Avalon Chronicles #36: "A Christian History of Hawaii-Part One"

Avalon Chronicles #36: "A Christian History of Hawaii-Part One"

by Allen B. Clark       allenbclark@aol.com
www.combatfaith.com          www.combatfaith.blogspot.com

     Hawaii. Awesome scenery. Waikiki Beach. Surfboarding. Magical islands. Unparallelled relaxing vacations in the tropics. Hawaii is all that and much more. I had been there seven times before, four times as a West Point cadet when my parents were stationed there, once in 1967 on a medical airlift flight, stopping only with wounded from Vietnam, once as a vacationer in 1979, and once at the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1991, when I made remarks at the Punchbowl, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific for a memorial service.
     Linda and I travel often and we have begun to pray that we would experience "divine encounters" on our trips. This we were not denied in Hawaii. On Kauai we stayed on the western side at Barking Sands Navy Base and I had read about a former Congregational missionary church (now United Church of Christ) nearby at Waimea and named the Waimea Church. As we drove up to tour the church, a Bible study was just finishing and the choir director and a local gentleman just "happened" to walk over to our auto and happily opened the church and gave us a tour. The gentleman was a local island literary figure, "Kit" Cook, who just "happened" to be the author of a soon-to-be published book about a Hawaiian, Henry Obookiah. Obookiah actually originally inspired the introduction of Christianity to the islanders because he had been taken from Hawaii as a youth to Connecticutt, became a Christian, and from there an effort began to send the original missionaries to Hawaii. Meeting Cook started me on my quest to learn about the Hawaiian pioneer missionaries. This Waimea church was originally founded in 1820 (two years after Obookiah died at age 26) by two Congregational missionaries, the Reverend Samuel Ruggles and Samuel Whitney and their wives, who had taveled from New England. MissionariesWilliam and Mary Alexander in 1834 left Waimea Church by double canoe and founded a church at beautiful Hanalei Bay on the north side of Kauai. The Waioli Huuia Church still stands in this picturesque old town. A wedding was just finishing when we arrived to visit this church.
     This trip, my eighth to Hawaii, was to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Linda's and my wedding on Sep. 11, 2004. The night before our anniversary on Sep. 10th we had  attended a Dinner Theatre play of "South Pacific" and on our anniversary we dined at the St. Regis Resort Princeville perched above Hanalei Bay and looking across to the movie scene of the mysterious "Bali Hai." Another "happening" was our waiter was a fellow Vietnam veteran, Tom Hamilton, who was the real-life father of the real-life young woman, Bethany Hamilton, who had been attacked by a shark while surfing. She lost her arm and her story was depicted in the movie "Soul Surfer." Dennis Quaid had played the father in the movie. A writeup for the movie said this, "Rushed to the hospital, she remains calm, and maintains her faith in God." Her father told us she lived only due to her faith in God because she had lost so much blood. These things happen to us! Originally we had been at another table with another waitperson before I had us relocated to have a better view of the bay and the sunset.
     We were privileged while in Honolulu to worship on two Sundays at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Andrew, an imposing and historic cathedral on Queen Emma Square in downtown Honolulu. King Kamehameha IV and his Queen, Emma, were responsible for introducing Anglicanism to Hawii. The King and Queen donated the land for the cathedral site. It was not completed until 1886 after both had died. The Queen had purchased its stone building material from Caen in Normandy. During the greeting period a member of the pastoral staff came down the aisle to greet us and I noticed her ring. It so "happens" she is a fellow graduate of West Point.
     The first Sunday we worshipped at the cathedral there was a communion service in the Hawaiian language and we just "happened" to be there for the annual service to celebrate the birthday of Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, who was deposed in 1893 in a coup of businessmen. On this special occasion a splendidly colorful group of Hawaiians were in the processional as members of the Royal Society (I believe officially the Royal Order of Kamehameha I). The women were elegantly gowned in black and white and the men wore dark suits with colorful short back capes. This organization today continues to guard, maintain, and preserve the rituals and the memory of the ruling chiefs of Hawaii. It was quite a ceremony harkening back to earlier days of Hawaii before the transformation it is today of a tourist mecca.
     Prayers for "divine encounters" were answered and always are for us.