KERRY M. KIRSPEL
The Rev. Sione Tu’uta’s journey to the Lord took him from his South Pacific island country of Tonga to Bossier City. And like that of Jonah, it was a journey he initially did not want to take.
Tu’uta joined First United Methodist Church in Bossier City as associate pastor in July, his latest step in his journey serving God.
“Tonga,” he said, “is the largest Methodist nation in the world. More than half of the country are Methodist. Tonga is about 93 percent Christian.
“And Tonga is a monarchy system. The king and the royalties are Methodist people. As a matter of fact, the king is a lay preacher in the Methodist Church.”
Tonga is a very conservative culture. “You cannot talk about government without the church,” he said. No separation of church and state. “It won’t work in the system in Tonga. When you talk about politics, you’re talking about church.” In fact, in most Tongan villages, the church is located in the center of the village. “It kind of symbolizes, this is the center of our life.”
Tu’uta, the oldest of five children, said in Tonga everything is passed down through the family beginning with the oldest.
Tu’uta said his father, who is a retired Methodist minister, told him one day that when he and his mother married, they prayed to God to be blessed with children. If God did so, they would give their firstborn back to God as their offering to the ministry.
“Since then,” he said, “I tried to negotiate my way out of it. I didn’t want to do ministry. The reason is, I know church people, I’ve seen church people. Church people can be mean and cruel. And so I didn’t want to have anything to do with church.”
Tu’uta attended an all-boys’ boarding school, where he taught and played rugby. “The year that I played, we won the championship.” In fact, his team won the championship more than once.
As a prize for winning, the team won a trip to Taiwan by way of Hawaii. “It was my first exposure to a world much larger than the island of Tonga.”
That eventually led to Tu’uta playing for the national rugby team. “When you play for the national team, you are in the elite,” he said. “It’s like the dream team for basketball.”
He said he was in training to go on tour with the team to play in Europe. About this time, a cousin, who was a Methodist pastor for a Tongan church in Compton, Calif., asked Tu’uta to come and help him in his church. He told his cousin he would help.
Tu’uta found himself at a crossroads. “Coming to United States was an avenue of getting away,” he said. He was amazed at the size of the United States. “I was still in island mode,” he said. “I thought the United States is so big, God won’t find me.”
Playing rugby in Europe or helping his cousin in America. Tu’uta said to himself whichever opportunity came first, that’s the path he would take. “It’s a competition between God, the church, and the government of Tonga,” he said, “and you cannot compete with God.
“So the stuff with the church came back first. So instead of going to Europe, I came to the United States.”
So Tu’uta came to America to get an education. And then the Rodney King crisis happened. King was a an African-American man who was the victim of police brutality, sparking riots in Los Angeles.
“I was so naïve. I was shocked that humanity was still living in that place. I’ve never seen such a thing. In the early days of watching these displays of violence against one another, I thought it was a movie,” he said.
He also learned that the church was paying for his education in America, something he did not like because to him it meant that he owed the church something. But his father had once told him, you will never be able to pay back the church for what it has done.
He applied for and obtained a football scholarship. From there he wound up in seminary at SMU in Dallas. “God caught up with me,” he said.
Tu’uta was looking for an internship in Louisiana, where his girlfriend, now his wife, lived, and came to Grace Community Church in Shreveport, where he served for 11 years.
He spent the last 10 years in New Orleans before receiving his current position as associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Bossier City, which took place during the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He is settling into his new job quite well. “It’s been good to be back here,” he said. “I look at Shreveport-Bossier as my home. I do ministry because I love people. … It’s fun. It’s been an interesting journey to be a part of this culture.”
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE October 2 ISSUE OF FOCUS SB - THE INQUISITOR.