Rt Rev Justin Duckworth, Bishop of Wellington
Right Reverend Justin Duckworth, Bishop of Wellington, visited Tawa Rotary on 1 September 2015.
Bishop Justin is a family man in the widest sense of the word. For most of his life he shared his home with others. There are currently 11 people living at Bishop’s Court in Thorndon. He started in his early 20’s with a home for teenage women in Berhampore. From there around 25 years ago he and his family moved to a building in upper Cuba Street, next door to a fish factory.
There amongst the street people Justin and his wife, Jenny founded Urban Vision. The little building they occupied became a drop-in centre, with many visiting so space was at a premium. When a chance came to have a larger building nearby, they jumped at the opportunity. The Urban Vision programme has now spread to other houses in Wellington and to other centres around NZ.
Justin and Jenny took over the Presbyterian Support Services’ complex at Reikorangi and over a period of 11 years have turned it into a modern monastery - Ngatiawa. It is run purely on donations and has around 1500 people per year passing through. Those who stay commit to helping the lost and the least in whatever way they are able.
Justin told us briefly about his involvement in the protest movement supporting the East Timorese Independence movement and to work towards the end of what was seen as genocide of the East Timorese people. Once a week he was at the protest handing out pamphlets. He noted that maybe it helped, but the important thing was he was involved.
Justin spoke also about what he saw as two big issues facing us; that of global climate change, as he said if we do nothing or too little our grandchildren will be asking “why - what did you do?” The other area was the need to reclaim our society which we seem to have passed over to the big corporations.
Upcoming events
|
Date (2015) |
Event |
Intro/Liaison |
|
12 Sept |
Spring into Tawa |
Chris Black |
|
15 Sept |
Chris Whelan, Exec Director, Universities of NZ |
Bill Sommer |
|
22 Sept (updated) |
District Governor Visit |
Pres Ken Pearson |
|
24 Sept (Thurs) |
Wellington Children's Hospital Appeal |
|
|
13 Oct |
Andrew Wharton - Boston Marathon experience |
Robert Armstrong |
| 21 Oct (Wednesday) | Joint meeting with Tawa Lions - Inspector Paul Basham Winter Games Duty | |
| 27 Oct | Andrew Jack, Chief Censor | |
| 10 Noc | Garth McVicar, Sensible Sentencing Trust |
Update from Committee Chairs
This week, under the leadership of President Ken Pearson, we have updates from the Tawa Rotary committee chairs - a great chance to hear about planned activity across the service areas.
Volunteers – Wellington Children’s Hospital Appeal
Thursday 24 September – Tawa Rotarians are invited to help with the Wellington Children’s Hospital Street Appeal. The stand will be located outside Take Note on Main Road, Tawa