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I’m an immigrant to New Zealand.

I am an outsider learning culture and welcomed in. I’ve experienced such generosity of spirit as my Kiwi friends teach me things about hospitality and stewardship in this new space over the past couple of years so far. I watch as a citizen of a country founded by immigrants who didn’t always do well at respecting the traditional stewards of the land and who currently are in the midst of violent struggles surrounding how to welcome and love well the vulnerable people who cross borders in search of stability and safety.

Before I came to New Zealand on sabbatical so many years ago, I learned of the existence of the Treaty of Waitangi, and I learned it was an important and complicated document that led to ongoing conflict and disagreement between Māori and Pākehā people. I still don’t understand it all, but as an immigrant here, I want to be sensitive to the limitations of what I know while also continuing to learn responsibly about what has happened before. I also want to be a responsible American passport holder who speaks thoughtfully and with compassion.

More important than my passport and visa status, I am a follower of Jesus, and I want to honour the image of God in all people in how I go about my conversations about government decisions and politics.

We had a brief reflection on the treaty in church this morning and an encouragement to be more like Jesus in how we live and respond to sensitive things. Then Mark gave a sermon on Noah with this real treasure as he gave an illustration of the hypothetical response someone might get greeting this ark-builder in heaven. “Come over here,” Noah would say leading you to a crowd, “Jesus is over here. You want to talk to him, not me. He’s who it’s all about.”

In my week of rest and birthday celebration that’s just gone by, I had some precious conversations with loved ones about how I want to be someone who similarly points people to Jesus. I had some really good laughs with my friend Jasmine who over the course of a couple of hours renamed me both Hannah and Sarah, and we prayed about how God was going to use me for his glory to see some beautiful fruit after seasons of waiting like both Hannah and Sarah in the Bible. I’ve covenanted with God to be obedient to his call in my life, and I recognise that when people covenant, they often fall short, but the beauty of a covenant with God is that he always comes through even when people mess up.

I want to be more like Jesus. I want to honour my commitments, the treaties and covenants in my life, and to live well as a Jesus follower in the big and little decisions in my life. By the grace of God, I can see the aspirational nature of that statement and recognise my life is a trajectory towards that. Next year, I’ll know a bit more about the Treaty of Waitangi and how I can purposefully live as an immigrant in this country. Next year, I’ll also be a bit more like Jesus. That’s not a birthday wish or a hope; that’s a covenanted decision that I’ll actively work towards.