There and Back Again

While traveling in New Zealand with friends, retired pastor Wilson Knox discovers that the vicar of the beautiful, historic St. Faith's Church is Tom Lyle, an old classmate of his from seminary. The two arrange to meet, and while Wilson's companions spend the day elsewhere, Tom shows him around the church, with its Maori carvings and a famous window etching of Christ in a Maori cloak that seems to walk on the lake outside. The old friends trade good-natured jabs about their student days, when Wilson lost debates to everyone, including the school's unofficial mascot, the pickle. When a text from his friends mentions that someone they have been searching for turns out to be named Joelle, Wilson admits he had wondered if the name might be Tarore. Tom is surprised; he explains that most New Zealand Christians know of Tarore, a girl from the early 1800s whose story he has preached more than once. Rather than simply tell it, Tom leads Wilson on a long hike to Wairere Falls, the very place where the story's pivotal moment happened.

There Tom preaches to his "congregation of one." Tarore, he says, was a Maori girl of the Ngati Haua tribe, daughter of Chief Ngakuku, from a proud chiefly line. Around age twelve she attended the mission school that missionaries Alfred and Charlotte Brown opened at Matamata in 1835. As Tarore learns to read, Charlotte explains John 3:16 to her: instead of sending another flood, God sent his Son, and those who believe in him will live with him forever. Delighted, Tarore accepts a precious gift from Charlotte - a copy of the Gospel of Luke, newly printed in the Maori language. She promises to read it, and she does, carrying it everywhere in a little woven bag, a kete, around her neck. Tarore grows quickly in her faith and shares the gospel with her father. Chief Ngakuku is astonished that a God who could have called angels to rescue himself instead chose to die to save his people, and he too becomes a Christian.

When tribal fighting makes the area dangerous, the mission station closes, and Ngakuku guides the Browns and the schoolchildren over the Kaimai Range toward Tauranga. Camping at Wairere Falls, the frightened children listen as Tarore reads from her gospel the story of Jesus calming the storm, urging them, "So don't be afraid. The will of God will be done." Ngakuku has the children spread out to sleep, gives his daughter his own mat, and takes shelter with her behind a big rock. He stays awake on watch, uneasy about the campfire he lit to keep the little ones warm. His fear proves right: raiders from Rotorua, led by a warrior named Uita, have seen the fire. In the ambush, Ngakuku helps many children escape, but when the raiders flee and the survivors are counted, Tarore is found dead by the rock. Uita, seeing the book she carried around her neck, has taken it, thinking it might be valuable.

The whole village cries out for utu - revenge - but at Tarore's funeral her grieving father stuns everyone. Enough blood has been spilled, Ngakuku declares; they will trust God's justice instead, and pray that the killers find the same forgiveness Tarore received. Meanwhile, the stolen gospel lies unopened in Uita's camp, since no one there can read, until a slave named Ripahau visits and reads it aloud. The words come alive for Uita, and he does something very dangerous: he walks unarmed into Ngakuku's presence, confesses to killing Tarore, returns her book, and offers his own life in exchange, asking only for a swift death. Instead, Ngakuku tells him to keep the Bible and says, "As He forgave me, I forgive you." The two men kneel and pray together. Tom finishes the story by explaining that Tarore's little gospel was later carried to New Zealand's South Island, where it brought still more warring peoples to Christ, so that the life of one precious girl became the seed of the church in New Zealand.

Tom then shows Wilson Tarore's grave nearby, a humble marker beside a little cornfield honoring the girl whose Maori Gospel of Luke brought peace to the tribes of Aotearoa. Tarore's own copy no longer exists, but Tom carries one of the few surviving copies from that same printing to remind himself of the gospel's power. To Wilson's amazement, Tom insists on giving it to him, saying the Lord is prompting him - and that since the Lord has prompted it, Wilson is going to need it. Wilson can hardly refuse a freebie, and in gratitude he finally offers his old friend the long, contentious theological debate Tom has been itching for all day.