“I like people watching, not in a weird way, more an inquisitive way. I always want to know more. When I watch people I wonder where they’ve been, how they are and where they are heading. I wonder about their story.
A few years ago I had to do a placement in a Palangi middle/upper class church in Mt Albert. I worked with the youth and coming from my Tongan upbringing I realised that I had made a lot of assumptions about them, like they had made assumptions about me. Assumptions based on our looks. Assumptions that put each other into boxes, leaving no space to wonder about who each other really was.
However this was also a learning point. I came to realise that all people deserve the openness of wonder; meaning we are never defined or fixed by our failures and mistakes, but also neither are we defined or fixed by our successes. Wondering about someone is the first step in giving the dignity and value to a person that they deserve, because they are made in the image of God.”
