Cross-post from Eco-Steward Blog, written by Vickie Machado on May 14, 2018
We’ve just completed another wonderful week of exploring the connection between faith and environment here in beautiful Kailua, Oahu where fourteen of us gathered for the Eco-Stewards Hawaii Special Edition.
It was a tremendous week of learning, sharing, receiving and giving that we are still processing as we travel back to our individual watersheds. Thankfully, Vickie Machado from our Leadership Team shared the following reflection during this morning’s worship service at Christ Church Uniting, our gracious host this week. We hope in sharing Vickie’s words from today’s service, you’ll get a glimpse into our time together in this sacred place:
I have had the privilege to be involved with the Eco-Stewards Program since 2011. I must say I had no idea that when I first participated in this program, it would lead me here to this beautiful island seven years later.
This year’s trip was a special experience for us as we invited a mix of leaders in their 20’s and 30’s to join us for our program entitled Aloha ‘Aina (Love for the Land). Throughout our week together we listened to local taro farmers, worked alongside fisherman rejuvenating ancient fishponds, and were captivated by Polynesian voyagers validating Hawaiian history. We also spoke with schoolchildren working to engage sustainability issues and gained insight into local chocolatiers utilizing direct trade to ensure growers get fair wages and grow quality product. All of these people “talked story” about how their faith and their pursuit of justice for both people and the land intersects for them in their daily lives.
In a similar vein, we met and listened to the place around us. Both aina (land) and kai (sea) washed over us. As we spent the morning at taro farm and the afternoons at local beaches, we were baptized in both the water and earth—literally wrapping ourselves in the ocean’s waves and wading through chest deep mud as we helped clean taro in the lo’i (irrigated terrace for taro). The landscape also welcomed us and heard our names as we hiked the local Pillbox Trail to see the sunrise and visited the Ulupou Heiau to further understand the history and ancestors of this land.
Of the entire trip, perhaps what strikes me most about Hawai’i is the collective memory that is present. Reflecting upon Friday night’s Vespers on the Lanai and our week here, made me realize that Hawai’i holds strongly to this memory and it is these memories that offer an ever present force each day. The stories we heard were by no means individual tales. Each of the people and places we encountered recognized those around them in addition to the ancestors who came before them as integral parts to their narratives. It seems like here more so than other places, there is a strong sense of the divine entangled in the present, vocally expressing her grace through the intersection of both kai and aina.
It was throughout the week that I realized that this feeling I felt was indeed ‘ohana— the community and family that holds strong ties to this place. The relationships of both people and place reinforce our need to care for the world around us. It reminds us that we are indeed one—we are our brothers and sisters keepers. And that what happens on the taro farm in the uplands affects the fishponds near the sea— all are connected in this ahupua’a (watershed). Perhaps above all, we are reminded that when we are given abundance, it is ours to share.
For me, visiting this new land and gaining insight into the worldviews of those we visited like Dean’s Taro farm, SEEQs, Blue Plant Foundation, Manoa, and Paepae O He’eia fishpond, reminded me of my own family and it made me realize that this is precisely what Eco-Stewards is for me—it is ‘ohana. A wondrous time when I have the opportunity to catch up with old friends, experience the present state of local communities and pave a path for those young adults and future leaders that will come next.
On behalf of the Eco-Stewards Leadership team and our 2018 Eco-Stewards participants, I would like to truly thank you all for sharing this rich culture with us. We appreciate CCU’s hospitality, kindness, grace and prayers throughout this process, from the very early stages, through today and beyond. Thank you for exposing us to a strong example of how to commune with aina and more importantly how to establish and sustain the ohana with both the natural environment and those people around us.
