Principal Chaplain Navy
Chaplain Wayne Toleafoa
Chaplain Wayne Toleafoa was educated at Mt Albert Grammar School and St Paul’s College, Auckland. Wayne graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in New Zealand, Australian and South Pacific History, before moving to Dunedin where he completed a Bachelor of Theology Degree at Otago University. Wayne continued his studies overseas in the United Kingdom, where he obtained his Master of Theology Degree at Oxford University.
Wayne has served in the New Zealand Police in Auckland and Dunedin and has spent time in the New Zealand Army as a Chaplain in both the Regular Force and Territorial Force. He has served in Presbyterian parishes in Kurow, North Otago and Mt Albert, Auckland. Highlights of Wayne’s ministry include helping to build a new church at Omarama, North Otago; assisting in the planning and relocation of the Trentham Camp Memorial Chapel from Onga Onga to it’s present site at Trentham Army Camp; deployments to the Solomon Islands in 2001 and to East Timor in 2002; and periods spent at sea on Royal New Zealand Frigates and the last Leander HMNZS CANTERBURY.
Wayne joined the Royal New Zealand Navy in 2001 and was appointed Principal Chaplain Navy in 2005. Wayne’s interests include sports, reading, music of all kinds, the natural world, learning about other cultures, people and spirituality. Wayne is married to Jenny Malcolm.
In February 2007, Wayne resigned from the Presbyterian Church and became an Anglican minister and ordained priest in April 2007.