Maui wildfires—a firsthand experience

Pastor Ben Williams was on the ground soon after the Maui wildfires hit, ministering to his church members and the wider community. We hear his first hand account and why service matters in times of disaster. Visit www.hawaiisda.com to support or for more information. 

What is Record Live Podcast?

Record Live is a conversation about life, spirituality and following Jesus in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

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 Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Record Live Today. Well, welcome Jared, I should say, before I jump into things.

Thanks, Zanita. Welcome to you too. As we said the other week, this is a really fun part of the week for us.

It is really fun. I understand that you just came back from A game of mini golf, especially for this recording today.

I did. We had a, strategy day and as part of the strategy day, we had team bonding, bit of mini golf, I'm not going to brag or anything, but I did get two holes in ones. It's like the first time in my life. It was amazing. So it was a good fun. So yeah, but this is a great conversation and important conversation that we're going to have today.

So rush back to the office for it and yeah, can't wait to get into it.

Yeah. Awesome. So today, yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation, but I also, it's not a fun conversation that we're having today. We are. As probably everyone here is aware, earlier this month, wildfires broke out in Hawaii. Burned so quickly that people had to escape to sea to survive.

, over 115 people have died and there's still heaps of people missing. So, today we have with us a guest from, well, he was the previous pastor of Lahaini Church. , we have with us Pastor Ben Williams.

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me.

, thank you so much for joining us. We know that you've previously, we've just been helping in the town of Lahaini. And you were the pastor of the church there. Can you tell us a little bit, like, how long were you there for?

I was there for about two years. And then about a month and a half ago, the conference here in Hawaii, they moved me to a different island, to Oahu.

, and so I had my first Sabbath at my new church and then two days later is when the fire started breaking out. And so the conference, , just sent me back over there to just help as much as I could, obviously you can't do a ton in those situations, but just to be over there and help.

And so, , I was the most previous pastor there in Lahaina for about two years. .

Can you just tell us a little bit, for us in Australia,

we hear all sorts of different things. What actually happened? How did the fire start?

Yeah, it was on Tuesday, there was a fire in the morning. And so, just for context, Lahaina is a very dry place on Maui. Even when I was living there, there was multiple times where I would, look out the window, and there's fires coming down the mountain, and you're kind of like, Oh,, that's worrisome, but we'll probably be okay.

This happens, , once a year, so there's a big fire, but usually it doesn't get all the way down into the town. It usually stays kind of up on the West Maui mountains. And so what happened is there was a fire flare up and,, some people say it was like electrical lines, but then obviously now the electrical companies are denying that it was them.

So I think it's a little bit unclear fully what started it. But that day there was a fire flare up in the morning. And so everyone was, worried. And then the fire department said, you know what, we contained it. It's all good. And so then as the day went on. There was fires in a few different places on Maui.

There was in Kula, there was one in Kihei, and then there was one in Lahaina. And so as the fire started again in the evening, what happened was there was a hurricane coming just south of the islands, and so we had upwards of 80 mile an hour wind gusts. And so when the next fire started, it took out all of the electricity and all of the cell towers, like right at the beginning of the fire.

And so as the fire started to move through the town, the problem was there was no ability to communicate. And so no one could see like, Oh, I'm getting an alert on my phone. There's this fire coming. And then the police officers and the , fire officers, they were trying to get down into the town, but the fire was going so quickly.

And there was telephone lines down everywhere. There was just like. It was just a horrible situation, like no one could get to anyone to tell people what was happening, as well as there was, you know, a questionable decision on not to use the sirens, which would have let people know the fires were coming.

And there's lots of debate on why that happened, which I don't think that's why we're here today to debate those things. But because of that, people just some people there, there was 1 NT I know. Um, and she said, I didn't really know that the fires were coming until my house was on fire. And so she ended up getting out and it was praise the Lord.

Like she made it out, which was just a crazy story. But yeah, the fires were moving so quickly without any notice that the only way you would know the fire was coming is if you were looking for it. If your house was, getting hot, those kinds of things. Cause no one was coming around telling anyone.

And so it was just, yeah, just a horrible, like coming together of. multiple horrible circumstances to make it such a horrific fire.

It's incredibly frightening, , not knowing what's happening. And I guess there was smoke and it would have been hot and the winds, as you say. So, , very, chaotic in that sense.

Can you tell us a little bit about the community, the town itself? What's it like? What's the context, that these fires entered into?

Yeah, you know, line is just for anybody that's been there. If you go there, it's like one of your favorite towns you've ever been to because it's about 14, 000 people that live basically right on the ocean and they called old, old historic Lahaina town because there's historic buildings everywhere.

Everything's basically made of wood. , and it's literally like right on the ocean. Like, there's this thing called front street where people would buy and sell tons of businesses. And it was literally built out over the water. Like, if you're on a boat and you're looking at line of town. It's coming out and it's on stilts over the water, just a beautiful, amazing thing.

There's a banyan tree there that's world famous. I think it was like a full block. There was one tree and it's a full block. The banyan tree grows , its roots from its branches into the ground. So it just became this amazing symbol of Lahaina town. And so yeah, there's the front street, there's a school right there.

And that day there was no school. And so a lot of kids were home. And so it's just, it's a, it's a. It was a population that's densely packed in there, lots of people living there, but also everyone's livelihood. And something that I've been trying to explain to some people is, that in Lahaina, that's on the west side of Maui, and there's a few towns above it, and there's one town a little bit below it.

