View from the Pew Mary Adamski

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Ringing in another year

Waipahu United Church of Christ celebrates 45 years of community service

When Richard Chung rang the bell Sunday calling worshippers into Waipahu United Church of Christ, it was an echo of the past for many in the crowd.

The bell has summoned island people to church since 1938, when the West Oahu town was a plantation village. A free-standing metal arch now supports the bell, which survived a bell tower destroyed by termites. Its history, leading back to the Philippines and probably to Spain, is detailed in a plaque dedicated Sunday in festivities that marked a special 45th anniversary.

The Filipino members of the Waipahu Evangelical Church and the Japanese members of the United Community Church of Waipahu joined up in 1961, moving forward from the plantation tradition in which immigrant groups stayed separate. Those congregations were the descendants of earlier Protestant churches dating back to 1903. The local consolidation reflected the union of Congregational and Evangelical churches in America to create the United Church of Christ denomination.

But back to the bell. "It took four of us kids to ring the bell," Dominic Inocelda recalled. "It would pull us up off the ground. It was a fun thing to do." He was one of more than 250 people at the celebration where memories of the past were the stories of the day.

Palaka banners waved in the spacious grassy grounds at 94-330 Mokuola St. as local politicians and former church members arrived to join the congregation for Sunday services. Back when the land was purchased, it was a swampy landscape of pastures, taro patches and rice fields fed by artesian wells, said Melvin Makii, one of the pioneer members.

In typical country style, everyone brought potluck goodies to add extra specialties -- Japanese pickled vegetables, pineapple cake -- to the catered lunch menu. "We used to make breakfast after services early in the morning, the men one month, the women the next month," recalled Harriet Uchigaki. "It was a competition who could do the best."

The service was held in the sanctuary, an airy, open-beamed structure that resembles a Japanese inn.

Lunch was served in the social hall, formerly the "old" church, which was dedicated in 1950.

The deteriorating state of the hall is the reason that the congregation did not wait five years for the more traditional 50th anniversary. Last week's celebration kicked off a $1.5 million capital campaign, said Rene Chung, party coordinator.

The social hall will be renovated, with upgrades to meet American with Disabilities Act requirements, the addition of a covered lanai and other enhancements intended to revive the church as the community social center it once was. Chung said community groups often seek to use the hall, which has the benefit of ample parking in the middle of the Waipahu business district.

Tokuo Yoshida, 86, was one of 20 people who were recognized as members who attended the church in 1961. Better than that, he was one of the people who built it.

Yoshida and numerous other young Japanese Americans were drafted by the late Rev. Hiro Higuchi to help build churches after World War II. Many of the volunteers were members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which Higuchi served as chaplain.

"A lot of us knew the reverend before the war, in Hi-Y," a YMCA program, said Yoshida, who was deferred from the military draft in 1942 because he had a valued skill as a carpenter.

After the war, Higuchi was named pastor of the United Community Church of Waipahu.

"The reverend asked me to help. Only when everyone else showed up to do the job did I realize I was the only carpenter there," said Yoshida. He estimated that the first church was built "50 percent by volunteers."

Higuchi "would be out there with pick and shovel like everyone else. He was such a hustler," Yoshida said.

Higuchi went on to become a pastor in Manoa, where he built a church, and in Pearl City, where he built another.

Yoshida went on to become a general contractor. Nearly 30 years later, he was again tapped by the minister when he returned as Waipahu pastor, once again with church construction in mind. And again, volunteers joined the professional contract laborers, and the new sanctuary was built "30 percent by volunteers," Yoshida said. It was dedicated in 1979.

The crowd at the morning service settled into padded koa pews, part of the treasured past, built with lumber secured by the late James Lovell, a 442nd officer who worked with Lewers and Cook building suppliers. Overhead were bright banners by Sunday school students and a mobile of colorful butterflies.

The Rev. Wendy Tashima set off a flood of remembrances with an open-mike opportunity for people -- some shy, some gabby, some tearful -- to share names of people who contributed down through the years.

"An anniversary is a time to be talking about the future," said the Rev. Charles Buck, state conference minister for the UCC denomination. "I know you're asking God to help you into the future."

He reminded the crowd, with a large showing of senior citizens, that the Old Testament prophet Abraham was 75 when "God called him to go out and do something new."

Buck said, "You are a happening church." He said the trend today is for churches to count numbers -- of members and of the varied programs they offer. "You should not dwell on programs, but focus on people. I want to know, is your ministry changing people's lives? Are you transforming lives with the word of God?"