Explain Yourself!

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Early in 2009, during the season of Epiphany, we spent several weeks talking in worship and Sunday School about call—that is, the compulsion we feel sometimes to get up from our regular lives and follow God.

While I may have thought initially that we were introducing a new concept, turns out most everyone around here could articulate some kind of reference to call—from, “I feel that God is calling me to go to Africa and work in a medical clinic” to “I feel a tug on my heart to think about the spiritual side of me, so here I am”.  However it is that people articulate that sensation of encounter with God, it readily became apparent that folks around here were already thinking about it and had been for some time.  In fact, they were not messing around . . . and they wanted answers.

So, in response to all of this, the church staff dreamed up a formal way to explore call this fall, from the perspectives of our own callings as professional ministers.  We all know, of course, that not everybody wants to pack up and head to seminary, but we didn’t know how else can you really talk about the call of God, if not personally.  Thus was born Preaching: An Introduction, a six week class at Calvary in which lay people sign up, receive a syllabus, complete assignments, participate in class, and each write and preach a sermon.

The thought behind this, of course, is unashamedly Baptist: taking the concept of priesthood of the believer to a whole new level, turning everybody into a preacher!  And, anyway, I preach at them every single week . . . seems to me they should have the opportunity to return the favor or inflict the same pain or whatever you want to say about that.

So, last week we began, with 8 animated participants who will prepare and preach sermons this fall.  Some are seminary-trained; most are not.  Nobody in the class preaches for a living.  The topic of week 1: What Is Good Preaching?

It sounded like a good topic to me, a reasonable place to start talking about preaching.  But as the class got closer I started to wonder why I seemed unable to formulate an easy answer to what seems like a pretty obvious question. 

I mean, of course I know what good preaching is.  Right?

I think I know when I hear a good sermon, and I totally know when I’ve heard a bad one—in fact, I’ll confess I’m a pretty critical sermon-listener. 

So, my inability to get down on paper exactly what good preaching is was a little baffling to me.  I mean, I preach almost every week.  I would hope that whatever it is I think good preaching is might result from my efforts every once in awhile. 

I did manage to come up with a few ways to describe good preaching, in my opinion.  But what I learned in the process of trying to explain myself is something ELSE I believe about preaching: that good preaching is never formulaic—it’s alive and dynamic.  So, I could give my opinion about what it means to be an excellent practitioner in the pulpit, but at the end of the day a good preacher always remembers that it’s the Spirit of God that weaves the melody in behind the words, plays it with feeling, and keeps us humming the notes even after the sermon ends.

So, here’s a little of me trying to explain myself, to put into words the mystery of text and Spirit and community and worship and God, the God who keeps showing up over and over again, and who loves us all with abandon . . . when the sermon is amazing and when the sermon falls flat. 

• Good preaching addresses a specific context.
• Good preaching uses the text responsibly and honestly.
• Good preaching is more than one person talking—it’s rather a conversation between preacher and people and God.
• Good preaching doesn’t start or end in the 20 minutes it takes to deliver and hear a sermon in worship—a good sermon sticks with you somehow.
• Good preaching takes a preacher who believes what she’s preaching.

What do you think good preaching is?  Now you try to explain yourself!

Jury Service, Church Duty

I hate to say out loud that I officially feel I’ve had a run of bad luck lately, but at the moment I am lacking the appropriate theological words to describe my life.  Case in point: this week was my first full week back at the office after a three-month sabbatical.  To begin the week I had the privilege of responding to the invitation of Montgomery County to spend Monday languishing in the jury lounge at the Montgomery County courthouse in Rockville.

Though I usually take my responsibility as a citizen very seriously, I confess I was fully prepared, if necessary, to cry hysterically, talk to myself, pray out loud, or whatever it would take to be excused from jury duty (and I am hereby determined to acquire a clerical collar for future use in situations like these).  I just couldn’t bear the possibility of serving on a jury when I have just again dipped my toe into the rushing stream that is Calvary Baptist Church and fully anticipate being swept away very soon. 

I am happy to report that this tale all ends well, as I was excused from jury service after a day of sitting.  But in between fervent prayers to be excused, my hours of waiting offered time for some, if not deep, then at least (mostly) coherent, reflection.  Here’s what I noticed.

Showing up for jury duty is kind of like attending an unfamiliar church service. 

