Aloha! I express my gratitude to President John Tanner and the BYU-Hawaii administration for the invitation to address you at this devotional. I have made many trips to this campus and have also had the blessing of teaching here for three summers and I love BYU-Hawaii and the Laie community. It is fitting that Laie’s own Auntie Kela Miller would introduce me today as she is the person who kindly arranged for me to meet Sister Ku’ulei Bell during my first visit to Kalaupapa, a unique settlement on the Hawaiian island of Moloka‘i. Here, commencing in 1866, patients, afflicted with leprosy were forced to separate from society; yet, working together, they forged a loving, united community transforming their space into sacred ground.
I felt the lure of Kalaupapa before I ever visited there. In 2003, my wife, Joanna, and I were investigating the Hawaiian Islands in preparation for a research trip and anniversary celebration. I asked her where she would like to visit after my research was completed and she quickly responded, “I don’t care where else we go, but we must see Kalaupapa.” It was high adventure just getting to that remote location. The destination necessitated a precarious mule ride down the highest sea cliffs in the world.1 At last, we spilled out onto a flat peninsula, four-miles of transforming terra firma that changed my life.
The literal translation of Kalaupapa has been rendered “flat plain” or “flat leaf.”2 In either case, I discovered through much reading, many interviews, and multiple firsthand encounters that Kalaupapa is a leveling experience: Here one crosses the boundaries of his or her self-proclaimed beliefs and ethnicity and melds into a community defined only by humanity, a greater realm of brotherhood and compassion. For it is in Kalaupapa where religious denominations and cultural divides vanish—where the love of God and mankind manifest themselves in a truly magnificent way, triumphing over the devastation of leprosy also known as the separating sickness.
Thousands of people worldwide are currently infected with this disease, which affects primarily the skin and nerves. However, less than five percent of the human population is susceptible to its ravishes. In 1873, a Norwegian physician named Dr. Gerhardt Hansen discovered the cause of the sickness, a bacillus, mycobacterium leprae, and as a result, years later, the illness began to be referred to as “Hansen’s disease.”3
In the same year, Dr. Hansen made his medical discovery, two ecclesiastical leaders from different faiths first made their appearance on the Kalaupapa peninsula. One was a Latter-day Saint named Jonathan Hawaii Napela, the other a Belgian priest, Father Damien J. De Veuster, who was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2009. Napela was born on the island of Maui in 1813, became a district judge in 1848, and converted to Mormonism in 1852. He was a tremendous aid to early LDS missionary work on the Hawaiian Islands as he fed and housed the elders, helped them learn his native language, and aided George Q. Cannon with the translation of the Book of Mormon. Perhaps his greatest contribution was his example as a loving husband. When his beloved wife Kitty contracted the disease, Jonathan chose to remain with her in the settlement and act as her kokua, a Hawaiian word meaning “helper.” Consequently, Jonathan wrote a heart-felt letter in his native language, Hawaiian, to the Board of Health, pleading that he might be allowed to stay with his wife:
"On August 3, 1843 I took my wife as my legally married wife and on that same day I vowed before God to care for my wife in health and sickness, and until death do us part…. I am 60 years old and do not have much longer to live. During the brief time remaining, I want to be with my wife. My wife has also lived a long life, but with this disease, it will quickly shorten her life. Such is the reason for this petition."4
Fortunately, Jonathan’s request was granted, and he spent the remaining years of his life at Kalaupapa with Kitty. While there, Napela more than just his wife. Not long after his arrival, he was called as the leader of the LDS Church on the Kalaupapa peninsula, a calling he held from 1873 until his death in 1879, from the effects of Hansen’s disease.5
