November 15, 2004

Perpetuated In Righteousness- A Spiritual History of Hawaii Part Two

Stanined Glass windows showing King Kalakaua and Queen Ka'ahumanu of Hawaii St Andrews Cathedral Honolulu, Selwn Chance photo

From the conversion of Queen Ka'ahumanu through the ranks of Hawaiian Royalty that became Believers God worked to bring a relationship of healing and hope. The Missionaries were human and made errors, at least to our way of thinking, but they also brought the written language to Hawaii. A language so well done that it is used by linguists as an example of the best way to reduce a new toungue to writing. They also brough western music to a people that would embrace it with delight (until the comming of the Haolie, Hawaiians didnt sing as we know it the only chanted and it wasnt very musical)



OPUKAHA'IA

In 1809, ten years before the overthrow of the kapu system, an orphan from the wars of Kamehameha was offered passage to the United States by an American sea captain. He signed on as a crew member of this ship and was given the English name of Henry by the American sea captain. This orphan's Hawaiian name was Opukaha'ia.

Six years earlier, when he was just a boy of ten, Opukaha'ia had seen his mother and father murdered in front of him. As he was trying to flee with his baby brother on his back, a warrior threw a spear at them that killed his baby brother. Opukaha'ia wanted to flee the horrors he experienced in the Hawai'i of his day and to learn about the big and wonderful world beyond the sea.

Even though he was still a boy, Opukaha'ia knew the Hawaiian gods well. He had been apprenticed to his uncle who was the high kahuna of the island of Hawai'i. He had learned the rituals of the kahuna in his uncle's luakini heiau on Kealakekua Bay, the same bay Captain Cook had landed at nearly thirty years earlier.

Later, when Henry was introduced to the One True God, he came to realize the absurdity of his old gods. He said, "Hawai'i gods! They wood, burn. Me go home, put 'em in a fire, burn 'em up. The no see, no hear, no anything. We make them, Our God, (looking up.) He make us." Opukaha'ia accepted Jesus Christ with a glad heart. Opukaha'ia had found the One True God who was kind and merciful, who loved him, and who even sent His son Jesus to die for him.

Eventually ending up in Connecticut, Henry was found weeping on the steps of Yale college because he desired so much to learn. He was taken in by Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale college, and began his western education. Henry's rigorous training for memorizing chants and genealogies at the heiau, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. His sharpened mind learned quickly and the Americans were greatly impressed. Within a few years Henry became quite a scholar, acquiring the equivalent of a Ph. D. degree today.

His great love for God and for his people gave Henry a burning desire to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with his people. He desired to set them free from the oppressive gods and system he had known so well. Henry went to Foreign Mission School to become a missionary to his people. He also traveled throughout New England giving impassioned pleas for churches to send missionaries to Hawai'i.

Opukaha'ia translated the Book of Genesis into Hawaiian directly from the Hebrew. He found that the Hebrew language was similar to his own and, therefore, easier to translate into Hawaiian than the English. He had begun work on Hawaiian grammar, dictionary and spelling books when he fell fatally ill.

Opukaha'ia died praying and weeping for his people, but also with the peace that comes from knowing the abiding love of his God. However, Henry's life was not in vain, God would answer his prayer, his people would hear the gospel of Iesu Kristo.

Henry's Memoirs, published in 1819, became the best selling book in New England. It greatly inspired and helped to finance and staff the first Mission Board to native peoples. Up until that time, many people in New England believed that the "heathen" could not be educated and therefore could not accept Christ. By proving to be an exemplary scholar and Christian, this young man shattered both of these misconceptions.

Henry's life not only opened up missions to the Hawaiian people, but to Native Americans and other ethnic groups as well! The first mission to Hawai'i departed Boston in October of 1819; the same time that the Hawaiian people on the other side of the globe were overthrowing their old gods! How wondrously the One True God works!

THE MISSION BEGINS



On October 23, 1819, the day before the Makahiki began and just twenty days after the Hawaiian people broke the bondage of the kapu system, the missionaries set sail from Boston Harbor. With them were four Hawaiians from the mission school. They sailed from the other side of the world, leaving their comfortable homes and pleasant and secure lifestyle. They had given up their pleasant lives and their families to spend five months and 18,000 miles in cramped quarters on the brig Thaddeus. They did all this to minister to the Hawaiian people, a people they did not even know.

In late March of 1820, the missionaries arrived. Although full of human faults, al the historians agree that the missionaries had come to Hawai'i with the good of the Hawaiian people in their hearts. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "With all their deficiency of candor, humor, and common sense, the missionaries are the best and most useful whites in the Pacific." In fact, the Hawaiian people were not so much won over by the teachings of the Love of God or the fear of damnation as they were by the goodness of the missionaries who sacrificed themselves daily to serve the needs of the people.

With the later group of missionaries came another group of Tahitians. This group of Tahitians did not come to rule or to bring death but to serve the Hawaiian people as missionaries of Jesus Christ. Tahitians, being introduced to the gospel of Jesus Christ before the Hawaiians, were brought to help spread the gospel. This was because their language was so similar to Hawaiian. This new group of Tahitians came with the knowledge and power to destroy the evil religion of Pa'ao who had come centuries before them.