Chance weekend leads to papal praise
When David and Bronwyn Lea attended a relationship building weekend in Palmerston North 38 years ago, they had no idea their involvement would be honoured by the Pope.
By then, the pair had risen through the ranks to become world co-ordinators for World-wide Marriage Encounter and were greeted by Pope Benedict at the Vatican in 2010.
‘‘He said, ‘I’m very encouraged by your achievements throughout the world’,’’ David Lea recalled. ‘‘He was well aware of what we were doing and wished us the best.’’
There’s a historic photo on the wall of the Lea home to prove it.
So how did that happen? David and Bronwyn met at St Anthony’s Primary School in Pahiatua when he was six and she was five, and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
Back in the late 1970s, they were both high flyers travelling on different railway lines that occasionally crossed. They were invited to spend time out and attend Marriage Encounter, founded 10 years earlier by Chuck Gallagher, a Catholic priest from New York, and two of his parishioners.
Gallagher saw the need for families to enrich their marriages and therefore their lives and ran weekend retreats for couples, priests and the religious community within the Catholic Church.
‘‘The intention was to put the world aside, take people back to their courting days and give them time to reflect on what it was like to fall in love,’’ David Lea said.
David and Bronwyn were quickly caught up in it. They became co-ordinators locally and nationally.
By 1995, they were coordinators for the Pacific and then came the call to lead the global programme. Between 2005 and 2010, they travelled the world encouraging individual countries to promote and develop it.
‘‘It changed our lives, especially during our visits to Africa where couples were impoverished, wives were subservient and men dominant,’’ David Lea said. ‘‘The women were there for the bedroom and the kitchen.’’
Yet the programme changed attitudes, broke down behaviours and often couples who arrived separately, so the wives could lug the suitcases and do the chores, left together holding hands.
You would think they had little time for anything else, but Bronwyn Lea is chief executive of Tararua College and David Lea was a Tararua district councillor for 33 years and deputy mayor for 12.
He owned Pahiatua Reality, before joining Property Brokers, and continues as a real estate trainer for them. He’s been a JP for 24 years, a marriage celebrant for 20, he’s a trustee for Eastern and Central Community Trust, a board member of the Regent on Broadway Trust and probably sleeps between 3 and 6am.
But there’s one more talent he’s known for. David Lea is probably the best character actor in the Manawatu and Tararua regions and beyond. He’s been Tevye in Fiddler On the Roof, Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Mr Bumble in Oliver, Max in The Sound Of Music and, this year, Old Deuteronomy in Cats, wearing a 25kg costume.