Perhaps not coincidentally, Father Damien arrived at Kalaupapa about the same time the Napelas did. This Belgian priest would eventually gain international fame because of his demonstration of faith and attitude of selfless service on the island best, captured by his own words: “Suppose the disease does get my body, God will give me another one on Resurrection Day.”6 From the day of his arrival in 1873 until his death in 1889 at age forty-nine, his concern was for all the patients, regardless of race or religion. He especially loved the orphaned children whom he often led in singing. His Christian service on the Kalaupapa peninsula serves as an important reminder of Elder Orson F. Whitney’s words, offered in a 1921 general conference address: “God has been using not merely his covenant people, but other peoples of the world as well, to carry out a work that is too demanding for the limited numbers of Latter-day Saints to accomplish by themselves. Other good and great men and women have been inspired of God under many circumstances to deliver dimensions of light and truth.”7
Soon after their arrival at the settlement, Jonathan Napela and Father Damien became acquainted. Both had come to Kalaupapa to serve, and both contracted Hansen’s disease as a result of their charity. Damien was twenty-seven years younger than Napela, and the cultural background of each was very different, yet both were firmly committed to their religious orientations. Though ecclesiastical leaders of different faiths, they became dear friends. In fact, one of their contemporaries who lived at Kalaupapa wrote, “After Father Damien arrived in the Leper Settlement, ...Mr. J. Napela and...Father Damien were the best of friends.”8
In early 2005, I learned that both BYU-Hawaii and Chaminade, a Catholic university in Honolulu, were celebrating their jubilee anniversaries. I approached the presidents of both schools (BYU-H President Eric B. Shumway and Chaminade President Sue Wesselkamper) about the idea of a joint celebration on each campus and explained that it seemed natural to share this wonderful interfaith story, which seemed to have commenced with the friendship between Damien and Napela. They listened attentively and agreed to it and lectures were held on both campuses.
Between 1866 and 1969, many other lifetime friendships were forged among the eight thousand plus people who were forcibly relegated to the Kalaupapa peninsula. Thankfully, by 1969 sulfone drugs were developed and administered, arresting the disease and patients were again free to move abroad as they wished. In this same year when Neil Armstrong took a giant step onto the moon, the Hawaii Board of Health finally made the move to permanently end the isolation of all patients.9 In spite of this significant decision which lifted the ban, many patients chose not to leave. Others left Kalaupapa and tried to assimilate into society, but found life was better in the settlement and returned “home.” This was a time of realization and reflection for the patients. Each discovered, in their own time, that they had fashioned a paradise out of a hell.
Over the years, the Kalaupapa community had been sanctified through suffering. One former patient, Bernard Punikai‘a, said that Kalaupapa used to be viewed as “a devil’s island, a gateway to hell, worse than a prison.” But he added, “Today it is a gateway to heaven. There is a spirituality to the place. All the suffering of those whose blood has touched the land—the effect is so powerful even the rain cannot wash it away.”10
Jack Sing, Kalaupapa’s branch president for three decades (1952-1983), and recipient of BYU Hawaii’s distinguished service award (1978), observed, “In Honolulu everybody for themselves—you have money you have friends, you have no money, you have no friends. Over here, ...money no matter.”11 Referring to the outside world of Honolulu and beyond, another patient, Makia Malo observed, “They thought it [Kalaupapa] was hell and we thought it was heaven.”12
Reflecting back over her years spent at Kalaupapa, one Protestant patient, Nancy Talino, told her experience of coming to have an intimate relationship with God:
"We were nurtured. ...Not just by a Protestant or a Mormon or even Catholic nuns. Everyone worked together. ...Everyone needed prayers, there were prayers. And I was thankful that I was very close, very close to God. ...Someone asked, 'Do you ask God why?' I said, 'No, I don’t.' I just say, 'Maybe it’s a wake-up call.' I thank Him. ...I want people to know, really know the love in the hearts of the people of Kalaupapa. ...We’ve got hearts. We’ve got hearts."13
In another interview Nancy described the ecumenical nature of attending different churches in the settlement on Sundays and on other weekdays:
"We had a lot of children of different races and different creeds. Everybody belonged to a different church, but every Sunday we started off with Mass at six o’clock in the morning. Nine o’clock we’d go to Protestant church. Sunday afternoon we would go to the Mormon Church, and then Monday evening there’s another church service, it could be a Filipino church service. And then there’s another one during the week, ...a Buddhist."
