Graham Batson

Many of you will be familiar with the name “Graham Batson”, and possibly even the man. He was an incredible man, with an incredible faith who did an incredible work for God.

Graham Batson was born 13 July 1946 and passed into the arms of his loving Lord and Saviour, Ihu Karaiti, on the morning of 21 March 2022. Seventy-five years he lived, and almost fifty of those with his wonderful God given wife, Evelyn. For forty-four of those years, they worked in service together for Māori Postal Aotearoa (formerly Māori Postal Sunday School).

Graham and Evelyn Batson joined Māori Postal Aotearoa in 1976. Graham had worked as a linotype operator for the Manawatu Standard for ten years, followed by employment in various other firms including two years with the Gospel Publishing House.

He was also involved with various Christian ministries including open air preaching, beach missions, speaking in churches, literature distribution and Māori ministries.

Graham and Evelyn were approached in 1975 by Fred Fox (the then Superintendent of Māori Postal Sunday School) concerning becoming involved with the ministry. After much prayer and seeking God’s guidance, Graham and Evelyn moved with their two daughters to Whanganui in 1976.

In 1979 Graham became editor of the Tupu Whakarangi magazine, and in 1982, following Fred Fox’s retirement, Graham was appointed as Superintendent. At that time MPA had 7500 tamariki receiving lessons monthly. There were also 50+ branch leaders around Aotearoa who would deliver those lessons to the tamariki and minister to the families.

In all the years of Graham’s leadership and service, the work has continued to expand. Not long after Graham became Superintendent, he decided to trial a new resource – bilingual text posters. These consisted of a Bible verse in Māori, with an English translation and have become increasingly popular with almost 20,000 being distributed during 2021.

1990 saw the introduction of the calendar as a Christian tool for outreach. Printing just 5000 copies the first year, followed by 8000 copies in 1991, then 15,000 copies in 1992 Graham realised the huge impact this resource was having in terms of getting the gospel into homes. As requests for the calendar grew, Graham found it no longer cost or time effective to continue to print inhouse so made the decision to outsource the calendar. Last year we had printed and distributed 33,000 maramataka.

During the late 90s, Graham realised there was a need for people who had completed the series of lessons to continue to be discipled, and he began to put together the Tupu Whakaora Studies. These are based on his own personal studies.

Graham took every need to the Lord in prayer, trusting the Lord so that every Bible lesson, every publication, etc was able to be provided free throughout the country. That is incredible, exemplary faith.

In Psalm 84 we read of a psalmist looking to go to worship at the festival week in Jerusalem, or Zion as he calls it. He is contemplating a long arduous journey, and he says:

“Ka haere atu rātou i te kaha ki te kaha; ka kitea rātou ki te aroaro o te Atua i Hiona.”

Ngā Waiata 84:7

“How blessed is the man who’s strength is in you and whose heart are the highways to Zion. Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength and everyone of them appears before God at Zion.” vs 5-7

This has been Graham and Evelyn’s life together. They have served in oneness, for one purpose. They have been on the road to Zion. As Graham has written lessons, every lesson that has been sent is like digging a spring on that arduous journey. He digs a spring so he can supply and feed his own whānau, but not only that he leaves the spring so people who are following the same path now have a spring to drink from.

Graham has for forty-four years, been digging life giving springs. These springs fed people in prisons, people in the back blocks of Aotearoa, people all over our country, and people have stepped onto the highways to Zion because they received the gospel that was preached.

This was Graham’s ministry, his mission and his heart.