Obituary: Leuatea Iusitini Sio

* Rev Leuatea Iusitini Sio, ONZM, QSO, JP. Pacific Islands leader in New Zealand. Died aged 80.

Leuatea Sio reached Auckland in 1951, a fresh-faced 26-year-old aiming to qualify as a teacher before returning to work in the mission schools of his native Samoa.

In the event he died in Auckland last weekend after more than 50 years helping Pacific Islanders, a revered leader hailed as the "father of Pacific communities in the city".

If the title sounds grand, the way it was earned was much simpler. Sio spent his life serving people in practical ways, as well as in the spiritual sense.

He knew what it was like to arrive in this new place. By his own account, he reached Auckland knowing that in Samoa dressing in white was a sign of piety and usually reserved for Sundays - the day of worship.

His first impression of Aucklanders was that they were very devout Seventh Day Adventist worshippers. He soon realised, however, that the people clad in whites were actually cricketers and lawn bowlers on their way to Saturday matches.

There were then very few Samoans in Auckland. Sio joined the Pacific Island Church at Newton in central Auckland, then led by the Rev Robert Lye Challis.

Challis and a Cook Islands minister then covered the whole Pacific Island population in New Zealand for the Congregational Union.

Two years later, at the behest of the Samoan community, he abandoned ideas of teaching.

By 1952 he had helped Challis establish a service in Samoan at the church. In 1957 he was ordained.

Apart from their church work, the two ministers helped new arrivals from the islands with housing, finding jobs and other problems.

"The palagi [white people] were hesitant about letting Pacific Island people into their boarding houses and rental accommodation," Sio remembered.

It was not unusual in those days to see the two reverends crawling under inner city villas looking for borer infestations in properties that Pacific Islanders wanted to buy.

"We would also go down to the city council and make sure that people were treated fairly in terms of the prices," Sio told Herald reporter Fue Ualesi in 1991.

He also talked about early morning trips to Hobsonville to meet flying boats coming in from the islands.

"I would be there to see that everyone had relatives waiting because at that hour there were no luxuries like taxis."

Some migrants heading south for jobs arrived short of money. Sio would put them up, and scrape around for funds to help.

Leuatea Sio was one of the first Pacific ministers ordained into the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand.

As its Auckland moderator in 1977, he suggested New Zealand was a pagan country in need of missionaries, as such a small percentage of the population attended church.

He helped sports groups, was strongly supportive of Pacific Islands rugby and was involved with many Pacific communities here and overseas.

Perhaps his strength was his humanity, willing even to tell tales against himself.

The first sermon he ever preached in English ("an unforgettable experience") was to a Niuean congregation.

He was only in the third sentence of what he considered an inspiring oration when someone stood up and said it was boring.

"I was so embarrassed that initially I forgot the rest of the sermon," he said.

Then he forgot to say that one of the choirs would sing after the sermon. Finishing the sermon he "stumbled outside to shake the congregation's hands as they filed out".

But no one came. Mr Challis had taken control and the choir got to sing.

He and his wife Rosalina liked to spend time each winter at their property in the hills behind Apia.

Sio is survived by his wife and many descendants. The funeral service will be held at the Pacific Island Presbyterian Church in Newton on Tuesday at 10am, followed by interment at Mangere Lawn Cemetery.