New Zealand Hospitality

Hospitality enjoys a rightful place among the great spiritual gifts. In my estimation it is both underrated and lacking in American culture at large. I have many times been reminded of the importance of this gift, but in the last few days have had occasion once more to reflect on its richness and appreciate its value.
Before leaving the South Island we spent two nights in the home of a gentleman I met while in class in Dunedin. He and another class member from Christchurch, upon hearing me say that we had decided to give Christchurch a miss (since it is, after all, the third largest city in New Zealand), said to me, "You can’t skip Christchurch!" Then this one followed it up by saying, "You can stay with us."
This is the first part of the gift of hospitality, and perhaps the most profound. Hospitality begins with making room for someone else. Before you can invite someone into your world or home, you have to make room (in your house, your schedule, or your ego) for someone else to enter. Some Jewish rabbis have said that for God the act of creation was fundamentally an act of hospitality: before creation was, God filled everything; thus, in order to create, God made room for creation in an act of hospitality. I think that’s a helpful way to look at creation.
These folks in Christchurch made room for us in their lives, just for two days, and we visited with them. One of the thrills for the sojourner receiving hospitality is seeing how real New Zealanders live and joining them for a bit of the daily routine. It gives us a much better sense of life in New Zealand than do the tour guides and the hostel employees and the bus drivers.
Upon our arrival on the North Island we spent one night with friends from the States who have recently moved to New Zealand. It was a joy to catch up with them and to hear their perspective on this foreign country as American ex-pats trying to adjust. And once again, they opened their home to us in a basic act of self-giving.
Our next stop was Gisborne, where we spent two nights with folks whom we’d met over email by virtue of a mutual friend in Lake City. These folks have a triple helping of the gift of hospitality, and really poured it on. We got a tour of Gisborne, all meals, and the most wonderful company we could desire to boot. They have cultivated a habit of taking in people from overseas—from two-night visitors to students studying in Gisborne—such is their joy at receiving people into their home and getting to know them while they’re in New Zealand.
Our long drive to Whangarei was punctuated by lunch with another of my classmates from Dunedin, who served us a magnificent spread of food and conversation that was just as savoury. More of the real New Zealand at our fingertips.
Before coming to Kaitaia we spend the night in Whangarei with a third classmate from Dunedin, a father of four beautiful little girls and his wife. The girls (aged sixish, five, three, and two—or thereabouts) were studying South America in their home-school curriculum, and had learned that the native peoples of the Americas were often called "Indians." So when they found out two Americans were coming to stay the night, they got all excited about meeting "the Indians." Once again, the welcome was warm, the beds were soft, and the conversation was brilliant.
Now we’re in a farm hostel, for which we pay but at which we also get to interact with the couple who owns and works the thousand acres and the cattle that graze it. It’s been quite fun to sit and talk with the owner, a man who has raised sheep and cattle all his life in this distant rural part of New Zealand. Quite a different life from the suburban and urban settings to which I’m accustomed.
This portion of our trip has been less touristy but more enriching because of the hospitality that’s been extended to us. Though I don’t have the energy for what might be called "entertaining" guests day in and day out, I hope that our future home may be a place in which sojourner and friend alike may find warm hospitality and good company any time.
Cheers to Chris, Mary, John, Karen, Samantha, Allison, Paddy, Bev, Sue, Phillip, Siobhan, Holly, Juliette, Lucy, Susanne, Robb, and Heather for a joyful stay in the North Island and an inspiring example of humanity.
~emrys