KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM Mabel Wilson, president of the Kalapana Ohana Association, recently held a wreath sent from Booneville, N.Y., for the "Painted Church." Dave and Martha Faber, who donated the wreath, are part-time residents of Kalapana and help care for the church when they are here.

Mixed blessing

The Painted Church, saved from
lava in 1990, gets little respect today

Mauna Loa fears lessen

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

KALAPANA, Hawaii >> About a week before Christmas, Mabel Wilson hung a wreath on the front of the former Star of the Sea "Painted Church" in Kalapana.

KILAUEA'S 20-YEAR ERUPTION SPECIAL REPORT

That was the only Christmas recognition given to the 71-year-old building, noted for religious paintings on the interior walls.

"It's kind of closed now," said Wilson, president of the Kalapana Ohana Association, which takes care of the building.

Lava could not destroy the old church, completed under the direction of Father Evarist Gielen in 1931.

Parishioners moved the building out of the way of advancing lava flows in 1990, from a spot on the seashore to a new site about a half-mile inland on the Kalapana-Pahoa highway.

The Honolulu Diocese of the Catholic Church decommissioned the building as a place of worship, but modest numbers of tourists continued to visit it until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks dried up tourism. Much of Kalapana village was overrun by lava in 1990. Most of the former residents, who were the backbone of the congregation, are scattered in distant places.

Members of the Kalapana Ohana Association, 45 in all, pay $5 per person or $10 per family for an annual membership, Wilson said.

But most of them live out of state, and all are over 60, she said.

The Christmas wreath that Wilson placed was sent from New York by a tourist couple, Dave and Martha Faber.

Some Big Island residents do not show as much respect.

They broke a chain across an entrance driveway, although nothing would have stopped them from simply walking onto the property, Wilson said.

Some abandoned gallon jugs showed someone was stealing water from a spigot, which the association has to pay for, although free county water is available just up the road.

Even nature showed disrespect.

Wasps were taking up residence in the church walls. Wilson got some bug spray and killed them.

The building grounds got a little use, right after Wilson put up the wreath, when Uncle Simeon Enriquez and others used the imu oven behind the church to cook taro to make kulolo sweets as an Alu Like fund-raiser, Wilson said. But they did not go into the church.

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, J.D. GRIGGS GOING, GOING, GONE: Lava moved slowly through Kalapana between April and June 1990, eventually wiping out the town. Between Kalapana and the sea, the Hakuma horst formation caused the advancing flow to go east, right into the heart of the community.

By the numbers 189: The number of structures destroyed since the current eruption began. 1,540: The highest lava fountain in feet, recorded on Sept. 19, 1984. 837: The original height (in feet) of Puu Oo cone. It is now 613 feet. Source: U.S. Geological Survey, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Formation of a bench

SOURCE: U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY; DAVID SWANN / DSWANN@STARBULLETIN.COM An area of new, unstable land where lava enters the ocean is called a bench.

1992 to present

The eruption shifts back to Puu Oo. Twenty people die viewing the flow.

1992

>> Feb. 17: Eruption shifts back to Puu Oo after almost six years at Kupaianaha.
>> Nov. 8-18: Kamoamoa campground, former village site, destroyed.
>> Nov. 21: Moviemaking helicopter crash-lands inside Puu Oo; three rescued, the last after two days inside the vent.

1993

>> Jan. 25: Tour helicopter crashes in sea off lava flow, killing four.
>> April 19: Sightseer Prem Nagar disappears when lava bench he is on collapses into the sea.

1997

>> Jan. 30: Lava breaks out during the night at Napau crater; two campers rescued.
>> Aug. 10-11: Lava overruns Wahaula Heiau, eight years after destruction of an adjoining visitor center.

1998

>> April 27: Sightseer Shin-Dru Thurston slides down shoreline cone to the sea and disappears.

1999

>> Sept. 25: After viewing eruption area, tour plane crashes on Mauna Loa, killing 10.

2000

>> April 6: Lava destroys 182nd house, this one in Royal Gardens.
>> Sept. 30: Sightseer Kirk Kiyota dies of heart attack at lava flow.
>> Nov. 5: Sightseers Nancy Everett and Ivan Klein found dead of steam inhalation.

2001

>> Aug. 17-April 17: Hawaii County provides lava viewing site for flow outside National Park.

2002

>> Oct. 15: Sightseer Jacqueline Gast found dead of thermal burns at lava flow.