before finishing, I would like to say a few thank yous. Firstly, to all the Board members that I have bad the privilege of working with. You have all been brilliant. A special thank you to both Cecile Rowland from Hamilton here and Elizabeth Maere both of the National Treasurers who have always paid out the Mission Education Fund grants for me. Nothing has ever been a bother to them. To the Mission Convenors who have served while I have been in office, a very heartfelt thank you for all the great work you do for the missions in your dioceses, Also thank you to my parish of Tawa who have done all my photocopying free of charge for the past four years.

My thoughts on my four years. The years have just flown and I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. I have met many wonderful people. It is great that a branch mission contact person feels that they can just ring me up and have a chat about missions. I have really loved that. I felt as if I was being made to feel part of their branch which is great. My one regret is that I never got to visit branches around the country something I had in mind to do when first I took office.
I wish my successor Susan Lloyd the grace to enjoy her new role as much as I have. I know you will do a great job Susan.

When I took this position on, I did so with the conviction that the support the League gives to the missions both here in New Zealand and especially in the Pacific is one of the most important ways of living out our motto of Faith and Service. Now at the end of my four years I am even more convinced that our role is vital to the church in the Pacific.
Your mission stations need your help more than ever, so please keep up the good work.

Thank you.
Maureen Kerr
National Mission Secretary