Nancy also praised the staff and again gave profound thanks to God:
“The staff...brought so much love into our hearts. And though we suffered, it was a lot of pain and suffering, a lot of tears, but I can look back and thank God for those tears because for many of us it brought us closer to Him, and through the years it nurtured our lives. We can think back and say, for one thing we were close to God. God kept us these years, and that is the reason why we are still here today. God kept us. And many of us can truly say, without his love, we would not be here. Many times I think about the people who brought all that love into our hearts. I know even though they’re not here with us, I can still thank them, thank them with all my heart, because they were a part of our lives. They’re really looking down on us. We had a lot of good doctors there and the nuns also. But there was a lot of joy and happiness, a lot of young people also. But God kept us through all these years and really how thankful we are. I guess so many of us now can think back and say, ‘Well, in spite of the pain, God has still seen us through all that heartache and the pain. And we can still praise Him and thank Him.’”14
Nancy Brede, another patient who came to Kalaupapa in 1936 at age fourteen, shared her experience of prayer and the importance of expressing gratitude to God, even in times of adversity:
“God knows best for us. ...You must keep your faith no matter what comes into your life, you must still be able to thank the Lord for the many other blessings that we receive, and keep this faith all the time, no matter what comes into our life. Yeah. – Because I feel religion is not thanking God when everything is good; religion is thanking God when everything isn’t going right.”15
Several people who had contact with the Kalaupapa patients spoke of the unifying effects inherent in the suffering of this disease. For example, in his book Travels in Hawaii, Robert Louis Stevenson writing of his visit to Kalaupapa, remarked, “They were strangers to each other, collected by common calamity, disfigured, mortally sick, banished without sin from home and friends.” He further noted, “Few would understand the principle on which they were thus forfeited in all that makes life dear; many must have conceived their ostracism to be grounded in malevolent caprice; all came with sorrow at heart, many with despair and rage. In the chronicle of man there is perhaps no more melancholy landing than this.”16 Stevenson observed, among the “sights of pain in a land of disease and disfigurement, bright examples of fortitude and kindness, moral beauty, physical horror, intimately knit.”17 The patients were not to be overcome. As a result of their collective cooperative experience, they became one, which didn’t go unnoticed.
Author Ethel H. Damon was also discerning, stating, “Surely the isolation of suffering has tended toward obliterating the barriers in religious observance.”18 Reverend James Drew observed, “They are brothers and sisters here. ...Leprosy has made sure of that.”19 Paul Harada, a Japanese patient, echoed this same theme: “The more we suffer, the more strength we have. The more suffering, the closer we are together. Life is that way. If you haven’t suffered, then you don’t know what joy is. The others may know something about joy, but those who have gone through hell and high water, I think they feel the joy deeper.”20 In referring to the Kalaupapa community in another setting, Harada said, “We are all friends. There is an ecumenical philosophy here.”21 Commenting about his life in a paradise amid the Kalaupapa community, Jack Sing said simply, “We are all brothers and sisters...we help each other.”22
Journalist Ernie Pyle recalled,
“My stay on Kalaupapa was one of the most powerful adventures in my life. ...It was a feeling something like this: out of the defilement and abuse that nature had heaped upon those people, there had arisen over Kalaupapa an atmosphere that was surely spiritual, almost heavenly. It was a strange atmosphere of calm—a calm that was invitational, and almost irresistible.”23
Lawrence M. Judd, Kalaupapa superintendent (1947-1949), was deeply moved serving this loving community stated,
“I know of no land or people who can grow into one’s heart more than Kalaupapa and its people. I am sure God smiled with great delight when HE finished Kalaupapa. He left with it and its people much of HIS love and the beauty of HIS own soul. I feel certain HE built himself into it and has since glorified it with his frequent presence.”24
Our own beloved Brother David Hannemann, a missionary at Kalaupapa in 1949 during the Judd era remembered,
“The six months I spent in Kalaupapa was different than any other experience. I spent the rest of my mission in other places, but my experiences in Kalaupapa really helped me as an individual to get along with people – to look beyond the physical appearance of an individual, and look at the heart.”25 Elder Hannemann recalling his work with the scouts in Kalaupapa’s troop 46, simply noted, “Oh it is wonderful!” David also met with one of his troop members sixty-six years later at Hale Mohalu. I was privileged to listen to them reminisce over their scouting days which included the desire of a tender twelve-year-old boy that David would pray for his sick pet pig.26
