DEAN SALTHOUSE
Part 1 of 2 parts
“My Mum a devout Christian, read Bible stories to me every night. As I grew older, I progressed to youth group, but despite all this, I never felt a touch from the Lord. I’d heard ‘the bow your head and we will pray for you when you feel a touch from the Lord’, but that never came for me.
“In my teenage years I got busy with life and sports, although still went to a youth group. When I started earning money, bought a car and became more mobile, I drifted away from church. The foundation had been laid but I never felt a personal touch from God.
“I married a woman who had been to church and said she believed. Later I discovered she was a very prophetic woman. After having kids, we looked for a good school for them to attend and found a private Christian one with a great reputation. To be accepted there, we had to show we were regularly attending church, so we found somewhere close to where we lived. I was surprised it was far removed from quiet church service I had grown up with, which was exactly like the Mr. Bean skit with hallelujah hymns. Mum would dress me up to the nines in a tie and pair of knitted woolen pants that made me itch. I had to pretend to be this perfect little Chistian boy. The head stuff was there but not the heart stuff.
“We loved the rock band worship. I watched when others went up the front and fell down in the Spirit, but it never happened to me. I wondered if there was something wrong with me.
“One day a visiting preacher came and was preaching up a storm. It really touched me and when he did an altar call, I went up the front. In that moment the Holy Spirit came on me and my forehead started to shake, I wept, and snot came out my nose. I had my eyes shut although they were flapping like birds’ wings. The heat came over me and the Pastor kept saying something is happening here. I denied it and tried to fight back which was ridiculous because for 6 months I had been asking the Lord to show me He was real. This was crazy.
“After that little encounter I thought wow, I need to take this more seriously. We were only going there to get the piece of paper signed and our kids did get into an amazing school.
“During this process we met some great people and both my wife, and I became Christians. At an evangelist conference in Nelson we witnessed people prophesying, waving their arms round, falling out of their seats to the floor, slayed in the spirit, manifesting and pinned to the wall. As new Christians, we had never witnessed anything so amazing before.
“ Our eyes were opened to Pentecostal teaching how to function in the giftings, deliverance and prophesying. We planted a church in our home with other on fire believers.
“We went to every training and teaching on offer. We were so hungry for God and chased after everything we believed He had for us. We were super committed, and I was especially drawn to Smith Wigglesworth and inspired by the way God used him in healing.
“God called us to Australia to support a new church plant. It was a crushing season, when we realised we could not work with the leadership, but God used the time for us to bond with some incredible people and learn more about ministry.
“We learnt about the Sozo a powerful forgiveness ministry and I found stuff broken off me that was inhibiting my walk with the Lord. I’d done all this training on deliverance but there was so much from my past that had not moved.
“There was a childhood thing that happened with the next-door neighbour. She sat me down and told me my mother was a nuttier, breaking into his house and writing stuff in her diary and just wacko. I went into the woods and cried and thought I couldn’t go home. Although I had not remembered this, it was revealed and lifted off me. I had suppressed this memory and immediately felt a lightness in my spirit.
“From that week on I felt I could ask the Holy Spirit anything and over a period of time, as the Holy Spirit has revealed things, and through His power I have been freed. The Bible talks about how unforgiveness restricts our giftings and it was those legal attachments shutting me down from hearing from the Lord. The Lord would show me things before they would happen.
“I would call myself a spiritual, prophetic, gifting prophet type and can see things before they happen. It has guided me through my whole life, and I can attribute my success in business to His leading and guiding. I got 4 subjects in school cert so don’t have the ability to do what I’ve done in my own strength and have lived a very blessed life in His leadership.
“When we returned to New Zealand we lay in bed one morning asking God what He wanted us to do next. We felt Him prompting us to open our house again and create a place where people could come, connect and share life.
“We often went to a little bakery ‘Little and Friday” and the idea came to us; why not ‘Little and Tuesday’. Then as confirmation, we walked up the road and bumped into someone who said, ‘you should open up your home to a group.” When we arrived home the couple staying with us said ‘we think you should open up your house to a group’.
“We had a big place with lots of parking and 10-12 met every Tuesday. Very Holy Spirit led meetings where we worshipped, soaked in the Lord and shared honestly with one another. So, when covid lockdowns came to New Zealand those little gatherings became an even more important place for people to connect, encourage one another and keep their eyes focused on the Lord.
“We had one older guy who wrote poetry and every Tuesday he would read what God had downloaded to him early that same morning. It was always exactly what we had been praying and talking about. We prayed for so many and so much and witnessed incredible encounters.
