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View from the Pew  Mary Adamski |
A New Mission
With the United Church of Christ’s
recent conversion of a downtown building,
Pacific island groups find a place
that meets spiritual needsThe Saturday morning meeting in a recently renovated downtown building gave the crowd from two dozen Protestant congregations a close look at their $1.7 million investment.
The church folks were pretty much focused on other practical matters such as health care for immigrants at the annual fall "Mokupuni" of Oahu churches in the United Church of Christ denomination, held at the newly renamed Kukui Building at South Kukui and Queen Emma streets.
These spiritual descendants of the first Christian missionaries to Hawaii were actual descendants of every ethnic group to come ashore here. Their current concern is the newest wave, people from Micronesian island nations who have moved here by the thousands under the Compact of Free Association with the United States.
The old medical clinic, which the denomination's Hawaii Conference Foundation bought, was refashioned into a second-floor chapel/meeting room for the Marshall Islands United Church of Christ congregation, and a third-floor hall for a congregation from Kosrae.
The first floor is rented to Pacific Gateway Center, formerly the Kalihi Palama Immigrant Center, where case workers help the Pacific islanders find housing, keep their children in school, apply for state medical insurance coverage and work their way through the maze of official forms that epitomize the difference between home and here. There is a computer lab where the youngest generation can hone skills for future jobs.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Micronesian cultural influence is evident on the new altar of the Honolulu Marshall Islands United Church of Christ.
The organized Nov. 1 meeting was typical of an American church. There was an agenda, with a starting time and a finish. Workshop topics were set. Speakers were lined up.
But "island style" took hold. The "local church health care ministries" workshop was supposed to share tips on what parish nurses and volunteers are doing along the lines of visiting the sick and helping the healthy stay that way. Within minutes the audience became the speakers, and their concern and anecdotes steered the subject to the appalling number of people from Pacific islands who do not have medical insurance, have been denied coverage in state programs or are just plain confounded by the bureaucratic paperwork.
The session, which rolled on into two scheduled time slots on the agenda, did eventually end, the audience agreeing with chairman Neal MacPherson's statement that "we can't just meet and talk about it, then go away and leave it." He vowed to take the issue to the interdenominational advocacy group Faith Action for Community Equity as a future cause.
The Rev. Rensiper Lalimo, who leads the Marshall Islands congregation, said medical care tops the list of reasons that Pacific islanders come here. "Similar sicknesses appear all over our country: cancer, especially thyroid cancer, similar to those islands closer to the radiation." He echoed the concern expressed ever since the United States set off 67 nuclear tests in the South Pacific in the 1960s.
But Lalimo does not dwell on the hardships and difficult adjustments that Marshallese face.
"Many of our kids are born here," said the pastor. "It is amazing to see the kids getting on the honor rolls, getting their diplomas. It's very promising for us. We feel very proud that our small nation will prosper when these students contribute to it."
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kinne Gonzales gathers contributions during services at the Honolulu Marshall Islands United Church of Christ. The congregation recently moved to its new location at 181 S. Kukui St.
The Mokupuni conference accomplished its goal, he said: "Our neighbors got to know us a little better, and we got to meet them."
If the visitors really want to assess their investment in the Kukui Building, they should return on a Sunday. More than 400 people fill the two chapels, with deacon Shiro Timothy leading the Kosrae group upstairs from Lalimo's flock. Services are listed as 10:30 a.m., but it is another example of "island style" in action. "If I tell you 10:30, it will really start at 11," said Lalimo. "Being punctual isn't in our blood."
Families come from Wahiawa, Waianae, all over the island, he said. And many stay all day.
"This isn't just a church, it's a community center," Lalimo said. "We tell stories, we share food, you run into people you didn't know had moved here." People do not leave for home until after the 4:30 p.m. Christian Endeavor meeting, or even the 6 p.m. youth service, is over.
"This place was a wonderful gift to us," said the pastor. "We were really missing our own place, reading the Scripture in our own mother tongue."
Local church members get a charge out of the new wave of pastors such as Lalimo, who graduated from Pacific Theological Seminary in Fiji and was principal of a church school before being assigned to Hawaii.
"This is where the first missionaries to Micronesia came from," said the Rev. Grant Lee. "Kaumakapili Church sent them in 1857. We think of ourselves as the source of missionaries, but now missionaries are being sent here."
Other incoming missionaries serve a Pohnpei congregation that meets at Central Union Church and congregations from Chuuk.
There was, of course, a prayer and praise service to kick off the Nov. 1 workshop. The Biblical readings were about Jacob wrestling through the night with an angel, and Jesus telling a parable about justice.
I ran my own mental subtext throughout the event. It was from the sermon on the Mount of Olives, Jesus telling the followers who would get to join him in heaven: "When I was hungry, you fed me. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was sick and you cared for me."
When did we do that? they asked. "When you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me," Jesus said.
Those practical-minded Protestants do not get touchy-feely about the spiritual dimension to their financial investment, and I admire them for that. I'd say that's the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Juliet Subillie and her husband, Eobi, sing in the choir at the Marshall Islands United Church of Christ.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Religion Calendar
Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.
