HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY - Mikinale: Missionary

HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY - “The missionaries came to Hawaii to do good, and ended up doing very, very well.” (Maui saying)

September 15, 1821 - In Honolulu, the Kingdom of Hawaii’s first Christian house of worship opens its doors on what is now the site of the present Kawaiaha’o Church. It was fast work. Just two years earlier, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions prepared the brig Thaddeus, complete with missionaries, bibles, and diseases unknown to the Hawaiians, and very deadly.

According to the Star Bulletin, Dr. Samuel Worchester, secretary of the commissioners, told the missionaries,”You are to aim at nothing short of covering those islands with fruitful fields and pleasant dwellings, and schools and churches; of raising up the people to an elevated state of Christian civilization.” By 1867, When Mark Twain visited Hawaii, Worchester’s nightmare had come true. “The 3,000 whites in the islands handle all the money and carry on all the commerce and agriculture - and superintend the religion,” Twain wrote.

Maui was just a bit behind the curve. The local chiefs tried to prevent the missions from gaining much of a stronghold with the native population. But just ten years after the first house of worship opened in Hawaii, 1831, Lahainaluna Mission Seminary was founded.

Dennis Kucinich: “We must end war as an instrument of policy by the U.S. government.” (9/14/07, MCC Maui)

SUPERFERRY - Maui Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza issues a preliminary injunction, extending the ban on the Superferry’s use of Kahului Harbor. Read more …

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