How to Support the Lahaina UMC Rebuilding

Mahalo nui loa to everyone who has expressed their desire to donate to our church community. We can receive your financial donations in the following ways:

You can donate through our web page at https://lumcmaui.org/donate.

We can now receive checks sent to our address at PO Box 10253, Lahaina, HI 96761, payable to Lahaina United Methodist Church.

Written checks can also be made payable to "HUMU" with the memo as "Lahaina UMC Donation" and mailed to the Hawai`i District Office, 20 S Vineyard Blvd, Honolulu, HI 96813.

Cal-Pac is collecting a special donation called the Lahaina Relief Fund, which will go directly to support the people of this community as they recover and rebuild their lives:

Online Giving: Individuals can give to the Lahaina Relief Fund at https://calpacumc.org/donate. Churches can also use this link or include gifts through the online apportionment portal at calpacumc.org/giveapportionment.

Giving by Check: Gifts for the Lahaina Relief Fund can be made payable to the California-Pacific Conference and sent to California-Pacific Conference, Lahaina Relief Fund, PO Box 6006, Pasadena CA 91102-6006.

We are so grateful to you, dear ohana, for your love and generosity.

The Lahaina Fire - August 9, 2023

As the shock of witnessing the damage from the Lahaina Fire begins to wear off, we will now endure waves of grief. I really don’t have the words to express the grief that I am feeling now. With the grief, however, I detect a lifeline of hope. I know that my church has never been just the building; the building was cared for lovingly by you, my beloved church ohana. You are the church, and I am honored to be your pastor. My focus now is ministering to you, wherever you have been scattered, holding on to Jesus’s words in John 16:33, ”In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Easter Service

Our Easter Sunday service will be held outside, behind our church at 8:00 AM.

Meeting Bishop Escobedo-Frank: Introduction

Before the assignments of bishops in the Western Jurisdiction were announced on November 5, 2022, a team of WJ Communicators conducted video interviews with the three newly elected bishops. Among the them was Bishop Dottie Escobedo-Frank.

“I’ve always worked from the ground,” said Bishop Escobedo-Frank. “Every church I’ve been in, I’ve worked in the neighborhood. Everywhere I go, I look at what’s happening in the town, the neighborhood and the community. I won’t be a bishop who sits in Zoom meetings all the time – I hope. I still will need to be out with the community to see what’s happening on the ground.”

She has served as both a rural and big-city church pastor in the Desert Southwest Conference, supervised churches as a district superintendent and helped advance immigration initiatives throughout her ministry.

“Immigration – I can’t separate it from myself. It is who I am.” She was raised along the border in Nogales, both on the U.S. and Mexican sides.

Bishop Escobedo-Frank’s family has a rich history in the Methodist tradition, with her mother’s grandfather serving as a circuit rider in the early church in Oklahoma and Kansas. Her grandmother crossed the Rio Grande while in labor with her father to find religious freedom.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and what would become The United Methodist Church, often talked about moving “onto perfection.” As Bishop Escobedo-Frank interprets his words, that means being more loving.

“When we have dinner with someone who doesn’t believe or vote like we do, or look like we do, then suddenly our divisions take a back seat and our love takes a front seat.” she said.

“I believe the church has a lot to offer the world right now, in this time post-Covid, in this time of political division,” she said. “We can show the antithesis to that. Methodists have this long history of working together across theological ideas.”

2023 January Ka Leo Mekokiko

Newsletter link:

https://mailchi.mp/de5a12cbbad1/2021-january-ka-leo-mekokiko-15130155?e=fbcc065b59