Below is an article that I found in a newsletter I received many years ago. I like to contrast it to Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal as told in 1 Kings 18:16-46:
In 1819, the Hawaiian’s had repudiated their old gods, and it would not be until 1820 that the missionaries would arrive and begin their teachings.
Among many people today, there is the belief that the missionaries forced their religious teaching upon the Hawaiian people. In fact, the missionaries arrived at the request of a young Hawaiian named Henry Opukahaia who had been converted while visiting New England.
Concerned with his people’s moral and spiritual plight (idolatry, ancestor worship, occultism, sorcery, demonism, superstition), he begged the mission board to send help to his people, which they did. As a result, they arrived when the ‘fields were ripe unto the harvest.’
Royalty, as well as thousands of commoners, accepted Christianity and outwardly there were startling changes.
One of the most notable triumphs for the missionary cause happened in December 1824 when the high chiefess, Kapiolani, an early convert to Christianity, decided to publicly defy the goddess, Pele. Pele, the goddess of the volcano, was still worshipped by many Hawaiians, even after their other gods had been abolished.
Accompanied by about fifty terrified followers, she descended into the crater, after eating the sacred ohelo berries which had formerly been kapu (kapu means forbidded, sacred, holy...). Fearlessly, she shouted:
“Jehovah is my God. He kindled these fires. If I perish by the anger of Pele, then you may fear the power of Pele, but if I trust in Jehovah and He shall save me from the wrath of Pele when I break through her kapus, then you must fear and serve Jehovah!”
She emerged unharmed from the crater and many converts were made that day.
(Margaret Stone, Supernatural Hawaii, Aloha Graphics, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1979, p.38)
“Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”(1 Kings 18:37)