It’s a little nerve racking to find a brand new place I’ve never been before, follow the directions I printed out from the website, and find a parking place close enough to walk.  Since I’d never been to this particular court (church) before, I ended up having to walk around the building to find the correct door.  The signage was fair, but it was all so unfamiliar.  Finally, I found my way to the right place.  At least it looked like the right place. 

So there was the anxiety of arriving in the right place on time, plus I felt the whole pressure of at least appearing that I was doing everything right.  I felt it necessary, in other words, to look like serving jury duty (attending church) is a regular, and joy-filled, occurrence for me.  I hoped that I could pull off the illusion that I was totally comfortable fulfilling my civil duty, as any upstanding citizen (devoutly religious person) would be.

There were rows and rows of seats (pews), almost like a movie theater, and a couple hundred people all sitting there looking vaguely uncomfortable.  Nobody knew each other, so despite the fact that we all made it to the same place that morning, we all sat there pretending to be thoughtfully contemplating the deeper meaning of civil duty (relationship with God).

Soon, the head jury organizer (pastor) got up to welcome us.  She enthusiastically told lame jokes and tried to make us all feel comfortable in this strange situation (no parallel here, just exactly the same—including and most especially the lame jokes).  At the end of her welcome she reminded us that we were there to do something VERY IMPORTANT, that exercising our civic responsibility and supporting our system of justice was an investment we were making in the preservation of this great democracy (invocation . . . ).

Next, the lights dimmed and a very helpful video began, in which we learned exactly what jury duty was, the difference between criminal and civil cases, and why we should not get our feelings hurt if we are not selected to serve (sermon–using cutting edge media on a screen–on the very same Sunday that you are approached to serve on the building and grounds committee).

After that, the jury organizer lady made an impassioned plea for needy foster children of Montgomery County, to whom we could donate our service stipend of $15.00 (offering).  Everybody pretended to listen with great animation and thoughtfully consider the pros and cons of donating either part or all of the whole $15.00 to the Generous Juror Fund.  Then we all pretended not to look around to see who was filling out the form and who was too greedy to donate their $15.00 to the children of Montgomery County.  Then some people probably thought bad things about the people who appeared not to give.  Not that I know that for sure. (Again, offering).

Next, we all sat around bored (no comment). 

Some people went walked to the front to speak to the jury organizer lady (prayer with the pastor).  During the rest of the time (service) some of us surreptitiously pulled out our novels or checked our BlackBerrys, all the while attempting to look engaged, concerned, even enthralled with the very idea of embracing this opportunity to engage in the great judicial system of Montgomery County (the Church of Jesus Christ).

When the jury organizer lady finally got up and told us the docket was clear and we could all leave—thank you very much for your important contribution to promoting and supporting the judicial system of our great country (benediction)—I could hear sighs of relief all around me.  People gathered their things, smiled politely and anonymously, and ran for the door.  After all, it was past twelve, and the lines at all the restaurants around the courthouse (church) were probably way long already.

All in all, I found the potential parallels between jury duty and attending a church service startling and, well, rather alarming.  I think perhaps those of us who create worship for others might do well to remember these potential pitfalls and make sure attending a church service is a little more meaningful than showing up for jury duty.

I have to say, one whole day in a room with 200+ people and not one conversation was ridiculous; I hope that never happens here at Calvary.  But, I have to say: while I was listening to her speech about the critical importance of civic duty, I did happen to notice that the jury organizer lady had a really cool haircut . . . .

Back

I haven’t been writing for awhile, and this week I am back at work after three months on sabbatical, so I am thinking my first post should probably be something deep and profound, spiritually hard-hitting and theologically thought-provoking.

Alas, there was a mouse in my office this morning, and ever since its squeak-filled, untimely death at the hands of our Church Administrator, Paul, I just have not been able to concentrate on worship planning.  Or anything else remotely spiritual, for that matter.

Faced with this profound spiritual paralysis I naturally did what any sane person would do: I logged on to Facebook.  After I therapeutically expressed my outrage through my status update, several kind church members chimed in with comments hoping to put a positive spin on the rodent incident (including the very sweet “even the mice are glad you’re back!”). 

These sentiments are most kind, but I suspect the mice didn’t really miss me all that much.  (Especially not that one particular dead mouse.) 

