A New Zealand historian and poet named Keith Sinclair, lamented the dismissal of Thomas Kandall, one of the first nineteenth century missionaries who tried to correlate Christianity and Maori belief, and wrote we “lost our birthright forever”. By birthright he meant the chance for Maori and Pakeha to learn from each other and to create a new and unique New Zealand culture. James K. Baxter was conscious of this lost birthright and tried to redeem it through his life and work. He searched for “the undestroyed Fantastic Eden” through his life and eventually tried to create one as a commune at Jerusalem along the Wanganui River. This paper aims first to trace the development of his thoughts and how he put them into practice, and then to provide a new reading of ‘The Maori Jesus’.

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This paper aims to analyze the coordination role of providing social support services to individuals and families with hardship under COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand; where strict lockdowns were implemented in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic. Three analysis were made; the characteristics and changes in the social security and social welfare system before 2020, measures and methods of providing social support services during the pandemic, and the function of coordination and connecting services based on the needs of individuals and families provided by various social service providers. The third analysis was conducted through interview survey of Coordinators of Heartland Services and Community Connection Services providers, and the Manager for Community Connection Service of Ministry of Social Development.

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