While reminiscing about the sixty-plus years of living at Kalaupapa, Mary Sing (Kalaupapa Relief Society President for decades along-side her husband Jack) recalled,
“Everybody was living just like a family. Nobody says anything bad about the other religion. Everybody was together. See, they respected, you know, each church.” Mary added, “If the Catholic had a party, ...they wait for the Mormon people to get through with their service. ...And so [it] is with the Protestant, everybody was happy.”27
There were many occasions which also created joy for the settlement. Richard Marks, a former patient, a Catholic, and the sheriff of Kalaupapa for nearly two decades (proud of his record of “no arrests”), related a humorous anecdote.28 In describing the Christmas Catholic mass at Kalaupapa, Marks explained, “The Protestants and the Mormons came early and they took the back seats so we had to sit up front.”29 Boogie, another patient of the same faith added, “We know all about the things we went through. ...I think that’s one [reason we feel like a family]. ...When we had a function going on, the whole community just comes together.”30 A patient active in the Protestant community recalled, “Us and the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, we’re always getting together. When it was something big, we always join together and enjoy it.”31
This description of the Kalaupapa ohana (family) happiness was also expressed by Edwin Lelepali, affectionately known as “Pali,” sent to Kalaupapa in 1942. Pali expressed his joy and gratitude when members of the settlement joined in 1966 to help reconstruct the Protestant Siloama Chapel. He noted, “We had the Protestants, we had the Catholics, we had the Mormons all chip in to build this Church. ...They wanted to help this Church. ...When you came here you could feel the spirit of love. It was special working with them. ...It was just beautiful. I can never thank them enough. It was wonderful.”32
When asked if the same was true when a twentieth-century Catholic Church was erected, Pali explained that all joined in “to help raise some funds for the Church. ...Everybody would help out and that’s how it was in Kalaupapa. That’s what’s so different about Kalaupapa, when somebody needs help, everybody’s there.” He continued, “This is our family. ...I don’t care what religion. ...That’s how we felt. When they need help, we [are] there, see? ...We always go. You don’t have to ask us, we just come out and help. That’s how we were brought up here in Kalaupapa. Somehow that great love for everybody brought us together.”33
The same spirit of love and collaboration that existed during the construction of the Catholic and Protestant churches was also evident when a new Latter-day Saint chapel was built to replace the older 1904 chapel, which had deteriorated. When the building was dedicated at the close of 1965 and the work hours tallied, it was discovered that those of other faiths had actually donated more hours in its construction than the Latter-day Saints had. “All worked hard, and some of those with disabilities had their hands wired to the wheelbarrows that they might do their share.”
The entire settlement joined in celebration over the knowledge that their LDS friends had a new chapel to worship in.34
Celebrations and music were important to the community. Entertainers such as Laie resident, B. J. Lee, felt the impact of this close-knit community when she reached out as a voluntary performer on many occasions with her musical friends Hanaloa Niapali and Cissy Fong: Lee recalled, “The flight to Kalaupapa...is always a thrill for me to visit that place at the end of the rainbow. I always say that the Lord made that island very special by adding the Kalaupapa Peninsula.” She added, “Returning from Kalaupapa is a renewal of life. You return richer with love for the unfortunate—the physically, spiritually, and emotionally unfortunate. You search your soul to assess values, your dealings with your family; friends, neighbors. What good one has done in the world.”35
After over a decade of research, interviews, expeditions, and contemplation, I believe I’ve identified the settlement’s secrets. It is the story of community—community unlike anywhere else in the world—not a space divided by borders and barriers or fences and enclosures, but a place which beckons every race and religion, every color and creed. Kalaupapa is proof that community is possible, though not without price. The cost was suffering—suffering together. Anyone who explores the story of Kalaupapa uncovers the rich charity beneath its surface. Kalaupapa serves as a reminder of the importance of erecting bridges instead of barriers, finding common ground instead of battleground, and in valuing one another regardless of ethnicity and religiosity. It motivates us to generate light instead of heat and to look outside the circle of our faith’s community, to be inclusive in joining hands to render loving service to others.
