Anglican Taonga

On the pavement outside Suva’s Holy Trinity Cathedral early on Tuesday evening, you could hear the choir rehearsing for Archbishop Jabez's funeral.

Inside, the choirmaster exhorted his singers to give all they had, to make their final performance for Bishop Bryce one that would honour his memory.

Sione Makasiale would normally be up there, belting out those hymns, practicing for all he's worth.

He's a handy bass who loves to sing, he’s been a committed member of that choir for over a decade – yet there he was, watching his fellow choristers from the nave of the cathedral. He won't be joining them for their Thursday performance.

Why not?

Well, for 14 years, Sione was Bishop Bryce’s driver – and he doesn’t want to be looking down from those scaffolding stands at the empty Bishop’s chair. He needs more time to get used to that sight.

Sione is no softy, either.

He’s a big, well-built man, and in his early days he’d been a seaman. Back then, if Sione’s ship was in port… well, let’s just say he didn’t go out of his way to dodge trouble.

But those days are a distant memory. His turning point came in 1991, and he threw himself into the life of the Cathedral congregation. He'd help mow the cathedral lawns every fortnight, he was a sidesperson and a member of the men's ministry group, “The Zaccheus Community”.

His commitment must have been noticed. Because in 1996, when the Bishop was recovering from eye surgery, he asked Sione Makasiale to become his driver. Since then, Sione has spent hundreds of hours in cars with him.

Any time of the night or day Archbishop Jabez needed to be somewhere, it was Sione who’d drive him, run his errands, and escort his many visitors around the place.

In military terms – and in the best sense, there was something military about Bishop Bryce – those two were like the commanding officer and his trusted batman. Sione was the Bishop’s loyal servant, discrete confidante – and friend.

Sione is not the only one struggling to come to terms with the Archbishop's passing.

There have been hundreds of folk coming and going to and from the cathedral yesterday and today.

Most are members of various church groups from across Fiji who’ve come to pay their respects to the Bryce family at the “reguregu”, or traditional Pacific Island funeral gathering.

It’s the duty of the hosts (as it is with a tangi) to make sure that after the visitors have paid their respects, they’re served refreshments. And so there’s a small army of people from the diocese who are serving the guests, as well as making the cathedral ready for tomorrow’s funeral.

And if you mill around those folk, you hear more stories about a man who had a profound impact on people's lives.

Take Amy Chambers, for instance.

She’d known Bishop Bryce since 1986. Back then she had a plum job with Air Pacific – but in her heart of hearts, she was searching for something more.

She never said much about that. But Bishop Bryce seemed to know anyway, and sometimes he would gently inquire whether she was content.

He’d sow seeds with her – and often the way he'd do that was by asking her to do tasks that maybe she didn’t think she was capable of.

“Every time he did that I’d think: ‘Why me?’ ‘Why not someone else?’

In the end, Amy decided to pack in her career with Air Pacific. She applied to seek theology training through the diocese, and she was hoping to be accepted as a student at St John’s College in Suva.

Bishop Jabez told her yes, she’d be going to St John’s College – but not the Suva one.

The one in Meadowbank, Auckland. That's the one for you, he said.

Then, in November 2003, just as she was finishing her theology degree at Auckland University, he told her he'd be ordaining her as a deacon in a week’s time – and she was to work as his assistant in Suva.

In May 2004 Bishop Bryce priested her – and in June 2005 he made her his Vicar-General. The surprises didn't end there, either.

Because in 2006 Bishop Bryce appointed Amy as Principal of St John the Baptist Anglican Theological College in Suva.

Amy’s reflecting about all the seeds Bishop Bryce had sown in her life, of course – and as she prepares to deliver her eulogy at his funeral she finds herself asking: what other seeds might Bishop Bryce be planting, even now?

“He knew me better than I knew myself,” she says.

Joe Leota – The Rev Joe Leota, recently retired as the Vicar of Te Puke – is another one of those who counts his life forever changed by knowing Bishop Bryce.

Joe had met The Rev Bryce in 1964. Back then Joe was teaching at St Andrew’s High School in Tonga – and the Rev Bryce was there as vicar and headmaster, standing in for the Rev Fine Halapua, Bishop Winston’s father, while he was off on duty elsewhere.

“Jabez Bryce was a beacon for me,” Joe says simply.

Joe and Bishop Bryce were related, and by reason of whakapapa Joe is a “matapule” – a “talking chief”, one who is able, according to Tongan tradition, to speak on high and ceremonial occasions.

So it was that Bishop Bryce was visiting New Zealand he would often call Joe to accompany him.

On the day the late King of Tonga died, for example, he'd asked Bishop Bryce to pray and anoint him with holy oil – and he asked for Joe to accompany him.

And in 2008 when Archbishop Bryce was asked to crown his son, the new king, His Majesty George Tupou V, Joe was his chaplain, bearing his mitre and staff in that big Wesleyan church in Nuku'alofa.

But it’s the little gestures that Joe remembers too: knowing that he was always included in the bishop’s prayers. Receiving cards from him – and small gifts of money – when Joe was a struggling student, and Fr Jabez (as he then was) was stationed in the Phillipines.

Five years ago, Bishop Jabez had asked Joe to be matapule at his funeral: to speak on behalf of his family at his funeral gathering.

So when Joe heard the word that Bishop Bryce had died, he didn’t muck around. Never mind that he had to spend the night sleeping on a hard bench at Nadi airport as he waited for his connection to Suva.

He had miles to go, and a promise to keep.

And then there’s Flo.

Flo Vosatata. Her real Christian name is Fulori, but Bishop Jabez liked to call her Flo, and that affectionate name stuck.

Flo was Bishop Jabez’s PA, and she’d worked for him – in one capacity or another – for 28 years.

Flo's mum and grandmother had worked for Bishop Holland, the previous Bishop of Polynesia, and they continued to serve Jabez when he became bishop in 1975.

Flo first met him, she recalls, when she was just nine years old, and her family came to know his family really well.

Flo thought she'd seen the last of Bishop Bryce in 1980.

She'd left school, got a part-time job, and she'd gone to live with her boyfriend in Nausori.

But that fact that Flo was out of the Bishop's sight didn't mean she was out of his mind. He asked her mum whether she was going to marry that boyfriend.

"I was – so he encouraged us to marry sooner, rather than later. And he arranged everything about my wedding. He performed the service, and he offered us his home for the wedding feast.”

Now married, Flo returned to Nausori to live. And again, she didn't expect to be hearing more from Bishop Bryce.

“But one Sunday afternoon in 1982, he sent his driver to pick me up. He told me that he wanted me to work for him as a filing clerk, and he even gave us a flat to live in.”

Flo has served him ever since.

“Archbishop Bryce was like a father to me," she says. "I have learned so many things from him. He sent me to school to learn typing and shorthand, and later on to the Fiji Institute of Technology, where I gained my Diploma in Office Administration.”

“This office will never be the same.

“I will really miss him – and may his soul rest in peace, and rise in Glory.”