WAIMEA — Local church officials took the latest step in an ongoing effort to apologize for and redress the hardships caused by the missionaries’ role in the late-19th century overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom when they conveyed two properties to
WAIMEA — Local church officials took the latest step in an ongoing effort to apologize for and redress the hardships caused by the missionaries’ role in the late-19th century overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom when they conveyed two properties to a native Hawaiian congregation Saturday.
“This is an apology by the church; we’re trying to make things more pono,” John Derby Sr., executive secretary of the Hawai‘i Conference Foundation, said in a written statement.
‘Ohana Ni‘ihau o Waimea Ekalesia received the title to the property of the church building and the fellowship hall where it has worshipped for more than a decade from the Waimea United Church of Christ, as well as a vacant Westside lot and some $28,000 from the Hawai‘i Conference of the United Church of Christ.
“It’s exhilarating,” Ilei Benjamina, a member of ‘Ohana Ni‘ihau o Waimea Ekalesia, said in a release on the Hawai‘i Conference Web site. “It’s been 20-plus years that we’ve been waiting for this.”
The members of the congregation are all originally from the forbidden island of Ni‘ihau, the Web site said, and the Sunday worship service is conducted entirely in Hawaiian.
After Hurricane ‘Iniki all but destroyed the Waimea Hawaiian Church building in 1992, the congregation there joined with the Waimea Christian and Waimea Foreign congregations, forming the new Waimea United Church of Christ and meeting in the Old Stone Church in Waimea.
When the Waimea Hawaiian Church was rebuilt in 1995, it no longer had a congregation to call it home, so the new Waimea United Church of Christ invited ‘Ohana Ni‘ihau o Waimea Ekalesia congregation, then meeting for home services.
The 1993 Apology Bill, passed during the Clinton administration, formally acknowledged the United States’ mistreatment of the native Hawaiian people and opened the door for redress ideas like the one proposed by the United Church of Christ.
The ‘Ohana Ni‘ihau o Waimea Ekalesia congregation was ineligible to receive conveyances without incorporating itself, an issue it finally resolved in February. Now, the group is no longer a mission church of the Waimea United Church of Christ but has been established as the 12th United Church of Christ on Kaua‘i.
“It’s time we set them up as their own church; it’s time they stood up on their own,” said Waimea United Church of Christ Pastor Olaf Hoeckmann-Percival. “We need to let it become something, so it’s time to step away.”
• Michael Levine, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or via e-mail at mlevine@kauaipubco.com
