The mood was bittersweet on Sunday as members of Koloa Missionary Church gave their final farewell to a historic building that holds over 50 years of fellowship and spiritual growth. Starting next week are plans to deconstruct the church and
The mood was bittersweet on Sunday as members of Koloa Missionary Church gave their final farewell to a historic building that holds over 50 years of fellowship and spiritual growth. Starting next week are plans to deconstruct the church and build its new structure from the ground up.
“I go back a long way because I was born in this building,” said Edna Holdeman, who shared her memories of Koloa Missionary Church during the service. “Koloa Missionary Church meant a lot to me. … I just pray that God will richly bless you into this new chapter and this exciting journey.”
As a young boy, pastor Jerry Terui used to walk past the church everyday before school. At the time, the building was empty and the area was overgrown with a tall hedge lining the front.
“I never knew when I was a little boy, what was behind that hedge. It was always scary,” Terui said with a laugh. Terui became a Christian at Koloa Missionary Church and remembers the day vividly. “I was so thrilled that I got up and I ran all the way home, over half a mile and just ran saying ‘Praise God!’,” he said. “We’ve had a nice comfortable place here for many, many years. Now it’s time to move on.”
Pastor Niles Kageyama, who recently retired from lead Pastor of Koloa Missionary Church after almost 19 years of service, also reflected upon some of his many memories.
“A lot of people have been, in some way, somehow, touched with the ministry of this church over the years,” he said. “This building has provided for us a lot of memories, but as you know that the church is not the building, right? The church is the people.”
Although it’s hard to say goodbye to such a historic landmark on Kaua’i’s South Shore, members of the church feel like the time has come and that a new chapter is ready to begin.
“It’s very old,” Kageyama said about the building. “Over the years we have spent tens of thousands of dollars just up-keeping and renovating, and we thought it’s time we just go for a new building.”
Instead of demolishing the building in one easy step, the church decided they would take apart the structure, piece by piece, and salvage the remaining materials. With no bull dozers or cranes, just manual labor, church members are asking for any volunteers from the community.
“We’ve got three professional contractors in the church that are making this their full-time commitment and then we are inviting as many community members as we can to jump in, pick up a hammer and spend a few days helping,” said Pastor Matt Metzger. While many churches traditionally ask volunteers from other locations to come on a mission to help, Koloa Missionary is asking its community to take ownership of an opportunity to help a community building, Metzger said.
Deconstruction will start next week under the supervision of Re-use Hawai‘i, a non-profit organization that deconstructs buildings, and sells the materials collected.
Since the original building was used as a hospital, its design is not configured to be a church, said Kageyama. The new design will have more open spaces and additional rooms.
“We’ll add a fellowship hall because right now, every time we have a major gathering we have to pop up a 20-by-40 tent in the yard and put up table and chairs,” Metzger said.
The new layout will be a larger, two-story building that will extend further towards the main road. As you walk in, the main sanctuary will be on the right and there will be an open courtyard in the middle of the building. The fellowship hall will be across from the sanctuary. There will be a new kitchen and additional classrooms for Sunday school and for use by the community.
“There will also be a small apartment upstairs for missionaries on furlough, visiting pastors, guest speakers,” Metzger said. What he looks forward to the most about the new structure is for it to be recognized as a community building.
“The body of Christ doesn’t need a building to meet in,” Metzger said. “This building is not for us as much as it is a tool of ours to serve the community the way that it needs. … Whether if it’s after school programs for kids, whether it’s financial planning seminars, whether it’s food banks, whether it’s holiday meals — it’s a place where a large number of people can gather and be served and come together to encourage each other.”
“This whole campaign, we’ve called it ‘building lives,’ because the purpose of the building is to build the lives of people,” Kageyama said. “I pray and I do believe that God has even greater things in store for Koloa Missionary Church.”
During the time of construction, Koloa Missionary Church will meet and worship at Koloa Elementary School at 9 a.m. For more information about Koloa Missionary Church and how to be a volunteer visit koloamc.org or call 742-6777.
To view more photos, visit www.thegardenisland.com.
The main part of the building of Koloa Missionary Church wasbuilt in the 1890s by Dr. Jared K. Smith, the son of medicalmissionary Dr. James W. Smith, said Niles Kageyama, KoloaMissionary’s former pastor.
Dr. James Smith was Kaua‘i’s first physician practicing Westernmedicine, and one of the original missionaries who serviced theKoloa area and more, Kageyama said.
“He would travel horseback through all over the island and treatpeople,” he said. “One of the things he did was inoculated peoplefor small pox and literally save the island of Kaua‘i.”
After Dr. James Smith turned over his medical practice to his son,Dr. Jared Smith built an addition to the clinic and planned to movein once he married his fiancé, Margaret Brewer. However, his dreamwas never attained because he was tragically murdered, saidKageyama.
In the book “100 Years of Healing: The Legacy of a Kaua‘iMissionary Doctor” author Evelyn Cook writes about the night Dr.Jared Smith was killed.
After tending to his patients all day and finishing his work, Cookwrites Smith had “begun the task he had been looking forward to allday — writing a letter to his beloved.” Smith’s letter showed howexcited he was to finally be married to his fiancé.
However, that night Smith answered a knock at his door. He openedthe door and was immediately shot, dying within seconds on thefront porch. It was later discovered from an investigation that oneof Smith’s patients, whom he positively diagnosed with leprosy andwould be exiled to Molokai, had plotted his murder. The full storycan be found in the seventh chapter of Cook’s book titled, “Leprosyand Murder.”
After Smith died, the building was left vacant for years until hisnephew, Dr. Alfred Herbert Waterhouse, built another addition tothe house and used it as a hospital in the 1930s.
“This is where a lot of some of the older people remember thisplace being cared to by Dr. Waterhouse and they talked about beinghardly charged anything, if anything at all,” Kageyama said. “Andthose days they used to pay by chickens,” he said laughing.
In 1954, the building was purchased by the Koloa Missionary Churchcongregation.