I did get to thinking, however, that this experience was probably just the right one to grace my first days back in the pastorate.  Lest we pastors ever go away on sabbatical (or anywhere else for that matter) and forget that the work of God happens much more often in the mundane occurrences of life, we are welcomed us back to the work of Gospel community with all the gritty reality of life. 

And, in my case, with the church staff alternately screaming, climbing on furniture, laughing hysterically, or murdering rodents. 

So far since I’ve been back in the office most of my time has not been taken up with contemplative prayer, deep theological discourse, or cutting-edge worship planning.  But, I am happy to report that, as of today, there is one less mouse in the church building

And the work of ministry goes on. 

Thanks be to God, Amen.

Aloha, Baibala

It has been a privilege and a haven for me to spend three mornings a week in the offices of Baibala Hemolele, the Hawaiian Bible Project.  My interaction with the Partners in Development staff and the Baibala team members has managed to do what I’d somehow hoped would happen: to bring a little more closely together the passion I have for holy scripture and Gospel community . . . and the influences of my Hawaiian culture and heritage that perhaps have been set aside in my life and ministry for too long.  I will miss my little job working in the office, but I must find a way to do two things.  First, I need to do whatever I can to support the work of the Hawaiian Bible Project.  The work of Baibala Hemolele is far bigger than some pious effort to push the Bible on people; the project’s linguistic and cultural relevance is still largely untapped and unknown.  Second, I want to think more about how the values of Hawaiian culture and Christian faith are expressed in my life and ministry.  One of my jobs this summer was to interview several of the people involved in the project to try to understand how Baibala Hemolele connects to community transformation. 

Speaking of the programs Partners in Development facilitates, of which Baibala is one, my Dad put it this way:

In all our work with Hawaiian children, families and communities there is a persistent need to encourage them all to return to the “basics.”  Often the social, educational, and economic challenges we are dealing with on the surface are related to poor self image and lack of anchor values to bring families together and hold them together in the midst of crisis.  Baibala and our work with the Hawaiian language provide opportunities to teach and illustrate powerful traditional Hawaiian values such as pono, aloha, lokahi, malama and po`okela in ways that connect our clients to practices and perspectives that help them through contemporary challenges.  You don’t have to be Hawaiian to appreciate the power of apply the concept of “pono” to your life and to our interactions with those around you.  When you visit our free traveling preschool you will see how these values change behavior and enrich learning for the benefit of the children and their caregivers.  When you see our work with the homeless you can experience how traditional concepts that spring from Baibala and our culture can help to give families encouragement in facing their problems.  In each of our programs the concepts of Baibala and the traditional values it teaches help to make the service we provide stronger.

I’ve learned this summer: these ideas weave in and through my own faith and calling; they cannot be separated by geography or even language.  They are part of who I am and what I believe.  It’s been empowering and wonderful to look closely and recognize what has been there all along.  Now . . . I wonder how they are intentionally lived out in Washington, D.C.?  It will be interesting to find out. 

Aloha and Mahalo, Partners in Development and Baibala Hemolele.

Sunday Prayer

Sharing the congregational prayer we prayed on Sunday in worship at Kaumakapili Church.  One of the highlights of the summer has been worshipping with this congregation.

We hear you calling us, loving God, to a life of humility, gentleness, and patience.  Keep your call before us in this hour that we may recognize and celebrate our oneness in Jesus Christ.  May your Spirit unite us in the bond of peace.  Speak to us of the Savior, who bore humanity’s shame that we might learn to bear with one another in love.  Draw us to a common faith, in spite of our differences.  Lead us into new depths of trust beyond our knowing, and along new pathways of service out-distancing our fears.  Amen.

Sabbatical Irony

I was never very good at languages . . . which can be something of a handicap when you spend your graduate school days in a foreign country studying a text written originally in several different ancient languages.  I’m not overly proud that I only (barely) managed a C in biblical Greek and never learned to converse very well in Swiss German or Czech.  I just have always thought that my gifts lay elsewhere, as my mother would say. 

(And, anyway, that’s what interlinear texts and babblefish are for!)

