Yesterday was the first day of the bicentennial of the Hawaiian Mission Houses. It was a celebration of the life and passing of Henry Opukahaia, the first Hawaiian to convert to Christianity. He had a goal of bringing the Christian message back to Hawaii, and worked within the movement of the Second Great Awakening to see this happen. His untimely death, on February 17, 1818, meant that he was never to see Hawaii again, but the published memoirs of his life was a best seller in America and had a similar effect as Uncle Tom's Cabin in calling Northern Protestants to action.
In my own life and history, it seemed I had very little connection to the eventual mission that came to Hawaii. But through the celebrations surrounding the life of Opukahaia, I find that is not necessarily the case.
Along with Samuel Mills, Edwin Dwight, James Richards, and Adoniram Judson, Obukahaia was in a society of young men committed to beginning foreign missions. All of them were attending Andover Theological Seminary. Mills was one of the founders of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which sent the first missionaries to Hawaii. Judson became the first missionary to Burma. Judson is also considered the first Baptist missionary.
When studying in New England, Opukahaia lived with Judson's wife's family.
I am a long way away, in what is turning out to be a very small world.
It is hard leaving a museum that is not finished. Since 2013, we have been working on the design, fabrication and installation of the permanent exhibit at the IVDM. Phase 1 was completed in April 2015, and Phase 2 in August 2015. But Phase 3 did not get finished.
A couple month ago, we received a $30,000 grant to begin the work on Phase 3. This included the
building of the valances and drywall finishes - similar projects that were completed in December 2014. This work, we did in house. Which really means in the last three weeks I built walls, hung, and finished drywall. The new interim director at IVDM, Dr. David Breeckner, has a work ethic that is pretty outstanding, and the two of us were able to finish - at least the to a point where the walls could be painted.
I am disappointed that I will not complete the entire exhibit that was designed by Weldon Exhibits in 2013, but we sure came close!
Mid Ocotober, I applied for the position of Director at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives.
I had applied last January, but they did not make a hire at that time. So it was a job and a place we were familiar with. When I applied the second time, the process went very quickly. A phone interview the week before Thanksgiving. A site visit the week after Thanksgiving.
The phone call with an offer to hire came just a few days later. They wanted someone the first of the year, but I still had some projects to tie up.
So, February 2, was my on-island date. And to tie things up, I had to work right up to the day I flew out.
Well, here we go again. On Friday, I arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, to take my post as Executive Director of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Histoic Site and Archives.
We are very excited for this new opportunity. It has been a whirlwind of activity since Thanksgiving. Tying up projects and trying to finish a couple grant projects at IVDM.
This part - the first few weeks - is always the hardest. I have arrived with two suitcases.
I am staying in a one-room AirBnB for the month and trying to figure it out. Start work tomorrow.
Archdaily and Designboom published articles this week on Hello Wood. Last year the Cathedral did not get much pictorial coverage, but this year the structure was very photogenic.
I especially like the review of the Cathedral in Archdaily:
The cathedral in the Hello Wood village is under construction and has been expanding now for a second year running. This year, the church built on the ruins of the settlement that existed here three hundred years ago has been expanded with further elements: the communal spaces of a chapter house and a cloister. A special feature of the latter is that it is always open towards the interior garden of the chapter house, and so though it shuts out the outside world, this does not mean that its structure is not welcoming: inside, it makes space for people to gather.
One part of the communal spaces, also newly created, is reminiscent of a living room, while another is more fitted to fulfilling the functions of a bedroom thanks to the reclining spaces within. The residents of Hello Wood may just be visiting, staying temporarily in the village, but they still need places that can provide them with the comforts of home. At the same time, the expanded cathedral is a structure that can adapt flexibly to any kind of need. It can be a private residence for its builders, but it can also accommodate the more than one hundred residents of the village on a more spiritual occasion, such as for example a concert.
This year at Hello Wood we worked on creating Human Scale Activities focused on the theory of Adaptive Use - creating flexible spaces that can be easily adapted for multiple, or unforeseen uses.
Thursday afternoon one of our team members, a guy from Yorkshire, England, completed a table that looked to high.
"It's not too high," he said standing at the table acting like he was holding a drink, "it's beer high."
Immediately my mind went through a dozen interactions I had had. I knew there was expensive red wine at the bar they did not serve, I knew they had liver pate in the kitchen (they serve it for breakfast), I have built a bar out of
found items before - POP-UP WINE BAR.
About 15 minutes later we had a plan. Friday from 6:30 to 7:30 v"we will host a pop-up wine bar, go write it on the board!"
Good turn out, great use of our space. Super great use of our "mobile" section that we had built on Thursday. The Chapter House was transformed. I tried to get all our team members to put black shirts on.
In the late afternoon it started to pour rain. I thought the event would be ruined, or cancelled. Lucas said not to worry.
'The rain will stop and whe the sun comes out it will be an even better evening," he said.
He was right. By 6:00 the rain had stopped and the quality of light was amazing as the sun set. Janus wines brought ten bottle of red down. We wrote up a sales board and opened for business. The raking light in the late evening glistened off of the Cathedral and the pictures taken on this evening will be the ones published by Hello Wood and put into the video. It was a staggering evening, and that's not just the wine talking.
