Hasn’t it been an interesting life? Still is!

We lived on a sheep and cattle back-country farm with several gullies thick with native bush for us to explore. My brother, sister and I attended a sole-charge school in Opaku, South Taranaki, and my secondary education was with the Sisters of St Joseph in Wanganui.

For five years after leaving school I taught the violin at the Auckland College of Music by day, and played in a dance band. During those five years I fought against the idea of a religious vocation. Little did I know how fulfilling it could be. I entered the Sisters of St Joseph, and after gaining my Teachers’ Certificate for Primary School, I taught in several Catholic primary schools. Then I began launching into new ministries.

Nine years were spent in Taupo, where we introduced adults to the new catechetics and liturgy as a result of the Second Vatican Council. We gave religious instruction to children in their homes, state schools and church buildings both in Taupo and outlying country districts.

For the next five years I was working for the Wellington Archdiocesan Catholic Education Centre as a resource Area Adviser. My area was the nine parishes in the Manawatu, and I lived in Feilding.

I was two years in Australia, in the Forster-Tuncurry parish of New South Wales where I helped with parish work similar to that in Taupo. I lived with the Lochinvar branch of the Sisters of St Joseph. During this time I made my first contact with the aborigine people.

My next very enriching experience was in the Murupara Parish in the Urewera Eastern Bay of Plenty. This was almost total immersion into Maori culture, and Sr Miriam Prior and I were adopted wholeheartedly by the Maori people. It was very much an ecumenical parish. Miriam and I were invited to be industrial chaplains to the Kaingaroa Logging Company. This necessitated a course to learn how to cope with the expectations and demands of such a chaplaincy. We made home visits to most of the 3,000 residents. During this time, 1986, the Government Department of Foresty was restructured . The trees were sold and contractors given the work previously done by our workforce. This resulted in hundreds of men and women being made redundant and unemployed, so our work as chaplains was stretched to breaking point. It was at this time that we used our name as a tool for advocacy -–in the name of the Sisters of St Joseph we were able to put pressure on Government departments to speed up delivery to families who were desperate for emergency assistance.

A few years after our arrival the parish was without a priest.. Catholic Maori men had been well trained by the former parish priest and were willing to lead the parish, but the Bishop appointed a woman. I was the first woman appointed Administrator in the Catholic Church in NZ. In Culturally it was not a good decision to have a pakeha woman in that position. It was awkward for the Maori people and for me.

From Murupara I went to Auckland to do a year’s study in Cross-cultural theology and Maori Spirituality at the Anglican Seminary.

Then to Wanganui, helping two other sisters to manage an emergency house for families. I was rudely awakened to the reality of homelessness of people with no family support. I taught an adult reading programmme at Kaitoke prison, and this led to the teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Through this I was introduced to immigrants traumatised in strange and seemingly hostile environments struggling with the English language, New Zealand customs and idioms. Through ESOL I have had students from Vietnam, Rarotonga, Hong Kong, Bosnia, Somalia, Moldova, and I have befriended people from over twenty countries, resulting in an “arm chair” trip around the world.

I suppose I’ll retire some day, but life is too interesting!

Margaret with her refugee friends from Somalia in 1999. From left - Nuro Amin, Margaret, Geni Abbas