It has been waaay too long...

I guess we have been busy.  There is very little time to write.  BUT..we have also been having some fun!

Way back in February, our bestest friends, Roy and Kathy Harker came to visit us.  And in March, Jared, Anne, Jack, Clare and Richard came.  I will update with pictures and commentary about both of those visits later.  

Let me tell you about our weekend this last week.  We went to Molokai!  We flew into Kalaupapa Friday afternoon. 

At the part of the airport where we got our flight, was THIS!  For those of you not in the know (like me) that is Magnum's friend, T.C.'s helicopter!!  It is called...wait for it....Magnum Helicopter Tours!

Kalaupapa is known most as being the colony where people that contracted leprosy were sent.  It was a horrible place there for many, many years.  Families were torn apart.  One parent would be sent to Molokai, or both parents, leaving children alone.  Or perhaps a child was sent and had to fend for themselves.  There was lawlessness and greed, and all kinds of horrible things happening there in the beginning.  On at least one occasion during a storm, when the seas were too rough for the boat to land to unload those suffering from leprosy, people were thrown overboard.  Many died as the waves tossed them into the rocks, or drowned because they were too small or frail.  There are many horror stories associated with the colony on Molokai.

We went on a very small plane.  Jerry was in the co-pilot seat, and then there were 8 more of us.  We filled the plane and our luggage had to be sent over on a bigger plane later in the day.  I was in charge of the food.  The suitcase weighed 65 pounds.  Not a problem.  They went by total weight of all luggage.  I took my water bottle filled with water; they didn't say to turn off our phones (I did since there was no cell phone coverage or internet on the island where we were.  I just had it on "airplane mode" so I could take pictures); and you can probably guess that we got no beverage service or peanuts!  We were told to bring our food.  There is a store on Kalaupapa, but you can only buy one drink and one snack a day there.  However, the store was closed for the weekend by the time we got there.

The back of the plane.

Those in front of us.

Our first view of Molokai.  This is "up top".

Our first view of Kalapaupapa

A better view.

Our lovely plane.

Kalaupapa Airport.

To go to Kalaupapa, you have to be sponsored, and a sponsor can only bring in 6 people at a time.  We went with our friends Wilf and Tina Mueller and John and Carolyn Naegle.  They are wonderful people and dear friends.  Our sponsor was Debbie.  She picked us up in a pickup truck.  We were all in Sunday clothes.  I was nominated to sit in the front with the driver.  The rest climbed into the back and sat on the floor.

Debbie, John, Carolyn, Jerry, Tina, Wilf

Debbie and I switched places.

 

These are the tags we had to wear wherever we went while there.

Back of the tag.

The van's windows were a wee bit dirty.😁

We went to the places we were staying.  The Mueller's stayed at the chapel and slept on cots.

We stayed at the cultural hall and slept on beds (GLAD I had my own sheets!  Wish I had a mattress pad!).

Jerry's bed is in the foreground, mine is the flowered one.  (They look pretty good from a distance.😉)

Our dining room.  The kitchen is through the window next to the freezer (that is locked! 😱)

They are actually two different buildings but next to each other. The Naegle's stayed at a guest house that cost $20/night/person.  They opted for that because we were told the shower at the cultural hall didn't work, and they had a communal one where they were and we could all go and use it.  

Last door on the right.

The guest house bedroom

Guest house communal bathroom

Sign says it all!

But the shower at the cultural hall DID work.  It was just filthy!  And bug-y.  Jerry and Wilf killed the bugs Friday night and Jerry cleaned the shower and shower curtain Saturday morning.  

Cleaning the shower curtain was a combined effort.  Jerry scrubbed it and then held it while ilf rinsed it o ff with pitchers of water.

That is the church behind them.

I had already had my shower, but Sunday, I even took a shower without (!) flipflops!  The cultural hall also had the kitchen.  We settled in and cleaned the church and cultural hall Friday afternoon. It is pretty useless.  There are termites EVERYWHERE!!!  And their little evidences.  I washed the dishes we were going to use, and I cleaned off the counters and stove and sink in the kitchen and swept.  One of the problems faced there is that when anyone dies - and there is a lot of that that has gone on there - all their stuff is taken to the church. (aka cultural hall).  