“It’s great to have head knowledge but that can often be hard to change. When people connect with the Lord themselves, something deeper begins to happen. They can communicate and sit in the presence of God and allow the Holy Spirit to bring change.
“Alongside the Tuesday group we held early morning prayer meetings which I loved. People came with real business needs. Praying for business deals, employment, favour in business proposals, strategies and breakthrough. The testimonies from those prayer meetings were so effective, we eventually had to split the group in half. Daily we had breakthroughs and for years we continued with this powerful ministry.
“The Lord asked me at one point ‘if I blessed you what would it look like?’ I thought about my answer. If he doubled our boat sales then my wife would be so busy doing office work, we wouldn’t have time for ministry, and I would be running round after more people, and we would probably need to move from our farm. Within 6 months the doors opened for our boat building to be shipped off to Taiwan and sold to the world. Now when one of our boats sells, I don’t need to do anything, I get paid a royalty in US dollars. There have been some tough times, but I have also seen God open doors to abundance. God found a way to pour money into our account so we could expand the ministry and the work He had called us to.
“For the past 6 years we have been working at Orama Christian Camp on Great Barrier Island. I volunteered there for the first 3 years and took over repainting and restoring the property. We have almost completed renovations and refurbishing after bringing new life back to the buildings and grounds.
“Orama sits in a beautiful remote part of Great Barrier Island surrounded by native bush and a vast expanse of beach stretching out in front of the camp. It has been a significant season for us, particularly as the camp has gone through a period of transition, moving from the previous secular organisation Hillary Outdoors to a new organisation.
“It was during this season at Orama, God began to speak to us about something much bigger than the camp itself.
God gave us a vision for Aotearoa New Zealand.
“Before there is a significant move of God across our nation there needs to be genuine unity, reconciliation and forgiveness between Māori and Pakeha.
“Before He could move powerfully in Aotearoa, Māori and Pakeha would need to come into genuine unity – a place of reconciliation, forgiveness and restored relationship”.
Part 2 of 2 parts
The word Orama means “vision,” a fitting name for a place deeply rooted in the soil of Aotea, Great Barrier Island. Long before this became a sanctuary for visitors today, it was a sacred landscape shaped by generations of Māori ancestors, from the early Polynesian way finders to the people of Ngāti Rehua. To stand in a place with such a profound history of navigation, shelter, and community is to recognise the deep spiritual significance of this island.
“A few of us shared a heart to establish a retreat and began praying about finding land somewhere in New Zealand where this vision could become a reality. When God first brought Orama to our attention, and then physically took us there, we sensed that this was not simply a place we had discovered, it was somewhere He was leading us.
“At that time, Orama was about to be handed over to a secular organisation, and we felt our role was simply to go and help the guys who were there, caring for the property after it had been mothballed during covid. We didn’t know what God was doing or where it would lead, but we were willing to go and serve.
“Six years later (almost 10%) of my life has been given to bringing it up to where it is today. We are waiting to see what path it will now take and feel God has not fully revealed His plan for this place. It’s in His hands.
“There has always been a strong Māori presence on the island, and at one gathering held at Orama, I witnessed something deeply significant. Many people experienced healing from wounds connected to the history of Pākehā control and the Church. Those leading the meetings, as well as myself, came away with a strong sense that something needed to happen there—a place where Māori could be honoured, heard, and welcomed, and where healing and reconciliation could begin to take root.
“My own family history reaches back to He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni — the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand, signed at Waitangi on 28 October 1835. The second signature was that of Ururoa, a Rangatira from Whangaroa, who is often described as being closely associated with Hongi Hika.
“To know I am a descendant of this whakapapa is something I sometimes find overwhelming. It is more than simply knowing where my family came from; I feel a deep spiritual connection to this history and to the land and people who have gone before. There are moments when I am simply overcome by the weight and significance of what that means.
“I have spoken to Tawhiri Littlejohn (Christian Pastor and revivalist associated with Kaiwaka Revival Church and identified as Ngati Whatua Te Uri-o-Hau.and invited him to come to Orama. He is recorded as saying at New Zealand Council of Prophets in Feb 2022 “many people are declaring revival, but they don’t know the ways in which revival comes”. He describes God showing a ‘wellspring of hope’ where the church would rise up and bring both practical and spiritual solutions to people struggling. He says, “this is where the harvest is going to come from”.