It is somewhat ironic, then, that I am spending my sabbatical with people who love languages, who are conversant in several, and who think it’s the height of fun to translate something.  I’m not quite sold . . . even after watching the Hawaiian Bible Project up close I probably will not rush home to take a refresher Greek course.  But I am learning some of the ways in which language can have a powerful impact on culture and social structure, and I’m definitely developing a strong appreciation and admiration for the work of the Hawaiian Bible Project.  Here’s an article I wrote about the current project phase, readying the text using the new orthography:

With only 13 letters making up its alphabet, many Hawaiian words are very similar in spelling and pronunciation.  A native speaker would certainly know, for example, that kou means yours and ko’u means mine—the words are pronounced differently because of the glottal stop, or ‘okina, separating the vowels.  But the Hawaiian language was never a written language until the first missionaries settled in the islands and began a translation of the biblical text.  And . . . for reasons unknown to modern translators of the text, the missionaries who translated the first Hawaiian Bible did not include diacritical markings in their written translation.  As the Bible was the first text in written Hawaiian and set the standard for the written language, until recently diacritical markings were not commonly part of texts in printed Hawaiian.

The Hawaiian Bible Project’s work to insert diacritical markings in the biblical text comes in response to the current needs of those reading and studying the Hawaiian text. 

With the increasing influence of the West on Hawaiian society and culture in the first half of the twentieth century, use of spoken and written Hawaiian began to decrease exponentially.  The language was not taught in schools, and educators and parents embraced the idea that teaching children to speak and write English instead of Hawaiian would be the best way for them to succeed in Hawaii’s increasingly modern and western society.  The end result of this trend was a whole generation of Hawaiian children who grew up without learning to speak or read Hawaiian.  Regular users of the language became more and more rare, so much so that the American Bible Society ceased printing the Hawaiian Bible after its last edition in 1994 because there simply was not enough demand for the printed text in Hawaiian.

But beginning in the 1970s a Hawaiian renaissance emerged.  Hawaiian youth whose parents did not speak Hawaiian felt a yearning to know their culture and their language.  This movement became a critical reversal of a trend that could have rendered spoken and written Hawaiian language lost.  Today, the teaching and learning of Hawaiian language is becoming more prominent, with immersion learning options available for every age.  However, the learning and teaching of the language has changed quite a bit from the days of the first missionaries.  Hawaiian is now being taught in a society where it is not commonly spoken, to learners who generally do not speak it as their first language.  Because of this, since the 1970s the insertion of diacritical markings in written Hawaiian has become more and more common; these guidelines help readers differentiate the meanings of words and guide them in correct pronunciation. 

The first readers of the Hawaiian Bible were native speakers who knew the subtle differentiations in the meaning and pronunciation of the words; they did not need the diacritical markings to read or understand the text.  Because of this new age of Hawaiian speakers and students, however, the Hawaiian Bible project is currently preparing for the publication of a printed version of the Bible using a new orthography which includes diacritical markings.  In Hawaiian, these markings are the ‘okina, or glottal stop, and the kahakō, or macron.  The ‘okina is counted as a letter in the Hawaiian alphabet; it’s used to separate vowels.  The kahakō, a dash over a vowel, indicates the sound of that letter is drawn out.

The respelling of the text using the new orthography is painstaking work, but its completion opens the text of the Hawaiian Bible to a whole new world of learners and linguists, and helps preserve and perpetuate the gifts and language of the people of Hawaii.

Ocean Parables

In the hardship post that is the house where we are staying on Oahu this summer, I sit sometimes and watch the ocean.  It spreads out in front of the back porch, coloring the background behind Diamond Head.  Completely upstanding citizens would kill for a view like this to narrate their morning coffee . . . in my best moments I remember to be grateful and astonished, really, that childhood neighbors would so generously offer their empty house for our use.

I think it probably was not coincidental that my sabbatical has been largely surrounded by this view, this picture of the ocean.  I’m not a person who naturally takes to deep meditation and contemplation—I would prefer to be in conversation with others.  But as long as I can remember, there has been one thing that gets me thinking and praying: the ocean. 

My memory of childhood is full of the feeling of ocean breeze; campfires on the beach; layers of water with sunlight streaming through.  My teenaged angst was eased by the view off Makapu’u lighthouse, where the water goes from shallow to deep very quickly and produces the most incredible variations of the color blue that you have ever seen.  There’s no peace like staring out over the expanse; there is no deep understanding of your own powerlessness like watching the waves crash over the rocks and splash up into the air. 

