It is painted a bright shade of pink so that people will notice it and it has just been given a new lease on life - meet the renovated David Hogg Hostel in Whakatane.

The 60-year-old hostel was in a state of neglected disrepair three years ago when Te Aka Puaho handed it over to the Takatutahi parish and into the good care of the Reverend Ra Koia and his wife Patsy Kingi-Koia, a fulltime amorangi minister in the church. "Some people said 'is that the primer?'", says Patsy about her choice of colour for the building "but we wanted it to be bright, to make it stand out, and even the painter in the end said, "you know, I think you're right, it looks good." Three years ago though, she says, the building was clad in slowly rotting weatherboards, the roof let the rain through and "the plumbing was down the gurgler" with the taps all running continuously. The hostel was originally built for teenage Maori boys from the countryside to live in while they came to secondary school in Whakatane. It was paid for by the Rev. Harry Hogg with money left as a legacy from his younger brother David, after his early and unexpected death. The hostel took David Hogg's name and came under the control of the Presbyterian Maori Mission.

When the hostel was closed down in the 1990s its care passed over to the local school, but it was left largely idle and began to fall apart, until the local church took over, borrowed $50,000 from the Presbyterian Saving and Development Society, an amount matched dollar for dollar by Te Aka Puaho, and work on fixing the buildings began.

Now it is home to Sunday worship, prayer groups, a craft workshop, a small market garden. It is regularly used by the kickboxing club, schools from around the district have held sleepovers in it, a hula hula group from Hawaii stayed there and CYPS is looking at using it as a venue for running parenting courses. "We are getting a good feedback from the community with what we have done," says Ra, "We are centred more on the community now, we are still a Presbyterian church but we want people to feel safe to come to this place, to worship, to sit down and feel at home and welcome."

The Church uses the image of the River of Life, from Ezekiel, 'flowing out into the community' and Patsy, who graduated as an amorangi minister in April (amorangi are unpaid ministers who now take almost all the services in the area), says that is a strong focus for her, to get out amongst the unsaved.

Patsy says she would like to see more resources provided to amorangi ministers. Alongside the hostel this year the Church received a $209,000 grant from the Council for World Mission to create and fund enterprises which give employment in the area and which earn money for the church, with the aim of making it more self-sufficient. The craft workshop inside the hostel where two women work making mosaics and pottery was the first project funded by the grant. Outside a large vegetable garden is being carefully tended to before the midday sun becomes too hot - the potatoes, tomatoes, kumara, sweetcorn and various other vegetables will be sold alongside the crafts. While up the road at Tane Atua, in a newly painted room at the back of St Andrew's Church more crafts are being created, weaving, sewing and an explosion of colourful plastic flower arrangements.