After five decades and countless hours of volunteer work collecting and recording the histories and stories of Church members and missionaries in New Zealand, Rangi and Vic Parker were awarded a lifetime award during a ceremony held at the Matthew Cowley Pacific Church History Center on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2022.
Pacific Area Church history manager Melanie Riwai-Couch was emotional as she addressed an audience of associates, family and friends and presented the award titled “Te Whatukura” and “Te Mareikura,” reported the Church’s Pacific Newsroom.
In Maori, “te whatukura” (male) and “te mareikura” (female) are respected friends and leaders whose presence and impact can be felt even when not physically present.
The Parkers’ love for the history of the Church in Aotearoa — the Maori name for New Zealand — led them to collect and gather the journals, photographs, recordings and memorabilia of missionaries who served there. In doing so, they accrued an impressive history of their people.
The Parkers donated it all to the Church History Department, where it has been digitized and cataloged and has been divided into 21 collections.
According to Riwai-Couch, the 21 collections are made up of 3,130 components, and “each component can contain many hundreds … of smaller parts,” such as letters, recordings, artifacts and journals.
While numbers give a sense of the vast work done by the Parkers, the value of their “qualitative contribution” is priceless, Riwai-Couch said.
“It’s not possible to number the tears, the memories, the remembrances, the love, those who have been touched, the spiritual experiences that have been had, nor the hearts that could not help but be touched by these two special souls.”