Though I could never have imagined we might have the gift of waking up to a view like this on this sabbatical journey, I think maybe it must be here for a reason.  Maybe I need to wake up every day and fill my vision with the beauty of the colors.  Maybe I need to look with recognition and remembrance at the patterns of the tides as they pull the water and crash against the shore.  I know I surely need to see those huge commercial barges moving tons and tons in between islands or toward the mainland and marvel at how little and insignificant they look in the whole view.  I need the familiar backdrop of the ocean to ask the questions I’d planned to ask again: Who am I?  What is this life I have to live?  What does it mean to be called by God?  What makes my heart sing?  What connects me to God?  Where is my home?

I’m asking those questions and more, sitting on the porch every morning while reading the wonderings of one of the greatest pray-ers of all, King David.  He poured out his heart in Psalm 56 and wrote, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest—I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.” (v.6-8) 

Maybe, I imagine, the desert was David’s ocean.  I think so.  So when the beautiful, breath-taking view of the ocean invites me to listen for God, I’m praying along with David, just changing the words a little . . . Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!  I would fly out over Diamond Head, I would dip down to see the whales, I would try to count as many different colors of blue that my eyes could see.  I would hurry to my place of shelter and remember that I am so small in the very large plan of God.  I would fly right through the summer showers, I would catch the updraft of the tradewinds, I would rest to the sound of the waves, and I would feel the very touch of God’s hand in the warmth of the sun.

Reliving

It’s strange and surreal to watch your children relive your childhood.  Inevitably the memories come rushing back, but I am finding that they are not the factual kind of memories at all.

In other words, I don’t remember how old I was when my Grandma taught us to dance the hula, but I can still feel her hands lifting my wrist into the correct position. 

I can’t mark the exact dates we went to Bellows Beach to camp out, but my eyes sting when I think about long days spent body surfing in the salty ocean water. 

Of course I could never tell you how many trips we made to Chinatown to buy leis for special occasions, but I can hear the busy-ness of the Chinatown market ringing in my ears and I can smell the jasmine and ginger in Cindy’s lei shop on Mauna Kea Street.

Watching the kids make these same memories is reminding me of what a rich experience it is to grow up in Hawaii Nei.  I wonder how I ever lived this long without recognizing that gift?  I wonder if I’ll ever know the depths of influence these memories have in every moment that I live my life far away from the islands?

As I watch my kids run from tidepool to tidepool holding up their treasures with looks of wonder on their faces, I can remember the scrape of the rocks on my bare feet and taste of fish cooked on the grill straight out of the ocean.

I wonder if they’ll remember.

No Words

What do you do, I wonder, when there are no words? 
 
What do you do when the powerful tool you’ve always used to express the deepest wonderings of your heart doesn’t seem to work anymore, when it just lies there, dusty and broken on the ground?
 
To me, words have always been a world of wondrous possibility, all shiny and full of potential, just waiting for that miraculous weaving process that will spin them into something beautiful and heart-touching and even breath-taking. 
 
I don’t ever know how it happens really, but there they are, always waiting for me.  And when I feel the nudge of God’s Spirit or whatever that creative muse calls herself, I’ve always felt them right there beside me, right where I can reach.  I can begin picking them up, putting one here and one there, pulling some out and putting them over there, hunting for one that’s hiding right on the edge of my memory, then laying them out on the table and pinning them together.  I start by stitching them together to try to express the hope and possibilities and wondering deep inside, even if it doesn’t have a real name yet.  The words don’t usually ripple out in beautiful harmony the first time, but that’s okay.  It’s the crafting that names the wondering, it’s how I touch the deepest part of who I am and sometimes, who I think God must be.  It’s a process that’s hard to describe . . . I just keep smoothing, replacing, adding, shaving away, until the textures are just right and the cut is perfect, and that beautiful piece of wondering catches the wind and billows with the deepest expressions of my heart. 
 
I know that the words don’t have to be profound questions or ideas or prayers . . . in my case they often are very mundane.  But I have always had, all my life, the words, my friends, sitting at the ready.
 
They seem gone now.  
 
I miss them.
 
Their absence is the most confusing thing; I don’t recognize it no matter how hard I try.
 
Oh, I can see them there, still beside me.  But instead of shiny and new, they seem lifeless and empty.  Scattered.  Useless.  Lonely. 
 