Kalaupapa is an epic tale of human triumph. It begins as a tragedy and culminates in a storybook ending. A devastating plague ravishes a population, but then a community is forged in love, free of universal ignorance, prejudice, and pride. The separating sickness that initially tore people away from those they loved subsequently united them with strangers who became their Ohana. The community of Kalaupapa achieved what has yet to be accomplished in any society I know of. Healthy or sick, black or white, bond or free, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, or Mormon, all were equal and beloved. Each denomination lived above their precepts and pleased God in the process. Heroes walked among the patients. Men and women offered and risked their lives to assure the wellbeing of patients as they tenderly ministered to the destitute. Regardless of one’s ethnicity or religiosity, the story of Kalaupapa delivers a powerful universal message: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things, charity.”36
I was pondering this powerful message this past Saturday morning on the eve of Easter as I drove to the Northshore to watch the surfing action at pipeline. I pulled off the road at Kahuku and decided I would try to introduce myself to the Catholic priest at the St. Roch Church whose name is Father Jun Pastrano. He came out dressed in shorts and a casual shirt as I was and we had a wonderful visit on his porch. I told him why I was in town and a few highlights of this Kalaupapa devotional. After leaving him with books I had written on the subject, I then went a little ways down the road and knocked on the door of the United Methodist minister’s house and introduced myself to Pastor Tevita Maile and his wife. Pastor Maile was preparing his Easter sermon, but still made time for me. I found out we shared a past common friend in Viliami Afiaki and that he also knew Viliami Tolutau. We had a nice visit together.
The following morning as Easter dawned, I went to the St. Roch Church and arrived about the same time that Father Pastrano did. He soon told a prisoner that I was a bishop and also informed me that he had talked about the journey to Kalaupapa in his Saturday evening mass the night before. I was soon asked to introduce myself to the congregation along with other visitors and was edified by the hymns we sang together, which included “All Creatures of our God and King,” written by St. Francis of Assii eight hundred years ago.
I also visited the United Methodist Church and was asked to introduce myself by Pastor Tevita Maile. After I finished, he told the congregation: “Fred is giving a inter-faith lecture at BYU-Hawaii and all are invited to attend. He believes we all worship the same God.” We then sang the hymn written by the Methodist Christian missionary, Charles Wesley which was the same hymn I sang that day with the Saints of the Laie Second Ward, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” written before the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830.
As I have pondered over these hymns written by inspired men before the dawn of the Restoration with my Catholic and Methodist brothers and sisters, I was again reminded of the Latin maxim which I again invite you to reflect upon: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things charity.”
I know that our Heavenly Father lives and that he loves us. I know we are his children. I testify that God sent his Only Begotten Son to die for us and to show us the way back home. I know that people of all faiths can recognize that we are true followers of God and of the Christ by our love for each other and for all of our Father’s children. I testify of the power to bring unity through charity.
“Charity is the pure love of God, and it endureth forever, and whoso is possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him”37 in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[1] These cliffs are nearly two thousand feet tall.
[2] Emmett Cahill, Yesterday at Kalaupapa (Honolulu: Editions Limited, 1990), 2.
[3] In 1981 this name was officially adopted in Hawaii as the medical term for leprosy, which usage patients prefer, since the former term possesses a negative stigma in biblical literature, which intimates that its victims were unclean.
[4] J.H. Napela, Series 334: Board of Health 1873, Letters Incoming, Hawaii State Archives, Honolulu Hawaii.
[5] Jonathan and his wife Kitty both died from the effects of Hansen’s disease in August 1879. See the Kalawao Death Register, 1879—1880, Hawaii State Archives.
[6] Father Damien, originally named Joseph de Veuster, was born January 3, 1840, in Tremeloo, Belgium. A priest in the Society of the Sacred Hearts of Joseph and Mary, Damien was ordained at Honolulu in 1864. He then spent several years working among the native Hawaiians on the big island of Hawaii. Members of his parish contracted the disease and were sent to Kalawao on the Kalaupapa peninsula. His heart was instilled with a desire to labor among the leprosy settlement, and when the opportunity presented itself, he quickly volunteered. See Gavan Daws, Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1973), 6, 19, 30—34.
