UNOH Auckland

Kia Ora Friends

We came to Australia with the dream of one day returning to Aotearoa/NZ to start a UNOH Chapter in a neighbourhood struggling with poverty.

Last month the UNOH leadership team asked us to enter into a process of dialogue and discernment to start fleshing out the possibilities of starting this in 2011.

As part of this process we would like to ask you – as friends, family and supporters, to help us in this discernment.  We invite people to pray, to give us words and scriptures, to help practically with raising more support and awareness, and to help us understand God’s picture for NZ.  We believe that South Auckland is a good place to start, but we are open to all possibilities, and we have started to look at neighbourhoods like Mangere or Manurewa.

“Why would you want to live there?”  people often ask us when we have talked about moving back to NZ.  It’s a good question. Why would we, the Tims whanau (family), look seriously at moving to a neighbourhood like Manurewa or Mangere?  Well here are 8 reasons why:

  1. We take seriously Jesus’ saying in Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free.”
  1. Both Manurewa and Mangere have high deprivation/poverty indicators (google ‘Electorate Profiles for both Mangere and Manurewa’ for details or email me).
  1. Denise feels God has called her to speak out about injustice and to support her own people, encourage a holistic approach to healing; spiritually (uniting people to Jesus); whanau (family and cultural connections); physically (meeting basic needs) and mentally (education).  Both these neighbourhoods have a high proportion of Maori from Nga Puhi and Ngati Porou iwi (tribes).  Denise is well connected through whakapapa (family tree) to both of these tribes.
  1. Dave loves the challenge of entering new places, listening to God’s Spirit, waiting for whom His Spirit brings towards us and then working to bring change.  Mangere and Manurewa are both places that send a chill of fear down our spines but they are also places that God’s spirit mysteriously works, and it is always life giving aligning oneself with the Spirit.
  1. We believe that there needs to be pathways to bring reconciliation between Maori and Pakeha (European). Mangere, and especially Manurewa, may offer opportunities for us to create spaces for this to happen.  Auckland is the largest urban centre in NZ, with a large Christian community.  Few Christians throughout NZ are aware of the social injustice within our NZ history and even fewer have had opportunities to explore what this means from a Christian and Maori perspective. We would like to explore avenues to create sacred spaces of reconciliation and understanding.
  1. We believe the ethos, values and formation of Urban Neighbours of Hope help create authentic communities, like villages, centred on Jesus. As part of UNOH we believe communities that are centred on Christ bring transformation and become places of “good news to the poor.”
  1. We are both “itching” to re-connect with Aotearoa – the land of the long white cloud, our people, culture and language.  We both believe God has given us special talents, gifts and callings to serve Him in communities struggling with poverty within a NZ context.
  1. “The little or much we have is never for ourselves alone.  It is to be shared.  If we live for ourselves we may have much, but this will only impoverish us.  It is the givers who are rich, for in their giving they invite God’s blessing and experience a fellowship with those among whom God has chosen to presence himself – the poor.” Charles Ringma (from his book ‘Seize the Day with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’).  We feel we have so much that is good that we need to share it with others and that we would like to work this out in NZ as part of the missional order of UNOH.

For the next 2 weeks (ending on Sunday 11th of March) we need a BIG favour from you all: will you please pray for us and gives us any thoughts, feelings, ideas, words of knowledge, pictures, pros and cons, other options or invites, people to connect with etc that will help us to hear the Will of God in this discernment period.

We take this process very seriously and any feedback will be collected, prayed through and discussed with other UNOH team members.

Please email or phone us with any questions or insights you would like to share

God Bless

Dave and Denise Tims

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