A Message from Kahu Alan Akana

On Sunday, I shared the story of Kalaupapa, the peninsula on the north shore of Moloka`i. I have known of the place since I was in 5th grade at Catholic School in California. My teacher told the story of Father Damien (now Saint Damien) who arrived there in 1873. As she told it, uneducated Hawaiian people with leprosy had been living there with no sense of community, nor church, nor respect for one another; then Father Damien arrived with the Gospel and nearly everyone became Christian, learned to read and write, developed a strong Christian community and had tremendous love and respect for each other. That’s the story I believed growing up until moving back to Hawai`i the second time.

 

I recently read Holy Man by Gavan Daws and also did some research on my own; and I learned that the story I was told was not actually the story that everyone remembered from Kalaupapa. The Hawaiian government sent the first 12 people with leprosy (later to be known as Hansen’s Disease) to Kalaupapa in January of 1866. They were eight men, three women and a small boy. Some of the earliest settlers, including the small boy, were the first kokua, which means “helper” in Hawaiian. They were the people without leprosy who voluntarily went to Kalaupapa to take care of beloved family members. Na kokua (the helpers) were people of incredible courage and love. In June that first year, there were 35 Protestants (23 men and 12 women) who were members of Congregational Churches throughout Hawai`i, and they decided to write letters to their home churches, asking to be released from membership so that they could start their own church at Kalawao on Kalaupapa’s eastern shore. They became charter members of Siloama Church, the first church to be established there.

 

Of the 35 people who were charter members of Siloama and the hundreds of people who later attended worship services there, many proved to be wise and courageous leaders of their church and community during times of great hardship and diversity. They told stories of their deep faith in God and of the strength they found in their community of faith. The reason we know their stories is because they kept minutes of all their church meetings—all of the important things they did as a church and their ministry in the community. In 1938, someone found the church minutes from 1866 to 1928 in a vault below the church. They were written in Hawaiian and many (all?) in their church were literate in both Hawaiian and English. Those minutes told a completely different story about Kalaupapa than the one I was told as a young boy.

 

As I learned about Kalaupapa I felt that their story just had to be told. It was too good to keep it to myself! So I shared the story with the congregation on Sunday. We also read the story in Mark’s Gospel of Jesus healing a man with leprosy and asking him to not tell anyone about it. Yet, this man could not keep quiet. He walked around telling everyone what Jesus had done for him. It too was a story that was too good to keep to oneself. I am guessing that we all have stories that are just too good to not share with others. I encourage you to tell your stories that are too good not to share! Tell people of your blessings! Tell people about our church! Tell people what we are doing in the community! May your stories bless others in ways you cannot even imagine!

 

I hope to see you in church on Sunday as we celebrate Holy Communion and continue to share our stories of life and faith!

 

Aloha nui loa,

Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of this week’s message. You may also see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.