There is a book on racial justice that you are not likely to find on any New York Times

bestseller list, but it is hands down one of my all-time favorites.

It's called Hueyah Come Home by Jay Raca from New Zealand, who is both a follower of Jesus

and a Maori writer.

In it, he tells the tragic, complex and at the same time beautiful story of the interplay

between the indigenous people of Ataroa, or as we would say New Zealand, the missionary

movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the multi-generational trauma of colonialism.

He opens with a story from a few years before the infamous James Kirk, who is most definitely

not a follower of Jesus.

Do I say Kirk?

Kirk.

See Star Trek right in there.

It's a nasty goodness, but you see the nod there in Star Trek, right?

Before he discovered New Zealand in 1769, there was a famous Maori tribal prophet or oracle

who had a vision of a strange people with white skin coming on large ships.

It was so vivid that he went around from tribe to tribe in the north and the south islands

to act out the coming Europeans.

He made a basket and he put it on his head to mimic a hat.

He cut apart a cloak and he put it around his legs to mimic pants.

He fastened a rock to the end of a stick and put it in his mouth to mimic a pipe and

he brought this prophecy to the tribes.

Quote.

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