For most overseas Anglicans attending the ACC meeting in Auckland, it’s the first time they’ve been in Aotearoa New Zealand or even in the Pacific.

And so far the impressions they’re sharing are all good.

“I’m just telling people that I’m in love with this country already,” said Mrs Claudette Kigeme (Burundi). 

“From the moment I arrived, I thought it is just so beautiful, so green,” she said on her second day at Holy Trinity Cathedral. 

Ven Moses Chin (Malaysia) has found our church’s hospitality amazing.

He's surprised at how good it felt in the city of Auckland, too, when he ventured out for an evening walk on his first night here.

“It feels safe here to be outside and the people are very welcoming”.

That sense of welcome has percolated through morning and afternoon teas at the ACC, with parishes around Auckland competing to make each one as lavish as the next. 

But the standout meal was hosted by the Maori Bishopric of Aotearoa on Monday night.

ACC members were bussed over to the Auckland Maori Mission’s Holy Sepulchre Church to dine next door at Tatai Hono Marae hall.

The Rev Abraham Kim (Korea) was more than happy with the food – "the best of the whole ACC meeting so far."

Rev Abraham reported the seafood starter was just what his Korean palate was longing for – raw oysters in their shells, with kina (sea urchin), scampi, eel and snapper.

But it wasn’t what some might expect for a traditional Maori feast. There was no hangi (underground oven) or kapa haka (Māori cultural performance group).

What ACC members encountered inside the hall was not a festival of red, black and white, but a contemporary tikanga Maori evening venue.

Tatai Hono hall was decked out as a restaurant space, with designer uplighting that picked up the woven flax texture of the tukutuku panels adorning the walls.

Classic Maori interlocking curve patterns swirling along the walls met with two contemporary carved pou (tree trunk-sized wooden sculptures) standing on either side of the stage.

The ACC wasn’t met with shouts and spears and song this time they came on to Maori turf.

Instead, a jazz trio softened the mood with gentle improvisations.

When the mains came round, the medium rare lamb cutlets lay on a bed of mashed kumara spiced with wasabi and honey, thanks to two professional chefs who worship at Holy Sepulchre.

The Most Rev Ikechi Nwachukwu Nwosu, Archbishop of Aba (Nigeria), just beamed when he talked to Taonga about his time here and about Monday’s dinner.

“It was a wonderful occasion, just great," he said. “The Maori people were so generous, I wondered how they could have funded such a dinner for all of us.” 

Truth be told, that’s where the cultural factor kicked in behind the scenes, as the evening's urban indigenous chic came underpinned by classic Maori ways of making things happen.

The seafood, for example, was the work of Auckland’s Maori Missioner, the Rev Lloyd Popata, who sourced most of it from the mission congregation’s extended family and the broader Maori church. 

“There were certain unavoidable costs like transportation, but the majority of the kai moana (seafood) came from whanau (relatives) as a gift.

“They knew the kaupapa (purpose) of the meal was offering hospitality to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC, so our people sent it from as far away as Marlborough in the South Island and Kaitaia up North.

“The tuna (native eel) was caught and smoked for us by family members in Northland.”

MC for the night, Geremy Hema, also announced from the mike “your waiters and waitresses tonight are the sons and daughters, nieces and nephews of the Maori Church and our Missioner”.

Two ecumenical guests from the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands, Mrs Lidwien van Buuren and her husband the Rt Rev Dirk van Schoon, could sense the effort being made on their behalf,

“The Maori people were really serving us so generously,” said Lidwien, “and we could feel it.” 

ACC delegates will travel to Turangawaewae Marae on Thursday, when ACC will be welcomed to Aotearoa by the Maori King Tuheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII in Ngaruawahia.