And when I look at them I don’t feel a rush of excitement or possibility.  I just feel confused and bewildered, because I don’t recognize these words.  Where are the words that have always been solace and hope and possibility and beauty to me?
 
I wish for the easy comfort of the words. 

I wish I could pin them together, even into a rough estimation of the wonderings of my heart right now, so that I could pull them around me like a warm blanket and know the very deepest pain and joy in me won’t stay stuck inside but might come out into the wondrous light of day to play in the world and find connection to others who have maybe felt something similar.
 
If only I could find the words . . . I would pray for them to come back to me, for something—anything—that feels familiar right now, because without the words, how can I reach for God?
 
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:26

Baibala Hemolele

I’m spending some time this summer at the offices of Baibala Hemolele, the Hawaiian Bible Project.  On my first day I heard the history of the Hawaiian Bible, which I was assigned to write up in an article, the text of which follows here:

The Hawaiian Bible, Baibala Hemolele, is a critical document in the history of the Hawaiian people. 

From a sociological standpoint, the translation of the Bible into the Hawaiian language marked the irreversible collision of an insulated native culture with the influences of the Western world.  The West came to Hawaii and brought Christian faith along with many other influences, and the islands and the Hawaiian people were forever altered.  The story of the assimilation that followed can be told through the development of Christian faith in the islands, including the translation and publication of the Baibala.  From a linguistic standpoint, the Baibala Hemolele is a unique translation of biblical texts.  Translated directly from the Greek and Hebrew texts, it was the vehicle by which the Hawaiian language became a written language.  For students of Hawaiian language, which has experienced a resurgence of fluent speakers in recent years, the Baibala is a critical text for understanding the Hawaiian language.

The first Baibala Hemolele translation team was made up of five western missionaries and a team of Hawaiians, most of whose names we do not know.  No formal account of the translation process exists today, but many of the missionaries kept detailed journals that may contain information about the process the team undertook in their translation project.  Scholars have yet to mine those documents to try to reconstruct the story.  In the meantime, this is what we know about the history of the Baibala Hemolele.

In 1837 this team of missionaries and Hawaiians finished the first translation of the New Testament; in 1839 the Old Testament was completed.  Together they made the 1839 version which, when printed and bound, looked like a football, or a coconut.  The people called it “poipoi”—round.  As the Baibala was the first book ever published in the newly invented Hawaiian language, its publication started the process of Hawaiians learning to read and write the language that had been the basis of their oral tradition.

Baibala Hemolele was reprinted with minor revisions in 1868, an effort guided by a committee led by Kahu Ephriam Clarke, pastor of Kawaiaha’o Church in Honolulu.  It was this 1868 version printed by the American Bible Society that was printed over and over again until 1994, when the decision was made to cease publication.  At that time, Hawaiian had become an almost obsolete language, as most Hawaiian children were encouraged to learn English in school.  The market for the Baibala was small to begin with and shrinking because of this educational trend; it didn’t make sense for the American Bible Society to keep printing the Baibala.

In the Hawaiian community it is a custom to present the Baibala on special occasions and to use it in worship, so eventually the community became aware that the Baibala was no longer being printed.  Ironically, Hawaiian language was at that time increasingly being taught in schools again, including several Hawaiian immersion options for children of all ages.  With the pool of native speakers growing and the ongoing need for the Baibala, the Hawaiian Bible Project began in 2002.

With seed money from concerned individuals, Partners in Development Foundation applied for and was awarded a sizable grant from the Administration for Native Americans.  Their plan was to retranslate the text from the Greek and Hebrew and publish it on a web site so that any students or churches needing to access the text could easily do so. 

Once the project began, however, it became clear that additional resources for students of the Baibala could and should be included in the project.  After translating and posting the text on the Baibala web site, the team next added an audio version of the text.  The following phase included posting the different versions of the text: 1839, 1868, and the 1994 versions.  Currently the team is respelling the words to offer a printed text with the new orthography which includes grammatical markings for easier pronunciation and understanding.  Ultimately the team hopes to have the text available in printed form once again so the Baibala can continue its life and influence in the Hawaiian community.

Christian faith in Hawaii and the Baibala Hemolele have much to offer the larger Christian community, and the Hawaiian Bible Translation Project is building a foundation from which the Hawaiian culture can share its rich traditions of faith with the world.