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History of the Work in New Zealand 

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History

History of the Church in New Zealand (1957-2002)  
Pioneer Baptising Tours, April 1962  
Baptising Tour, Church of God News, Nov-Dec 1963  
Ministers in New Zealand, Feast of Tabernacles, 1969 Ministers in the photo: From left: Bill & Barbara Hutchison, Susie Zimmerman, Mrs and Mr Clint Zimmerman, Roy & Sheila Page (back), Lynn & Graemme Marshall (front), Sandy & Bob Morton, Wynnis & Lyall Johnston. (Photo supplied by Barbara Best). The first Feast was probably at Wairakei in Sept 1969 (1994 may have been 25th FOT celebration at Taupo and Mr and Mrs Marshall came back to NZ for it. There were probably 1000 in attendance)
Report from Our New Zealand Office, Tomorrow's World (August 1971)  
WCG ladies in New Zealand, c1972 Back row (standing) from left: Ivy Braggins, Dorothy Lees, Anna Koks, Dawn Kennedy, Agnes Thompson, Pat Sawyer, Peggy Seales, Lynn Wooding. Front row (seated): Shirley Cole, Joy Hoskins, Beryl Salmond, Kay Devon, Lynn Cottrell, Anne Plumb, Ellen Gibney
Churches and Bible Studies, mid-1970s  
Auckland head office, Plain Truth, July 1975  
Mr & Mrs Peter Nathan, 1985 Mr Waterhouse spoke to Auckland congregation 23 Feb that year. Probably 1984 Auckland had a visit from Mr Armstrong. As he was getting a bit frail by then members did not have a chance to go and speak with him after the service, but Mr and Mrs Nathan accompanied him in a car and they all gathered to wave him goodbye
Owen Hooper at Hunua Falls, 2021 Owen was baptised at Hunua Falls (in the ranges east of Papakura) by Mr Marshall with Mr Lyall Johnston in the winter of 1968. He remembers the water was very cold!
Peggy Miller & Eleanor Sim, 1973 Eleanor Hooper relates: "This is of Peggy Millar and me, possibly taken on Feast of Trumpets or Atonement,  as she went to Australia for the Feast that year. She later married an Australian minister Trevor Higgins and lived on the Gold Coast until her death many years later (I visited her there in 1975). Peggy had quite a trial in 1968 as she was on the Wahine ferry when it sank in Wellington harbour during a severe storm (actually that was the same day that Owen drove up to Auckland from the Wairarapa, and was shocked to hear after he arrived how bad the storm had been). Peggy had been travelling up to the North Island to keep Passover. She told me of being in the water and saw a hand reaching out to her, which she took hold of and it helped her onto a rock. When she looked around, she could see no one so she was sure it had been an angel helping her. Of course she lost all her best Sabbath clothes etc but it was more important being alive, as there were some who drowned. The first time Peggy and I met for lunch in Gore, I had bought my usual, a ham sandwich (not knowing about unclean meats as yet!). I could see Peggy seemed slightly uncomfortable. She advised me to write to the Church Office and request an article about clean and unclean meats." Once I received and read it, I understood! Then I told my Mum I was no longer going to eat ham or bacon. She replied, “I wondered when you were going to figure that out!”
Christchurch 20th Anniversary Information Pamphlet (1994)  
   

Miscellanous Items

Coworker Letter - Graemme Marshall on progress in the Work (17 July 1970)  
Notes for Festival of Tabernacles (1970)  
Feast End Report. Taupo (1972)
"World Tomorrow Church Today", North Shore Times Advertiser, 7 March 1978  
Receivership Telegram, 20 January 1979  
"You are Invited" card (1975)    
   

Other little-known information

1. Church of God (Seventh Day) in early 1900s:

Of great interest to Church of God historians is that a Church of God, Seventh-day pastor residing in Auckland, New Zealand in the early twentieth century, wrote a 16 page booklet on the subject with the title Begotten Again, or Born Again, Which? (1902). The entire booklet powerfully proclaims that the new birth occurs at the resurrection. On the final page he notes:

"It is therefore untrue that the new birth takes place at conversion. If so, it is false, and those who teach it are teaching falsehood, and that must be displeasing to the God of truth. We cannot be born anew unless we are begotten, and we cannot be begotten unless we receive with meekness the implanted word, the ten words of God” (page 16).

 

The booklet is available for download here.

2. History of Seventh Day Baptists in New Zealand:

Go to these links: SDB churches in Christchurch and  history of SDBs.

 

Often SDBs lay the seeds, followed by SDAs and then Church of God enters the scene.

3. Remnant Church of God in Solomon Islands:

Letter from a man in the Solomon Isles c.1977 or 1978:

 

"You asked me about the history of the Remnant Church here in the Solomons. Well, it's an offshoot of an evangelical Church. This evangelical Church (now known as the South Sea Evangelical Church) originated in Queensland where the sugarcane labourers – the 'kanakas' – worked. Some Solomon islanders working as sugarcane labourers there became members of this new church.

Eventually some ministers left Brisbane and came over to the Solomons. This was in the late 1800s and probably early 1900s. Around the 1950s some members of this evangelical church became discontented with some of the church's teachings after much Bible study.

They found out that the Saturday Sabbath and other Old Testament laws and statutes were still in force at this time. So they broke off from the South Seas Evangelical Church and forme themselves in a new group calling themselves the Remnant Church. Not long after this group became divided again on some doctrines they had – one group joined the Seventh-day Adventists Church while the other group remained as they were – the Remnant Church. And it's this last group that were interested in the WCG."

4. Pitcairn Island:

For those who have read Beyond Pitcairn, will know that the tiny island is predominantly Seventh-day Adventist. It is still a British Overseas Territory.

 

For background information refer to the following website: https://adventist.news/search/pitcairn

 

Church of God members who visited the island in late 2007 drew my attention to the book Pitcairn: Island at the Edge of Time (by S.C. Carlsson, Central Queensland Uni. Press, 2000). The book, of course, mentions the SDA influence on the island, but also that the leader of the islanders in the early 1800s, John Adams, kept and taught the Feast Days (page 34)! Apparently he was led to this belief by reading the Bible and it is unknown if any others followed his example.

 

I don't know if Sam Bacchiocchi picked up on this little known fact so I sent this information to him.

 

Beyond Pitcairn is available for free download here. Another, Sequel to a Mutiny-Early Adventism on Pitcairn Island, is available here.