Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Lahaina, Hawaiʻi, before it burned down after wildfires swept across the island of Maui. Photo: Bruce DeGooyer
[Episcopal News Service] Aug. 8 marked two years since a series of wildfires broke out throughout the Hawaiian Islands, killing more than 100 people and destroying more than 2,200 buildings, including Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Lahaina, Maui.
During the one-year anniversary in 2024, “there was still a heavy feeling, a sorrowful feeling,” Katy Shroder, worship leader of Holy Innocents, told the Hawaiian Church Chronicle, the Diocese of Hawai‘i’s newsletter. “This year, it’s definitely a more hopeful feeling. People are talking more about how Lahaina has changed instead of still saying how Lahaina used to be.”
As Hurricane Dora, a Category 4 cyclone, passed near Hawai‘i without making landfall, strong winds brushed through dry vegetation, impelling the Aug. 8-16, 2023, wildfires. The fires forced thousands of people to evacuate the island. One of the victims who died in the wildfires was a parishioner of Holy Innocents. Two parishioners whose homes burned down are in the process of obtaining permits and contractors to rebuild their homes, according to the Hawaiian Church Chronicle.
As of Aug. 13, 54 residential homes in Lahaina have been rebuilt, and 280 more homes are under construction, according to Maui County’s Maui Recovers website.
The worst of the fires had caused widespread damage to Maui’s western community of Lahaina – the capital of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i and later a popular tourist destination – where Holy Innocents had stood since 1927. The church, which had 30 active parishioners and had attracted many tourists before it was leveled, resumed worship services at the Honolua United Methodist Church in nearby Napili in December 2023.
Holy Innocents – now classified as a preaching station under the umbrella of Trinity By-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Kihei and led by Shroder, Leanna Roberts and supply clergy –still holds worship services every Sunday at 8 a.m. at Honolua. A concrete slab remains where the church once stood.
Members of Holy Innocents and the Honolulu-based Diocese of Hawai‘i participated in a series of special remembrance events on Aug. 8 in Maui, including a paddle-out ceremony at Hanaka‘ō‘ō “Canoe Beach” Park. In Hawaiian culture, a paddle-out ceremony is a tradition that involves a deceased person’s loved ones paddling in the ocean to a designated spot, where they form a circle and toss leis, or flower wreaths, while sharing memories and kind words as they say their final goodbyes.
During this year’s paddle-out, a helicopter dropped flowers onto the water and doves were released from the beach.
“Folks were just trying to be together, trying to make sense of this grief they all carry and how to move through it,” Kalani Holokai, the Diocese of Hawai‘i’s community relations coordinator for Maui, told the Hawaiian Church Chronicle.
Gatherings and tributes also took place at the Maui County building in Wailuku and at the Lahaina Civic Center. Several of Hawai‘i’s local, state and federal lawmakers were in attendance, according to the Hawaiian Church Chronicle.
Over the last two years, the Diocese of Hawai‘i has been raising money to support relief efforts and A Cup of Cold Water, the diocese’s Maui-based community outreach program operated by the island’s four churches. A Cup of Cold Water’s volunteers distribute food and pet food, bottled water, toiletries, clothing and other necessities to unhoused people throughout Maui from a van. Monetary donations sent to the Bishop’s Pastoral Fund-Maui address recovery needs throughout the Maui community. Donations sent to Ministry of Holy Innocents, Lahaina support members of the congregation’s immediate and pastoral needs. The diocese isn’t collecting money to rebuild Holy Innocents.
After receiving in $41,850 in funding from the Rotary D5000 Foundation, members of the Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset – of which Shroder serves as president – and other chapters throughout Hawai‘i recently cleaned and restored the historic Hale Aloha Cemetery of Holy Innocents.
“Last year, the gravesites were completely shrouded in plant overgrowth. The columbarium was barely visible from the road, and you would have never known there was a cemetery there,” Sybil Nishioka, the Diocese of Hawai‘i’s communications specialist, wrote in the Hawaiian Church Chronicle. “Now, the lot is cleared and all gravesites neat and tidy!”
The diocese also worked with Episcopal Relief & Development immediately after the fires. Some staff members visited Maui in December 2023 to assess the damage and meet with Federal Emergency Management Agency staff. One Episcopal Relief & Development staff member also drove with A Cup of Cold Water volunteers and assisted with distribution of necessities.
Nishioka wrote that Holy Innocents was still under piles of debris on the first anniversary in 2024 but is now cleared.
“Although seeing the ruins last year was hard to swallow, there was at least a feeling of history still preserved within those fallen pieces. Now, with everything cleared, it felt as if Holy Innocents had somehow been erased … I am both anxious and curious to see what transpires in the years to come,” Nishioka said. “The folks at Holy Innocents are hanging in there and moving forward, still grateful for all that they have, but keenly aware that the journey will be long.”