Janet and I have just returned from a month at St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in Ocean View, Hawaii where I was serving as temporary priest. Ocean View is a predominately low-income community on the very southern tip of the Big Island. Some residents describe it as the “wild, wild, west.” There is not a resort, beach, or umbrella drink anywhere in sight. But there is plenty of lava. Lava, lava, everywhere.
St. Jude’s is an amazing little church whose sign accurately describes it as “little church – big heart.” About 30 people attend worship on Sunday morning, but that small group provides nearly 150 meals every Saturday along with around 50-60 hot showers for locals who may live off the grid. They turn around on Wednesday and do it again, providing 30 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and more hot showers. Then there is the Aloha Hour every Sunday after worship, where many from the community join the Sunday worshipers for a hot meal. On Wednesdays there is a community medical van providing medical care for those who need it.
But here’s what I really love—this is a lay-run congregation! They have no permanent priest/pastor. They have a rotation of priests that come in for one or two months at a time. The visiting priests (known to the congregation as the “flavor of the month”) get themselves to Hawaii, provide their own food and preach and lead worship. The congregation offers the priest a comfortable rectory and a car during their stay. This was our second visit to St. Jude’s.
There were many highlights to our visit. We were able to renew wonderful friendships from our prior visit. It was almost like we fell right back into those friendships as though we hadn’t been gone three years. What a good feeling to see everyone again. We loved serving the community alongside our St. Jude’s brothers and sisters. We were there every Saturday and Wednesday helping to serve. Our last Saturday, we prepared and served spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and brownies for 150. 18 pounds of ground beef, 18 pounds of pasta, 12 loaves of garlic bread, and roughly 12-#10 cans of tomato sauce/tomato purée/tomatoes.
Another highlight was being able to be there for Ash Wednesday. Note my dirty forehead in this picture.
Since I was there for a month I was able to build in a theme for the sermons. We focused on the questions: (1) What is God like? (2) What does God do in our lives? And (3) To what kind of life does God call us? It was pretty fun.
There were two pastoral highlights that I will always remember. One was a wonderful pastoral visit with a congregation member in a senior living facility in Hilo. We had communion together and a delightful visit. The second thing I will always remember were three young sisters that were at church my last two Sundays. I was moved to do a short children’s message with them each week and they were just the sweetest, cutest, most loving children you could imagine. My last Sunday, they all brought their stuffed bunnies named: Billy Bunny, Goldilocks Bunny, and Honey Bunny. Oh my goodness, those children touched my heart.
Another highlight was our friends Sandy and Dirk coming over to visit and spend about 10 days with us. We have known Sandy and Dirk for probably 40 or more years and they have heard us talking about St. Jude’s and wanted to see what it was really like. They pitched right in. Here they are serving spaghetti and salad on Saturday morning.
We were busy with church activities, but we also managed to fit in a little tourist fun. We hiked the Kilauea Iki trail right through a volcanic crater. We also toured the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden and stopped by Black Sand Beach to see the turtles.
As I reflect upon our time at St. Jude’s, the real highlights are the relationships renewed and formed with those good folks. Our God is a God of relationships and I believe we experience, and come to know God, in and through relationships. And we experienced God in our relationships and time at St. Jude’s.
Serving at St. Jude’s has grown in popularity and so my next opportunity to serve in the normal rotation won’t be until 2032. That’s a long time! But I am also on their “911 List” in case someone backs out or can’t make it and we can fill in on short notice. So whether I ever get to go back or not, this is something Janet and I will remember for the rest of our lives. It was an honor to serve Christ and his people alongside the good folks of St. Jude’s. Thank you, God for St. Jude’s and the opportunity to serve alongside them.
Goodbye from Hawaii.
