RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Every Wednesday evening at Laenani Beach Park in the Kahaluu area, members of area churches get together to pray for the community and the issues facing it. Calling itself Ke Kumu Ola O Kahaluu (The Lifeline of Kahaluu), the group attracts anywhere from two or three people to as many as 15 or 20 for its gatherings.
Churches and Windward
leaders unite to 'take back
the streets' of Kahaluu
Motorists passing through Kahaluu may see it as a few landmarks -- banyan tree, bridge, gaudy art gallery wall -- and businesses spread out among roadside homes, but hardly definable as a village.
But the people who live in this Windward stretch are confirming themselves as a community these days. It's a campaign to change the drug-ridden character of the neighborhood that is bringing them together. About a dozen Windward churches are key partners in the uniquely rural Hawaii version of a "take back the streets" campaign.
Neighbors recognized each other among the sign-waving folks along the roadside last night in Kahaluu. Many were familiar from the first "Ice Breaker" anti-drug demonstration two weeks ago that drew an estimated 1,000 participants and extended from Kaneohe to Sunset Beach.
Some saw each other earlier in the week participating in the free food distribution staged by a coalition of churches and community agencies every third Monday on Waihee Road. Many are familiar faces from church.
"We put our doctrinal differences aside and pull together," said Keith Ryder, the pastor of Light of Promise Ministries and a spark plug in igniting the collaborative effort to drive out drugs and dealers. Ryder drove the forklift Monday, unloading a truckload of Hawaii Foodbank donations which were distributed to 200 families.
Others on the line were a dozen church volunteers, including the Rev. Brad Smith of Windward Missionary Church and Joseph Kalahiki Jr. of Ola Loa Christian Ministries; Honolulu Community Action Program staffers; and two dozen teenagers from the Hawaii Job Corps.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Teenagers from the Hawaii Job Corps helped sort donated food in Kahaluu on Monday. A coalition of churches and agencies meet regularly to distribute food to needy families.
Ryder said he looked for a community-changing mission soon after he returned to his Kahaluu origins two years ago and started the church. He began taking Wednesday-night prayer gatherings into oceanside Laenani Park where they aimed to drive away drug dealers doing business in the shadows. Soon he sought help from other small congregations because he recognized that "outreach had to be done together so people see that the churches are not fighting each other."
The Rev. Eldean Kukahiko of Hope Chapel Kahaluu said: "I can see that we are making a difference. We have the sustainability to outlast the problem."
Although a series of town hall meetings earlier this year generated the most recent surge of activism, Kukahiko said it has roots in efforts about four years ago. At that time he had recently retired as a Honolulu police sergeant whose assignment had been with the "No Hope in Dope" program in schools.
A hao tree thicket on Kamehameha Highway near Kaalaea Road was "a hot spot," he said, from which dealers ran their curbside sales and harassed nearby residents.
"One evening I told our men's Bible study group that the Lord told us to cut down the hao tree," Kukahiko said.
"We prayed. We got permission from the landowners. And we began one Saturday with saws and machetes chopping down the huge trees. We had 40 people there. I'm not sure where they came from."
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Keith Ryder, left, pastor of Light of Promise Ministries, and Tony Cambra also helped sort food on Monday. The food later was distributed to 200 families in the Windward area.
"Every Thursday for two years we held No Hope in Dope signs, but eventually it faded out.
"I'd like to do the same thing with the banyan tree behind Hygienic Store," said Kukahiko of the spreading leafy landmark, which has also been the scene of drug dealing.
The cop-turned-Christian pastor said churches have an objective beyond driving drug users away.
"We need to care for them," Kukahiko said. "We need to offer them salvation, offer them a change of life through the Lord. That is my overall remedy, instead of being adversaries, us against them. That doesn't work."
The banyan tree is just a few paces from the Windward Baptist Church, which opened Reformers Unanimous classes a year ago, based on a drug rehabilitation program started in Rockford, Ill.
"There is such a problem with crystal meth, including some members of congregation families," said the Rev. Kevin Akana, also a Kahaluu native, who returned as a pastor in 1995.
He and August Kaawa went to Chicago to learn the model for the classes offered at 7 p.m. Fridays.
"The essence of it is talk, talk, talk: to God in prayer, in personal testimonies, to each other in counseling and classes, and then God talks to us. When God gets into their life, we are seeing amazing results of people totally changed."
Akana said: "The community is bonding together. Fighting crystal meth has been a rallying point."
Beyond the community spirit, there is state funding for the anti-drug initiative, said former state legislator Bob Nakata, now the acting president of the KEY Project, a community center on Waihee Road. A State Incentive Grant of $130,000 for each of three years will be administered through the state Department of Health and the Kaneohe Community Family Center.
"Old-timers in the community want to say 'Enough is enough!'-- that was the message of the sign waving. We need to create a healthy community," said Nakata. "One old-timer who hasn't led a perfect life himself said, 'I'm doing this for my grandchildren.' It was very significant coming from him."
The old-timers know what the young ministers may not, that the KEY Project is the legacy of an ecumenical community effort a generation ago. Ministers of Methodist, Episcopal and Catholic churches joined community residents and social agencies to create the Kualoa-Heeia Ecumenical Youth (KEY) Project in 1968. Originally intended to offer youth programs as an alternative to drugs of the day -- marijuana and LSD -- the Waihee Road facility now serves as a community center with a variety of health services, alternative learning classes, cultural and sports programs and service agency offices.
"A synergy has developed" among the churches, said Nakata, an ordained Methodist minister. "I hope through this kind of thing, the denominations can get together as friends in the effort of salvation of the world. Whatever is going on, God is doing his work."
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