“The vision was for a day of celebration similar to Waitangi Day but centred on the descendants of Aotea. Waitangi Day celebrates an important part of the story of Māori, Pakeha and Christianity coming together. I believe there should be also a day to celebrate the descendants who arrived on Aotea. They arrived here, very likely on this beach, and from there travelled into Aotearoa, the name for the whole of New Zealand.
“I wonder if this pre-dates some of the bad stuff that happened later. They would have arrived in their waka and perhaps at the beginning there was harmony.
“Just as Sozo goes back to your childhood to find those first attachments and places where things began, I wonder if there is a massive spiritual significance for our nation in going back to where it all started. If this is where the first things began to happen, could this be a place where we go back, forgive each other, and where the Church also asks for forgiveness?
“Orama is a thin place where the natural world and the spiritual world seem to come closer together, and where you can really hear things. I wonder if this could be where we begin to unpack some of the hatred and bitterness that have created spiritual strongholds over our nation.
“It could be a place where Aotearoa gets ‘sozoed’ – where those things are brought into the light, forgiveness takes place, and people are set free. Then, that stuff has to leave because we forgive each other, and we can move on in unity. Its powerful!
“I can see a welcoming committee standing on the front lawn at Orama with the whole bay filled with waka bows, representing all the different hapu and tribes. In my vision people would come, one by one, and something very simple would take place. A simple act of forgiveness.
“If Orama is there for healing, it is incredibly simple. I could see something like the traditional Māori powhiri, the welcoming ceremony, bringing everyone together. The different tribes and hapu would come together and there would be an opportunity to forgive one another and lay down what had happened in the past.
“I believe this is not about Orama itself, but about our nation – a day of celebration for Maoridom, rather than a focus on the worst things they can think of. A celebration would bring back a sense of nationalism and pride in who they are and where they have come from. It would no longer be about us and them. It would be about unity and healing and being able to move forward together.
“I can see how Waitangi Day can remind people of the divide and how it happened. But perhaps there could also be a day that reminds us of where we came from, celebrates Māori identity and heritage, and brings people together.
“I believe (and many others also) that in this atmosphere of forgiveness, healing and unity that God will move. When we lay down the things that have divided us and come together as one, it creates an atmosphere where God can move in Aotearoa and bring our nation together.
“At the back of shop in Russell, there is an art space filled with wonderful artwork of old sailing ships and other historic things. It was connected to Ngāpuhi (largest Māori iwi in Northland)
“As I stood there, I was overcome by the Holy Spirit. The lady behind the counter looked at me and said ‘you’re a Christian and you’re a seer. You are going to bring healing between the old and the new, the past and the present’.
“On another occasion, I went to a pa site in Kerikeri. I had put my shoulder out and asked the Lord why healing hadn’t come as it usually did. I was driving to this osteo I had never met, and when I arrived the osteo told me ‘there is a chief on your shoulder who wants to speak to you. Have you been given a pounamu stone? ‘No’ I said. Well, someone is going to give you a pounamu stone.
“Two months later Captain Hana Seddon a prominent leader, social worker and officer within the Salvation Army with strong connections to Ngāpuhi and Māori ministry, presented me with a manly pounamu stone. The stone was a traditional cabinet making tool used in boatbuilding in Maoridom. I had done my own apprenticeship in cabinet making as a boat builder. To me the connection was extraordinary. Here was a symbol of Māori craftsmanship and boat building being placed in my hands, while my own background was in cabinet making and boat building. God moves in so many ways.
“Looking back, I realise God was always there. I just never understood it was Him pulling the strings all along.
“I’m a seer. I sense in the spirit, and I’m prophetic. If God says it, I test it and once I know it’s from Him, I am ready to move.
“I believe Māori were seers in the spirit but didn’t have the gospel. Pakeha were the doers. We were meant to be a partnership so we could work together. Pakeha would make stuff happen and Māori had the ability to know what needed to happen. Those two were designed to work in partnership.
“I am the protégée of both. I have the seer in me and now I have Christ in me. It is in my blood, and I have the righteousness that comes through faith.
“In Article 3 of He Whakaputanga, the Rangatira committed themselves to meeting together so that justice would be done, peace would prevail, and wrongdoing would cease. They invited other tribes to set aside their animosities and consider the welfare of their common land by joining the Confederation.
“Perhaps the vision is calling us back to that place. Māori and Pakeha walking together in forgiveness, unity and faith, so God can move powerfully in Aotearoa and bring healing, blessings and hope to our nation”.
Psalm 133:3 “For there the Lord bestows HIS blessing”.