We had tires, a car battery, a piano, a coffee maker, dishes and pots and pans and appliances, several TV's, duct tape, all kinds of bug killers, a box of VHS tapes, a DVD player (notice the irony there), two chest freezers that were locked (and we were afraid to try and find a key to see what was in there.  Maybe it was the last resident!), two refrigerators, you name it, we probably had it.

Pretty dark, but that is one pile of stuff.

The edge of the pile by the door.

Saturday morning we went to a Catholic Mass celebrating Father Damien who brought peace, love and kindness, and some order to the island.  He later contracted Hansen's disease (The PC name for it now) and died there.  We also learned more about Jonathan Napela, an LDS man who went as a caretaker for his wife who had HD.  He became great friends with Father Damien.  He also contracted HD and actually died before his wife did. 

After the Mass, we were invited to a luau for the celebration.  The day before we had gone to the place of the luau and set up tables and chairs.  Good old Mormon's know how to do that!  We went to the Mass and luau in Pastor Richard Miller's van.  He was driving another van to the Mass.

St. Philomena Catholic Church in Kalawao.

The original church was the wing to the left.

Father Damien De Veuster

Between the wall in the middle of the picture and the wall in the distance are unmarked graves of hundreds or thousands of now unknown patients.

This is the  foundation of the church.  I just thought it was interesting how the rocks were incorporated.

Father Damien's grave.  (Actually, only his right hand is buried there.  The rest of him is in his home town in Belgium.)

This is the traditional picture  you see of Kalawao.

This video is of the coastline where the Hansen's disease patients were "let off" the boats.

A fun sign I saw in Kalawao.  (I was a bit nervous getting the picture!)

That afternoon, we went "sightseeing" in another truck.  This time we took 6 folding chairs and put them in the back so we could sit on those.

Wilf, John, and Jerry on folding chairs in the back of the truck.

We saw different parts of the town.   

One of the visiting houses.  Patients were on one side and visitors went into the other side.  they could visit without contact.

You can't really see it, but on the gas pump is a sign that says, "Out of Order".  That is the only gas station in town.  I think it may just mean that it is closed.  It is only open 3 days a week.  No one locks their doors.  Except the store.  Wherever we went the doors were all unlocked.

Time, termites and weather take a toll on buildings.

I zoomed in.  The tree at the farthest left is where the 3.6 mile trail begins coming down the Pali.  It has 26 switchbacks.  You can either hike it or take a mule up and down.  Glad I didn't have to do either.  It is said to be treacherous.

"Real time" picture.  You can see how far it is and how high it is.

We also went to the crater.

The view from the crater

Zoomed in to about where we lived.

At the top of the little crater.  There is a bigger one kind of around Kalaupapa.

Early church members held church services under the rim of the crater.  I would like to know where!  It looked pretty straight down to me! 

Looking down.

Jonathan Napela is also buried up there someplace.  His grave is unknown.  He was a cousin to the queen, so he was ali'i and people would try and dig up his bones, so no one knows where it is.  There are unmarked graves all over the place there.  Someone said that you were buried where  you died.  I can believe it!

Just down the street a bit from where we lived.  The cross in the picture is up on the crater by where we were.  It looked a lot higher from up there.

Time has taken its toll on some graves.

I thought this was so interesting!  The tree has just embraced the whole grave.

From the other side.

Sunday morning our plans were to go to the Catholic Mass, then to the Protestant Church service and then home to our church to have our own service.  But we drove in Pastor Richard's van with him and he wanted to come home after his church, so we did. Our music was provided by Pastor Richard.

And Lily, his dog joined in our worship.

 

It is so absolutely lovely the way they support one another!  Everyone goes to everyone's church, or celebration.  They help one another.  There is no animosity because of race, religion, or creed.  They are a shining example of what can be done, and what should be done in the world.  When the Mormon Church was built there, they tallied up the hours worked on it and there were more hours given by other religions than by the Mormons themselves.  And when other churches burned or had to replaced, everyone helped.  What wonderful examples!

Statues of Father Damien and Mother Maryanne on the piano in the Cultural Hall.

Three are no more living LDS residents in Kalaupapa.  There are 9 -13 residents left period.  Some live there full time and others travel between Molokai and Honolulu.  The youngest patient is 77 and the oldest is 92.  Jerry said an interesting thing.  He said, "This place, that has been dedicated to death, is dying."  Once the last resident dies, the National Park Service will take over.  Their Presence is there now.

