Monte Ohia graduated into the eternal presence of his Creator and Lord suddenly on Thursday 12 June 2008.

Monte was a Maori Christian leader, who founded the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous People in 1996, and has been held every second year in a different nation since. The following tribute was written by Ps Ray Minniecon, Australian Aboriginal Christian leader, who was one of the WCGIP Vision Keepers with Monte from the beginning.

My Tribute to Monte Ohia.

By: Pastor Ray Minniecon.

On behalf of Australia’s Aboriginal people.

Monte Ohia was a proud tribal man from Aotearoa who lived out his tribal heritage in our modern world. Monte was different. He was a true tribal man in modern shoes. He was unique. Attractive. Yet there were times when I thought Monte was one of the loneliest men I had ever met.  He was always hungry for fellowship and friendship. He possessed a spirit and a character that inspired and challenged all of us in different ways.

He challenged me in three areas of my feeble attempts to be a better follower of Jesus. 

Firstly, he challenged me to lift my game in the area of my faith in God. Monte raised the barrier in my understanding of faith. Monte knew how to put his faith into overalls. It seemed that he woke up every day ready for work. And he possessed a faith that gave life and meaning to his work and he was involved in a work that gave life and meaning to his faith.

His challenge to me was to equal his faith and then take faith to another level, if that was possible. He challenged me to put my faith into overalls. Make it work for our Indigenous people’s future. He also challenged me to put this faith into running shoes. In particular, a particular brand of running shoes. To him faith was like the Nike slogan: Just do it! By just doing it, results would follow. To Monte, faith was also about running a race against extraordinary odds. The challenging times we live in. The seasons of rapid change that we are experiencing as Indigenous peoples. Indigenous people are in a race against so many challenging social, political and religious powers and forces. A strong faith was needed to keep abreast of these changes and challenges so that us tribal peoples can do the things necessary to help and guide our people through these turbulent times both locally and globally.

I could never fit his running shoes. They were too big for my feet. Nevertheless, no matter what size our running shoes, faith was needed to keep us going in the right direction and at the right pace and provide the right answers at the right time for our mob.

To me, Monte was an ordinary tribal man with an extraordinary tribal faith.

Secondly, Monte challenged me to have hope and dream big dreams. He was a man of great hopes and extraordinary visions and greater expectations for all tribal peoples. He articulated his dreams and hopes through the many visions he had for his beloved Maori people. Language and cultural renewal and development. Educational excellence. Leadership, grounded in tribal identity, and practiced by example. It was through his leadership of WCGIP that I first witnessed his tribal and global leadership and his vision for all Indigenous peoples. Yet he was involved in much more. YWAM. Church development. Establishing educational institutions. Cultural renewal programs. Promotion of Maori culture internationally. Advocacy for Indigenous rights. Political and institutional development. All of these programmes required big visions and great hope. He challenged us to go beyond our human frailties and dream big. All of these programmes and movements were a part of his vision for us. For many, his vision was a bit too big for us to grasp. Yet this type of vision was so desperately needed for our tribal peoples. These visions inspired hope in us all.

He also took this message of hope through numerous journeys and adventures throughout New Zealand, the south Pacific, Australia and to tribal nations in many different countries. His motive? To bring hope to our tribal people. To bring hope to a lonely individual on the side of the road. To bring hope to our Indigenous communities in urban, rural and remote areas of our respective countries. To bring hope to families. To bring hope to other travellers. To bring hope to the lonely. To bring hope to the outcast. In Aboriginal terms, he went walkabout to seek and to save that which was lost. His walkabout adventures can only be compared to another walkabout champion: Jesus Christ himself who went walkabout from town to town and village to village in his day to bring the hope of the Gospel to his people in his day.

Monte never seemed to seek status, position or power. On the contrary, he sought out the status and position of the powerless, the disenfranchised, the lonely, the lost, and inspired them to believe that through Jesus Christ any and every human being can have hope for a better future.

To me, Monte was a humble tribal man who had an extraordinary tribal hope for us all.

Finally, he challenged me to love in a practical way. Monte was a romantic. A lover of life’s beauty. He loved his wife Linda and his family passionately. I have never met an Indigenous man who could talk so proudly of his children’s achievements. My wife looked up to him as if he was her father! My children showed him the deepest respect by calling him Uncle. He raised the barrier in showing true affection toward your spouse and family.  He told me a long time ago that people yearn for that personal touch. He challenged me to lift my game in the way I expressed my love towards my wife and family and my people. I still got a long way to go to live up to that challenge.

He also loved God with an awesome passion. It was God’s love for him that gave him a passion to learn about history, culture, education, politics, science, theology, sociology, biology and a range of other topics that he was well versed in. His passions for learning made us want to sit at his feet and drink from his vast knowledge of God and God’s extraordinary world. His love of his beloved Maori traditions, culture, history and heritage was demonstrated time and again by his extraordinary teaching methods that enabled us to know more about ourselves and our relationship to God as tribal people. Monte also knew the depth of our pain and anger and frustration brought about by the tide of history. And he utilized his own cultural tools, like music, dance, drama and art to remind us again and again how much God loved us as Indigenous people in spite of that terrible history.

Monte was one of the Maori people’s great storytellers.  He could always capture any audience of all ages through story. He educated us through stories. He showed his love for us through story. In a very unique way he became a part of my family’s story and a vital part of our tribal story. In the end he became one of our great stories. We love to tell stories of the many incidents, sayings, activities and events that made him a legend among us. And we delighted ourselves in telling others about the exploits and incidents that made him become an integral part of our life story.

 His love for people was practical and passionate. He demonstrated God’s love to the prostitute as well as the politician. To the prisoner as well as the prison officer. To the oppressed as well as the oppressor. He challenged me to lift my game in how I demonstrated love to my wife and family, to God and to my neighbour. To the oppressed and as well as the oppressor. He challenged me to love my enemy as well as my friends. He challenged me to tell the story of God’s love to all humanity. To him there was no distinction among humans. We all needed God’s love.

To me, Monte was a simple tribal man with a deep and incredible tribal passion to love God, love our fellow man and love God’s creation.

What is his legacy? What is his challenge? How will I remember him?

To me, he was an ordinary tribal man with an extraordinary tribal faith.

To me, he was a humble tribal man possessed with big visions and an extraordinary tribal hope for all Indigenous people.

To me he was a simple tribal man who possessed an extraordinary tribal passion to love God, his neighbour and God’s creation.

Another great apostle of the faith said some two thousand years ago;

“And now three things remain. Faith hope and love. The greatest of these is love.”

This is how I will remember this tribal warrior, Monte. Through his tribal faith, his tribal hope and his tribal love.

I will miss him. I will remember him. I will try to lift my game. I will try and follow his exemplary life.