Learning What ‘Ohana Really Means

Two months pregnant, wearing rumpled clothes out of a suit case and weary from traveling I stood beside my husband of six months in a cafeteria and tried to sing the words, “Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name.”  It was a beautiful January morning in Hawaii and the scent of plumeria flowers drifted through the windows on the wind.  The birds were singing, but I could not.

Hot tears began to fall down my face, the kind that are impossible to store up but spill down one after the other in a constant stream. I considered the enormity of what we had just done.  Leaving family and friends behind–in our case, across an ocean–is never easy.  But I was also, finally, coming to grips with the solid and immovable fact that I was pregnant.

I was pregnant and we didn’t really know why we had come to Hawaii but every body was going to ask.  And I was pregnant.  And we were expected to be these really great people preparing to become missionaries.  And I was pregnant.  And I was new and lonely and didn’t have anything to say to the people around me other than, please don’t expect something of me that I can’t give.  I clung to Brian’s strong hand and cried those silent, burning tears.

That first Sunday morning at South Shore Christian Fellowship (SSCF) I felt like an island in an ocean of friendly conversation where the friendliness kept washing up on me. Person after person came up to introduce themselves.  Smiles, laughter, hugs and kisses were everywhere.  I felt more like a friend who’s been invited to another family’s big gathering than a new comer at church.  Looking around the room I thought, “Oh God, please bring me a friend.  Just one friend will do.  But I need a friend.”

Looking back now, I can see that God’s plan that first morning was to give me more than just one friend.  He was preparing to teach me what ‘Ohana really means.

If you’ve lived here in the islands all your life, you’re likely to smile that this little haole girl is learning what you’ve known all your life.  If you’re a mainlander, you may have never heard the term.  ”‘Ohana” is the Hawaiian word for family, but it means much more than blood or legal family relation.  According to the Illustrated Hawaiian Dictionary (and Wikipedia), ‘ohana means family in an extended sense of the term including blood-related, adoptive or intentional.  Here in the islands ‘ohana emphasizes the connection between friends and family.  Essentially, some friends are family, and family is certainly family, and the family sticks together.  Make sense?

‘Ohana is really a wonderful concept.  If you live here long enough you become part of an extended network of people throughout the island who really love you and really take care of each other.  In our case, it turned out we didn’t need to be here very long at all.

Within a few weeks I found myself at a Monday night bible study with about seven other girls.  Two of them, near my same age, were pregnant.  We were all due on consecutive months: July, August, September.  We took the next six-plus months in step together, sharing stories, fears; two of us even shared the same obstetrician!  JoAnne and I went to SSCF together, along with four or five other pregnant women and I began to sense we’d come to be part of a very special family.

Our son, Hudson, was born after six months of really hard work for both of us as we established a home and an income for ourselves.  The women of SSCF had been a constant comfort to me during my pregnancy.  Our pastor, Bud Stonebraker and his wife Keren had five children of their own and there wasn’t a question Keren couldn’t answer!  We received constant offers of help and support, squeezes of my hand at church, pats on the back for Brian.  No one shied away from us because we were new.  In fact, it was just the opposite.  We had inherited a whole new set of aunties and uncles.

The day after returning home with our tiny newborn boy my friend JoAnne, host to the Monday night bible study, called to inform me she’d loaded up her car with baby presents from the church.  We’d missed our own baby shower!  When she arrived I couldn’t believe how many gifts she pulled out of the back.  After she left we stepped back and took a look at the pile.  I’d never seen such a thing.  Generous gifts from people we didn’t even know–not just cheap little things but gifts that were valuable because these people considered us worth the money.  And then the meals started coming, enough to feed us lunch and dinner for two straight weeks.  This church ‘Ohana had opened up her big arms and locked us in a firm, safe embrace.  I knew I was seeing a rare and beautiful side of life.

I say rare, but it isn’t rare here.  A few months ago I attended a baby shower for two new moms, one of whom had recently begun attending our church and was engaged.  I saw Sarah’s eyes widen with surprise each time she opened a new present and heard her say multiple times, “I can’t believe it!  We wanted one of these but just couldn’t afford it.”  She tells me her son is clothed with the gifts of family friends and SSCF women.  After that baby shower she explained her surprise, “I’ve never seen anything like this, Caila.  Every body here is like…real Christians.  They treat me like I’m family!”  I just smiled.

As Christians we are told to love one another as Christ loved us, that is, to lay down our lives for each other.  In an American culture which seems increasingly to emphasize individuality and Self, I’m amazed I came across this nugget of beauty in Hawaii.  Ours isn’t the only church with such ‘ohana-life; we’ve encountered it all over the island.  In the past two weeks we’ve attended three events where we were welcomed with a family’s loving arms and fed within an inch of our lives.

When I leave, will I remember the look in Sarah’s eyes when she opened up those baby presents?  Will I remember the difference it made in my own life when the Monday night bible study girls took me in as one of their own and became real, true friends?  This is one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned here in Hawaii: to open up my arms, holding nothing back, and say “Welcome home.”  It’s what ‘Ohana really means.