Puna Covenant Church celebrates 100 years

The Puna Covenant Church celebrated its centennial anniversary on April 21 as a tribute to the faithful Japanese and Filipino immigrants who planted the seeds of Christianity in the Olaa/Keaau community.

The event was held at the church with a formal program including shorts talks by former pastor Bob Thompson; Wayne Carlson, a conference representative from the Evangelical Covenant Church; Frances Hiraoka, the daughter of one of the first Japanese pastors, the Rev. Takeshi Ban; Abed Guevarra, a member of the Filipino congregation; and Naosuke Sugai, one of the founding members of the original Japanese church.

The introduction of Christianity to this East Hawaii community began with the Rev. Jiro Okabe in 1891 who saw a need to serve the Japanese community.

In April 1912, Olaa Japanese Christian Church was established under the leadership of Ban. Five years later, the Olaa Filipino Evangelical Church was established under the leadership of the Rev. Simeon Ygloria. These two Christian congregations resided in close proximity in Keaau.

In April 1960, merger talks between the two churches began as their numbers grew smaller. In 1965, with the encouragement of the Hawaii Conference of the United Church of Christ, these two churches were united as the Puna United Church of Christ.

Eventually the congregation decided to build a new church on its own property. Thanks to the generous assistance of the W. H. Shipman Company, land was purchased and a new church was built a block above its original site.

The church is now known as the Puna Covenant Church and its senior pastor is the Rev. Jack Snell.

Sunday services are held at 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. There is a youth program, Sunday school for adults and children, and mid-week Bible study classes. For more information, call 966-9622