The Waitaha Family
As part of our New Zealand trip in May 2017, 32 authors, speakers, coaches, and healers lived for three days and four nights with a Waitaha community. The Waitaha are a peace-loving, pre-Maori indigenous community, arriving on the North Island of New Zealand hundreds of years before the Maori. The warlike Maori arrived about 800 years ago, almost exterminating the Waitaha. The Waitaha protected their wisdom within an esoteric community to keep it from being lost. Now, it is time for their wisdom to resurface. They have invited our group of authors, speakers, coaches, and healer to help them spread their wisdom throughout the world. There are no rules except one: Do no harm. One of our projects was bringing clean water to North Island rural communities like the Waitaha. Un-fenced livestock pollute fresh water streams with their excrement, contaminating the entire water supply. We raised money for Sawyer water filters and donated the filters to the Waitaha, after training them in their use. One filter supplies 100 people with clean drinking water for ten years. The Waitaha called themselves family and immediately welcomed us in.