Kahalu'u Prayer Walk: Letting the Locals Lead Us

We were asked to come do a prayer walk last spring at Kahalu'u Housing Project.  My friend Lilo, a resident there who understands spiritual warfare, told me of three suicides that had happened with young people in the last six months at that very housing area.  She asked if I could gather people from the community and Univ. of Nations to come alongside them and to pray.  

That morning in prayer, I sensed I was to “let them speak.”  I was to start by asking the people of Kahalu’u what they had noticed was going on in their community.  What patterns had been happening, and what would they like to see change?  We were to ask them to lead us in the praying, and the children and their completed art projects (from the art therapy time on Monday) were to start us off.

So when we got there, we simply did this.  I walked forward in this simple, clear path the Lord had shown me.  And it worked!   This is what we found when we arrived: 

  People from town had arrived and were already calling out to the Lord for this place. 

I noticed that one gentleman from the community was on the other side of the stone wall, and the children were about 20 feet away, hunched down together on the sidewalk.   When I walked up, I called the man over.  His name is Ikaika, and he told me he was from Kosrae, another island in Micronesia.  He was happy to be there.  I told him we were glad to have him.   We called the children over, and asked that they sing one of the songs that Tonyson used to sing.  (Tonyson was the boy who had most recently died, right next to the property.) They did. The kids sang enthusiastically, and I joined in as I knew the song from one of the Salvation Army gospel songs that Tonyson used to be part of.

“I’ve got my mind made up, and there’s no turning back.  Cause I’m going to see my Jesus, one day!  I’ve got my mind made up, and there’s no turning back.  I’m going to see my Jesus one day.”

With Betty (Auntie Be) the art therapist assisting, we gathered the children and their butterfly-shaped paintings, and let them lead us up to the area where Tonyson had taken his life.  They staked their pictures in the ground, or tied them in the trees.  Our friend Kalani, a skilled canoe carver, found ways to set them into the rock wall and into the branches. 

I asked Kalani to pray over the keiki.  It was important to have a Hawaiian brother or sister—from this land—to bless these people. It was a long while before Kalani could speak.  This humble grandfather wept as he prayed over the children.  He prayed for hope in them, and then we all prayed against fear from this suicide.  Merlitha, the youngest sister of Tonyson, was there, receiving these prayers and blessings from this loving man.

Listening to the locals of Kahalu'u as to how to pray for their land

From the top of the property, we asked the people to tell us how to pray.  One lady shared of the need for order and wisdom for the parents.  She shared of how the kids run all over the parking lot and how they are in danger of being hit by cars pulling in.  The gentleman shared that he’d love to see better behavior in the families, of watching their children. 

Equipped with these prayers from the people of this place, we began to pray.  We walked around the project, and met one of the women who lost her husband to suicide a few months earlier.  Shyly, she let us pray for her and her children.  

Other people emerged from their apartments, and—with translation from our friend Lilo—asked us to pray for them as well.  A couple people began to pick up litter, prompted to beautify physically as they asked God for order spiritually.  

Later, Lilo told us that at the churches of this culture group, the regular people do not have a voice—just the pastors and deacons. The women are never asked for their opinions on how to pray.  So that nudge earlier in the day from the Lord to “let them speak” was powerful!  I remember as the time neared an end, Kapuna Fay Williams, long-term YWAM intercessor for this island telling me, “This was right.  You let these people lead you in this.  That’s just how it should be.”  I love it when I don’t know how to do something, but God shows us how to go!