A couple of weeks ago an article in this newspaper concerning ‘fa’amati’ caught my attention. In particular, the comments by the Chairman of the Joint Council of Christian Churches (NCC), Reverend Aisoli Iuli, who expressed concern that some congregation, as their fa’amati, are buying expensive vehicles like Toyota Land Cruisers for their faife’au. And they’ve set a target of how much each congregant family donates. To me, donation, it is not. It’s extortion.

I’m certain that Rev. Iuli is not the only person who is concerned about this worrying trend. At a time when our people are really struggling with the high cost of living, our churches practicing fa’amati are piling more pressure on them to give away what meagre resources they have so the faife’au and his family can continue living a life of comfort. How is this ‘fa’amati’ practice Christian? And what are our so-called Christian Churches doing to stem it?

I’ve been grappling with the term ‘fa’amati’ for some time, how it seeped into our language, where did it come from and how do people feel about it. It is a word that never existed when I was growing up. Could it be that it’s called ‘fa’amati because the practice takes place during the month of March. Or is it an abridged term for the word ‘fa’amativa’ to hide its real meaning, which is ‘to cause or make people poorer than they already are’. Or alternatively, ‘to strip one of his/her possessions, so they end up living in dire poverty.’ (My definitions.)

Mention the word fa’amati and most people will roll their eyes and hyperventilate. Says one friend, “it’s not something you look forward to like Christmas.” True. I’ve yet to come across one person who does not dread the thought of it. Although they don’t explicitly state it, deep inside, they know it is for the faife’au’s benefit. The faife’aus who are supposed to be Christ’s foot soldier - his missionaries – are behaving more like mercenaries. Why are they not telling their congregation to desist from spending extravagantly on the fa’amati except for things necessary to beautify the church as Rev. Iuli said.  And if he wants to own a vehicle, let alone an expensive one, go and buy one with his own money or ask his grown children whom I sure have benefitted hugely form the generosity of his congregation, to buy him one.

Sadly, the impact of this fa’amati practice is felt far beyond our shores. Our families in New Zealand and Australia who are employed in lowly paid jobs must fork out money for their families here’s fa’amati. They feel its impact most as many live from pay cheque to pay cheque and have no savings. That means they have to resort to borrowing from loan sharks at interest rates of 22% - 24% that chews up their future earnings and causes their children to go without food, school lunch or shoes.

I grew up in an era when faife’au (EFKS and Methodist) and fesoasoani (catechist) do a lot more than driving around in flash cars or playing golf all day and imbibing Taula or Vailima afterwards. They had their own banana and taro crops on land provided by their congregations. As there were no formal schooling at village level, these servants of God ran classes most mornings and evenings to teach their congregants’ children the three Rs (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) and read the Bible. On Fridays and Saturdays, armed with an umbrella, they would walk barefooted for miles, mainly tracks in some villages, to visit their congregation’s families (asiasi). They were truly Christ’s servants.

Let’s pretend that Jesus is here in person today, and he’s a faife’au? What will he say about the fa’amati?

“My dear brothers and sisters, I am only my Father’s servant, the faife’au, not your master. I was born poor, worked with the poor and the sick in their humble surroundings for the glory of my Father. I am not on this earth to enrich myself materialistically, invest in Bitcoins or play golf all week. I am here to show you the way to my Father’s Kingdom. I say to you, every person shall eat, drink, and enjoy the fruits of their labour, and not that of their congregants. For the fa’amati, I do not want a Toyota Land Cruiser, Ford Ranger, or Grand Cherokee. Give to the rich what belongs to the rich and just give me a mule so I can go up to my ma’umaga (taro crops) and carve me a canoe so I can go fishing to feed my family like you all do, for that is the will of my Father.”

Living and working in Porirua, Wellington, in the late 1980s when New Zealand was experiencing a recession, and when unemployment was very high, the late Father Ioane Vito told his Samoan congregation to stop the (Sunday) envelopes (alofa), to make sure that their children had enough to eat and not miss school because of lack of money for train and bus fares. He saw families being devastated by poverty and straight away acted to lighten their burden. Do our reverends here ever stop and look at members of their congregation living in destitute situations and say, “Let’s stop this fa’amati craziness!” Rev. Iuli is spot on when he says, “there are churches that he has noticed are getting attached to this new culture of allowing families to overspend for fa’amati preparation.” The truth is that they’re not only ‘getting attached’ to it. By their very silence, they are tacitly encouraging even normalizing it.

In November 2023, the New Zealand Herald ran a story on Kiwis moving to Australia including some Samoans. One such Samoa was Ms Tuleitu who “jumped across the Tasman … looking for a “fresh start” and a better life for her daughter. Her parents earlier migrated to New Zealand from Samoa and struggled. They took on debt and gave so much money to the church they sometimes barely had enough left over for food,” Tuleitu says. Yet in Sydney, Tuleitu’s young family have thrived. She works as an administrator while her husband is a carpenter, and they now hope to buy a home very soon.

It’s a story that any Samoan whose life has been negatively affected by fa’amati and other financial demands by their church can relate to.

Every Christian should commend the Rev. Aisoli Iuli and the National Council of Churches for raising this issue and taking the lead in condemning the direction this fa’amati practice has evolved to. Now it’s up to our Christian Churches practicing it to act.