Born on the island of Matuku in the Lau group, Fiji, Tuilovoni trained as a teacher in Suva in the 1930s. After teaching at the Methodist Primary School on Bau, he decided to become a Methodist minister. From 1947 to 1950 he studied at Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey where he gained a Bachelor of Divinity. On his return to Fiji he was appointed Principal of the Bible School at Davuilevu and Director of the Young People's Department of the Methodist Church, a position he held until 1967. Between 1961 and 1963 he studied for a Master of Sacred Theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. In 1964 he was appointed first President of the newly created Fiji Methodist Conference. Upon the completion of his Presidential term in 1967 he was appointed Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, a position he held until 1972 when he was reappointed as President of the Methodist Conference. In 1978 he moved to Sydney to serve as Associate State Secretary for the Board of Missions in the New South Wales Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia. He ended his career doing parish work in Wellington, New South Wales. He died in Sydney in 1983.

The Tuilovini papers, which are written in a mixture of English and Fijian, were arranged by Tevita Baleiwaqa in 1987 into the following series:

Reel 1:

1. Miscellaneous correspondence, 1947-75
2. Correspondence re Ecumenism, 1961-68
3. Academic transcript, Drew University, NJ
4. Writings (roneoed and printed), 1948-63
5. Methodist Young People's Department, 1951-63
6. Correspondence and other papers re Wesley F. Pigeon and Inez Hames, 1946-50 and 1982-87

Reel 2:

7. Church and Unity in the South Pacific, STM Thesis, Union Theological Seminary, 1962
8. Typescript sermons, 1952-83 (bulk 1969-83)
9. Church music and hymns, 1960s-82 (bulk 1978-82)
10. Notebooks (2), 1971-72
11. Diary, 1975

Reel 3:

12. Very detailed diary, 1982 (in Fijian)
13. Correspondence and printed material re Setareki's time in Australia, 1979-83
14. Devotional material for Sydney house groups (roneoed and typescript), c.1980-82
15. Transcripts of oral history interviews about Tuilovoni conducted by Tevita Baleiwaqa, 1986
16. Setareki Akeai Tuilovoni and the Young People's Department of the Methodist Church in Fiji (1951-1967) by Tevita Baleiwaqa, Bachelor of Divininty Thesis, Pacific Theological College, 1987