[7] Elder Orson F. Whitney, Ninety First Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1921, 32–33.
[8] Ambrose Hutchison, (resident of settlement 1879–1932), “In Memory of Reverend Father Damien J. De Veuster and Other Priests Who have Labored in the Leper Settlement of Kalawao, Moloka’i,” 19.
[9] Greene, Exile in Paradise, xxx.
[10] John Tayman, The Colony (New York: Scribner, 2006), 315.
[11] Wineera, et al.,“Jack Sing Kong Kalaupapa Pioneer,” 45.
[12] Makia Malo, Comment made to Fred E. Woods, Summer 2007, Kalaupapa.
[13] Nancy Talino, Interview by Fred E. Woods, August 7, 2006.
[14] Nancy Talino, Interview by Fred E. Woods, January 9, 2009, Hale Mohalu, HI.
[15] Nancy Brede, Interview by Fred E. Woods, August 2, 2006, Hale Mohalu, HI. Nancy was registered for 79 years as a Kalaupapa resident, longer than any other patient who came before her. Nancy passed away at age 92 in the fall of 2015. For more of her story, see Pamela Young, “Oldest patient at Kalaupapa dies,” KITV4 Island News, posted Oct. 30, 2015, http://www.kitv.com/story/30398586/oldest-patient-at-kalaupapa-dies.
[16] Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels in Hawaii, ed. A. Grove Day, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1973), 53
[17] Stevenson, Travels in Hawaii, 51.
[18] Damon, Siloama: The Church of the Healing Spring, 84.
[19] Rev. James Drew, cited in Tayman, The Colony, 297.
[20] Tayman, The Colony, 314.
[21] Paul Harada, Interview Fred E. Woods, August 2, 2006, Kalaupapa.
[22] Heslop, “Leper Colony His Home for 57 Years,” 4.
[23] Ernie Pyle, Home Country (New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1947), 244.
[24] Lawrence M. Judd, “To the People of Kalaupapa,” LMJC, series M-420, box 15, fd. 227,” Kalaupapa Res. Supt. Report. October-December 1947,” AH).
[25] David Hannemann, interview by Ethan Vincent, assisted by Fred E. Woods, February 2, 2009, LDS Motion Picture Studio, Provo, Utah.
[26] David Hannemann, interview by Fred E. Woods, August 7, 2006 on the BYY-Hawaii campus.
[27] Interview of Jack & Mary Sing by Ishmael Stagner & Ken Baldridge, Oral History dated Feb. 24, 1979, BYU-Hawaii Archives, 4.
[28] Pat Boland made this humorous remark during his eulogy of Richard Marks on December 27, 2008, on Oahu: “Being the sheriff of the County of Kalawao, he would wear the badge when it was required, but he told me he didn’t know where the keys to the jail were.”
[29] Richard Marks, Interview by Fred E. Woods, July 28, 2006, Kalaupapa.
[30] Clarence W. K. “Boogie” Kahilihiwa, Interview by Fred E. Woods, July 29, 2006, Kalaupapa.
[31] Edwin “Pali” Lelepali, Interview by Fred E. Woods, July 29, 2006, Kalaupapa.
[32] Edwin “Pali” Lelepali, Interview by Fred E. Woods, February 9, 2007, Kalaupapa.
[33] Edwin “Pali” Lelepali, Interview by Fred E. Woods, July 29, 2006.
[34] Orlene, J. Poulsen, “Kalaupapa – Place of Refuge,” Relief Society Magazine (March 1968): 210–11.
[35] This account was taken from an excerpt written by B. J. Fuller Lee (now deceased), handwritten on notebook paper, December 11‒12, 1982.
[36] Philip Schaff, in History of the Christian Church, vol. 7 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916‒1923), 650. Schaff explains, “This famous motto...is often falsely attributed to St. Augustine...but [it is] of much later origin. ...The authorship has been traced to Rupertus Meldenius, an otherwise unknown divine.” Since October 2005, the author has been sharing the story of Kalaupapa and this message of unity within communities in scores of interfaith venues at universities and ecclesiastical settings.
[37] Moroni 7:47