Saturday, March 29, 2008

Driver

Reminiscing about Dr Money invariably turns to the fecundity of his humour - rich, loud, always just under the surface ready to break out. And he was a great lover of practical jokes. This in from Phillipa:

"Herb loved life and loved outings. His driving ability was marginal in 1986 but he was still driving in 1993. Herb had befriended an old blind lady by the name of Mavis, known to us as "Cousin Mavis." Herbert and Cousin Mavis were on an outing and in a car park somewhere when Herb accidentally reversed into another car and did considerable damage. Before the police arrived Herb suggested to Mavis that they swap seats so that when the police arrived they would question Mavis....the blind lady!"

Biography

Extract from the 1966 New Zealand Encyclopedia.

PERU
Money, Herbert

(1899– ).

Field director of the New Zealand Fellowship of Peruvian Bible Schools.

Herbert Money was born at Hughenden, Queensland, on 29 November 1899. He was educated at Christchurch Technical College and graduated M.A. from Canterbury Univ. College. He holds diplomas in education and social science and, in 1931, gained his Ph.D. in philosophy from San Marcos, Peru.

Money taught at Christchurch Technical College from 1923 to 1927 and at the Anglo-Peruvian College at Lima from 1927 to 1940. Since 1934 he has been lecturer at the Peruvian Bible Institute and, from 1940, has been secretary of the National Evangelical Council of Peru. In 1948 he became field director of the New Zealand Fellowship of Peruvian Bible Schools. He founded the first Bible Institute for Jungle Indians. Dr Money has written Procedimentos Parlamentarios — Peruvian Laws of Special Interest to the Evangelical Community.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Introducing Dr Herbert Money

Sometimes people touch and shape your life when you least expect it. And continue doing so even after they have gone. Dr “Herb” Money was one of those, pictured here in his MA gown in the 1920s. It is hard to know where to start with Dr Money. At the beginning probably makes most sense. Well, at my beginning that is. I met him in the early 1970s when he was 70 something. He was born in 1899. But there was nothing 70 about his disposition. He had the spirit of a teenage boy about him. The inquisitive. The “game for anything” approach to life. He was keen painter and I remember him sitting down with me at Akaroa one summer afternoon and walking through some oil painting techniques with me as he looked over my shoulder at my childish attempts. Then he pulled out his favourite sketching device - a square edged carpenters pencil - and rapidly sketched in the scene for his own later reference. He loved coming rabbit shooting with us although he never had a subtle approach to the hunt, stomping around and talking as we went. No one minded.

He was a big man. Over six feet with a shaggy mop of white hair. And a booming irrepressible laugh to match. When we moved to Australia and he would visit - often but never often enough - from his hometown of Christchurch he would slip into the family routine as if he was always there. We lived in Melbourne in those days and he would invariably come to the house via the markets or ensure he had visited there as soon as possible after arriving. He loved grapes and olives. Especially olives, and he would park his huge frame at the kitchen table from where he could immerse himself in the “to and fro” of family conversation and fuel himself from a tin of olives at the same time. They were always bought in bulk. A $5 case of grapes from Mildura was especially a treat.

Even as teenagers we were in awe of his forty years pioneering work from the 1920s through to the 1960s as a missionary in Peru where he made himself a name for his work in education - both building and reform. And for which the Peruvian government awarded him the highest education accolade they could - the Palmas Magisteriales. His intellect was always sharp and his memory and story telling of and from those days were something enthralling and bordering on the mythical. I count myself fortunate to have been able to listen to any number of lectures which he gave and even as an older man he was sharp and forthright and lucid and commanding.

He described himself as a “bad Baptist” in part because he held to some doctines loved of Calvin. Also in part because he liked the occasional drop of wine. Which he made himself in the garden shed. The code word cue to follow him and have a quiet tipple was anything that referred to “the Lord’s tender mercies”. After Nette (his wife) had finished serving up scones and tea it was “come on boys, let me show you some of the Lord’s tender mercies” and off he would stomp down to the shed. If it engaged in photosynthesis in some remote way Herb found a way of turning it into a wine.

I could ramble on in reflection but I won’t. He was large in my life as a young man and seems to loom larger and larger as the years slip by. He was an Everyman yet never was so at the expense of his faith and he lived a long, fruitful, modest and influential life. It sure is something to aspire to and a model I could do no better to emulate.

If you knew Dr Money in any way I would love you to introduce yourself and perhaps share some of your own insights into the character and person who is “Herb.”