Add it to your list, Beth!

After our service at Siloama (the Church of the Healing Spring), we went back to Kalaupapa and had a Sacrament Meeting at our church there.  There is evidence of the separation of patients and visitors there as well.  You will notice two pulpits.  Two bathrooms - not men and women, patient and visitor.

Bathrooms

After our Sacrament Meeting with the 7 of us, we had lunch and then went for a tour of the Bishop Home.  Mother Maryanne went there and started a "Home for Unprotected Women and Children"  It is pretty much a convent now, with a population of 1.  Sister Alicia.  

The four "sisters".  Lynne, Tina, Sister Alicia, and Carolyn.

We also toured the home of a resident, Kenso, that Father Damien took under his wing and called the "little Bishop"  He helped at the church all his life.  

Kenso liked cars.  This was his.

 We watched a movie before we went produced by Hollywood.  Watch it if you can.  It is called "Molokai: the Story of Father Damien" We visited the graves of Father Damien on Saturday, and Mother Maryanne on Sunday.  I use the term graves, loosely.  Only Father Damien's right hand is buried there, and only bone fragments left from exhuming Mother Maryanne are there.  She had osteoporosis so her bones kind of fell apart when they opened her grave.

Mother Maryann's grave.

Both Father Damien and Mother Maryanne have been canonized and made Saints.

For our Mass and Protestant Church meetings we went to Kalawao, where Father Damien actually lived and where his story took place.  They have church there the first Sunday of every  month.  After the tour of the convent, we walked around the town.  We stopped in at the Catholic Church

and the Protestant church in Kalaupapa.  

I don't think it has been used for a while.

The Post Office

 I think the Post Office and the store are the only buildings that are locked.  Everything else is just open for anyone to go and see,

We also walked by some of the graves, and along the beach. 

There was a Monk seal lying on the beach both Saturday and Sunday.  She is due to give birth any day, so we kept checking on her.  But no luck.  Monk seals are only found in Hawaii and are on the endangered species list.

Mama Monk seal.

She got some (very unappreciated) company.

On the way to the airport, John sat by his new friend.  We thought they were kind of "twinsies".

  

Kalaupapa Airport

Sign at the airport.

We flew home on Sunday afternoon in a bigger plane.  There were still just 8 of us and the pilot.  The Priest that officiated at Mass was on the plane with us.  This time our luggage came with us.  It was still a pretty bouncy jouncy ride with the back end fish tailing as we flew along (but not as bad as going over).  I was glad to land!

Father Petrie sat in front of me.

                                          This is our plane landing in Kalaupapa.

Why did we go?  The purpose was to experience Kalaupapa.  And,  I think, after experiencing it, to spread the word.   You know how we should never forget the Holocaust?  In a similar way we should not forget how a helpless and vulnerable people were treated, and then how they triumphed and created a Zion society.  Right now children under 16 are not allowed in Kalaupapa.   The national parks system has an inch thick book with the 5 different plan options for Kalaupapa.   They range from doing nothing, (bad idea because the weather and termites will soon overtake the settlement) to creating a resort (also a bad idea.  There is no infrastructure for such a thing.  Travel there is difficult, the water and sewer system is inadequate,  no place for garbage, etc.) Those problems will be a problem for whatever they do.   A barge comes in once a year to take stuff away (cars, pipes, appliances, things like that) at a cost of $24,000 to the settlement.  The patients want a plan somewhere in the middle.   They want children to come and learn, they want it to be an educational experience, they want the buildings to be maintained.  It would be wonderful if it could be like Nauvoo!  The church is waiting for the decision to figure out what to do there.   There is talk about restoring the cultural hall and making it into a visitor's center to tell the Mormon perspective and about Jonathan Napela.  On the other side of the chapel is the "Mission Home".  

The Mission Home

On the Memorial.

On the Memorial between the Chapel and Cultural Hall

Standing by the Chapel looking towards the Cultural Hall

All three builldings in a row:  Mission Home, Chapel, and Cultural Hall.

It is a two bedroom home the missionaries used to live in.   It could be quite nice if it was CLEANED up!  A senior couple could live there quite comfortably if they made the cultural hall into a visitor's center.  

We feel a need to "tell the story".