Always a warm welcome from Walter

It’s a pleasure meeting someone like Walter Aranui (Maniapoto, Raukawa).

He offers a hearty kia ora, hongi and hāriru and you’re instantly at ease in his company.

Whānau across the motu have experienced his friendship and fellowship through his role as kaimahi tautoko for Salvation Army Social Housing (SASH) in Tāmaki Makaurau and as the go-to guy for waiata, karakia, mihi whakatau or just a kōrero over a kaputī.

But it hasn’t always been that way.

“I wasn’t like that. I used to just sit back, say nothing,” Walter says.

“The judgmental part of it. I used to judge people and it was all wrong. I didn’t have that aroha, you know. Just to be open, just to be kind, just to say hello.”

It’s been a long process of change for Walter, with stints in prison, rehab, relapses, getting sacked for smoking cannabis, more rehab, living on the streets and finally winding up in hospital.

“I was out on the streets and I got knocked out bro, and ended up in hospital,” he says.

“I had no place to go.”

He was offered two options for transitional housing. One was known for drugs and alcohol and the other was the Salvation Army’s Epsom Lodge.

“A case worker in the hospital said if you go to the Salvation Army, no drugs, no alcohol, and they do testing. I chose that. I knew I had to change”

He completed the Bridge programme and wound up staying at Epsom Lodge for three years before moving to Rānui for mahi, until his cannabis use got him sacked, prompting another stint at Epsom Lodge.

“I felt I needed to go back and start my recovery journey over again because I’d stayed clean for nine and a half years.”

There, he learned about the Salvation Army’s new social housing unit at Royal Oak, Te Hono Tangata, and with support from a case worker, “I moved in and kept on doing what I’d been doing, voluntary work for the Salvation Army”.

That work’s been a constant since 2009, when he was first part of the Bridge programme and included playing in the worship team at Recovery Church, helping with mihi whakatau and karakia and anything else that needed doing.

“Fraser (Kearse) saw me doing all this voluntary work and said: ‘Walter, do you want to work for Salvation Army Social Housing’.”

That was two years ago and he’s loving his job, and his life.

Before all this, Walter say his journey with the Lord began in a prison cell.

“This is going back about 30 years ago. I was going through some bad stuff in there. They had the Bible in the cells back then. I didn’t read it, but I took it with me to court. Then I got sentenced and went back to Waikeria,” he says.

“I was at rock bottom and I saw the bible on my desk so I thought I might as well have a read. I read the scripture and it says ‘don’t be surprised at the suffering you’re going through, but I suffer for you on the cross’ and I felt something happen to me.

“Next day I was looking around for any Christians and said hey something happened to me and they said ‘oh, you’ve been touched by the Lord’, and that’s when my life changed. I started seeing things in a different way and looking at myself. I got out of jail bro, started going to church.”

It hasn’t been a smooth or easy road.

“I ended up going back to jail again, but this time was different for me. I knew the Lord and I started doing things right in there. Going to church in jail and reading the Bible, having Bible studies with the other Christian brothers in there.

“But yeah, my journey with the Lord has been up and down, up and down, but I just hung in there. I knew I was doing stuff that I shouldn’t be doing, being a Christian, but the journey that I’ve been on since then until now, looking at where I am now, I have been so blessed.”

“I’m so thankful and I’m giving back, that’s why I do what I do.”

“Back in the day, I used to say I’ll never change, it’d take an army to change me, and what did God do? Send the Salvation Army. Little did I know the lord was always there for me.”

Now he does his best to spread the word of God and returns to the streets he used to live on. This time, with his guitar in hand and love in his heart.

“I go to Onehunga on Saturday mornings and do a couple of hours busking. All my songs are Christian ones, te reo Māori and te reo Pākehā. I just enjoy the worship eh, it’s not about the money. I love singing and I want to get God’s word out there, sharing through waiata.”

His musical background played a key role in the development of the Salvation Army haka and included a trip to London to perform at the Salvation Army’s 150^th celebrations in 2015.

That was back in his Epsom Lodge days.

“We put that haka together, four of us plus our kaiako Joe and Nan (Patea). Joe taught us and once we’d got it they videoed us and shared it with the rest of the Salvation Army.”

He’s hoping to see the haka performed at Congress in September.

In his mahi, Walter gets around the various social housing communities in Tāmaki Makaurau, working with whānau and providing a kōrero or karakia, always with his guitar and ready for a waiata.

He also helps out at other events where his te reo and tikanga skills are put to good use.

“If anyone needs a mihi whakatau, or anything Māori they ask me,” he says.

“I told them I’m not fluent, I’m still learning but I’ll do a whaikōrero or a waiata or karakia, kei te pai, but it’s always the same one, although I might add in a different tauparapara or a different waiata.

He’s also continuing his learning through the Salvation Army Chaplaincy programme and aims to keep doing what he’s doing, helping whānau and sharing God’s word.

“I love what I do, especially the worship, and being able to take my guitar around and play songs for my job, I praise God for that bro.

“And I love talking to people, whoever they are. Everybody’s got a good side of them, doesn’t matter what they look like or what they’ve been through or what they’ve done, they there’s always that good, even just a little bit, you just need to bring it out.”

Walter’s good at that.