Skipper-Chaplain In Canada

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31769, 28 August 1968, Page 12

Skipper-Chaplain In Canada

The Rev. R. M. Boas, a former skipper-chaplain of a mission boat in Canada for 10 years and vicar of Labasa, Fiji, since 1960, will spend a week in Christchurch from September 2 to 9 during a Lhree-week deputation tour of New Zealand arranged by the New Zealand Anglican Board of Missions. Mr Boas, who has been In New Zealand since August 16, has already visited several parishes in the dioceses of Auckland and Waiapu, and he will spend this week in the dioceses of Wellington and Nelson.

On September 3 he will visit the parish of Fendalton. On September 4 he will address a men’s luncheon at St John’s Church, Latimer Square, and in the afternoon he will attend a meeting of the Mothers’ Union at St Chad’s Church, Linwood. In the evening he will speak at the annual meeting of the friends and supporters of the Diocese of Polynesia in the chapter room of Christchurch Cathedral.

Mr Boas will go to Rangiora on September 5. On September 8 he will preach at services to be held at St Faith’s, New Brighton, All Saints’, Burwood, and St Chad’s,'Linwood. He will leave for Fiji the next day. After graduating from Manitoba University and St

John’s College, Winnipeg, Mr Boas was ordained in the diocese of Rupertsland in 1935 and for 22 years he served in the church in western Canada. From 1944 to 1954 he was skipper - chaplain in the Rendezvous, one of the Columbia coast mission boats, which covered an area of 500 miles of coastline between Vancouver Island and the mainland. This was a medical mission among loggers and fishermen with 25 ports of call. For five years Mr Boas had his wife and two daughters as crew.

In 1955 Mr Boas went to Los Angeles to train for pastoral clinic work. He later became headmaster of a church school before moving into a busy Los Angeles parish where he was concerned with alcoholic and compulsive problems. The link between the dioceses of Los Angeles and Polynesia caused Mr Boas to volunteer for work in the diocese of Polynesia in 1965 and since 1966 he has been in charge of the work of the church in Labasa 'on the island of Vanua Levu, Fiji, ministering to a predominately Indian congregation.