And so people have been like, oh, , those towns were fine. They're all good. But what people don't understand is that the entire West Maui revolves around Lahaina towns. It's not like, oh, that's just a town that's next to me, I'm gonna keep living my life. It's like, if you lived in Napili, if you lived in Honokauai, your entire life revolved around Lahaina.

And so even though only Lahaina has burned, the entire West Maui has basically come to a halt with no one knowing, what happens next, because we've lost, the center of our entire community.

Yeah, that's rough. The spread is huge, then, it sounds like. I had a friend, , well my housemate actually, she went to Lahaina about six months ago and she was showing me photos of all the banyan trees and the colourful town and, , I know that recently, well last year in Australia we had massive floods go through a town near us and it just completely looked like a war zone afterwards which, judging by the pictures we've seen, it's what Lahaina looks like now as well.

How is the recovery going? I know this happened like two to three weeks ago now. I think it's starting to come together, I think it's starting to be cleaned up, like, what's happening in the town?

Yeah, so that's, another whole thing that's just really tough because people are still not allowed to go in into any of the burn zone.

And so, we haven't been able to even assess damage. Like, I mean, I have a few previous church members who they live, they're now staying with a brother outside of the burn zone and their house actually didn't get burned down. But they're not allowed to go in and look at it or anything. And so they're still, they're now having to pay mortgage on their house.

They're having to now pay also rent to the brother and both parents have lost their jobs. And so it's just like, yeah. And it, and, and the government, you know, I, I'm not one of those people that's going to down on the government. I think that they're doing their best, but at this point, like they have no good, even estimate of like when people will go back in, because at this point, I believe there's still, there still are looking for bodies, , on some level, as well as.

Then, you know, FEMA, which is this disaster relief, operation that comes from the government are now trying to figure out what do we do next, because as things burn, chemicals get released into soil, and so now they're having to decide, are we going to have to scrape a big layer off of the topsoil? Is it just going to be you can clear your land and start building?

And it's all of these questions that they're having to decide before anyone is allowed to even go back in. And so a lot of my church members, I mean, there's this one old uncle, his name is Uncle Lito, sweetest man in the world, but, he does a lot of landscaping. And so from the highway, he can look into the burn zone and see his truck with all of his tools sitting there, but he's just not allowed to go and get it.

And so it's just so strict and locked down, so no one is able to go back in. In any videos and pictures that you've seen, maybe you've seen some of the Lahaina Church or even in there is either people that, , aren't necessarily supposed to be in there or first responders that were in there.

We've had a few different Adventist first responders that have gone in and they've taken videos and things like that just to send to, the conference president or whoever it may be. But to this day still. Completely locked down. No one's able to go in.

If that's the case, Ben, what's your role as a pastor in the response in the disaster?

What when you say you went back there to help and to serve? What does that look like?

. So the fires happened. Basically, I'll just tell a little bit of what happened on my perspective. So you can know what I did. So On Tuesday, , I was tracking things going on. I was corresponding with people like, Hey, did you see there's a fire?

Oh yeah, it's all taken care of. And then Tuesday night, going to sleep, I saw that there was another flare up and I was like, ah, happens all the time. So I go to sleep and I wake up the next morning just to the entire town being gone. , and so then when I saw that, I just started, I texted and I called every church member that, I went on eAdventist, made sure I didn't miss anyone, made a spreadsheet, and just was contacting anyone and everyone that I knew on that side and telling them, hey, like, if you need something, let me know, and then as that day went on, I got a call from the conference president here, Eric Vandenberg, and he said, basically, hey, go to the conference office, grab a bunch of cash, like, just the treasurer will let you just grab some, and then fly to Maui and do whatever you can do.

And so I flew over, and there's another church in central Maui called the Kahului Seventh day Adventist Church. And so I showed up to the Kahului Seventh day Adventist Church about midday, and I just sent out another text and left a voicemail with everyone, all the church members, and I just said, Hey, I'm setting up a shelter at the Kahului Seventh day Adventist Church.

If you need somewhere to go, come here. I don't know if you're going to get this, but if you do, come here. And so then I just waited, I was still texting, still calling,, and just not hearing anything, because again, all the cell coverage was down, all the electricity was out. And then about, I would say maybe 3 or 4 p.

m., I got a text , from one lady that would come to church, her name is Sharon. And she said, Hey, pastor, like we've lost everything. Can we come to the church? And I said, 100% come to the church. And she said, can we bring the whole gang? And for context in Hawaii, a lot of people live, multifamily homes.

And so I knew that if she says, I'm bringing the gang, it's going to be a lot of people. And so I went out to Walmart. I bought, just tons of beds, tons of food. And I just prepared, started putting beds everywhere, putting bedding, putting food out. And when they came in, it was about 40 people that showed up.

Most were from the church and the others were just people that were living with the church members in their homes. And so then we set up shelter for them, got them all situated and had food ready for them. And that first night, I just remember., people coming out of their cars, just shelf shocked, just, covered in soot.

One of the uncles, he had holes in his shirt. He was just literally covered in head to toe in black soot. And as he got out of his car, he just started crying. And I just hugged him, just talked to them. And so, to be honest, the main thing that I did in relief was providing for people somewhere to stay, getting them showers, getting them food, and just talking to them and loving on them as much as I could.

Mmm. What about,, ADRA? Are they involved, in any way on the island there?

Yeah, so ADRA is an interesting topic technically ADRA is the Seventh day Adventist, relief for disasters for, the global. But then for North America, there's a thing called Adventist Community Services.

And so Adventist Community Services, I believe, are doing their best to try to figure out a way to help. , we have an Adventist Community Service, , Director here in Hawaii named Mark Tamalea, and he's been doing his best to help out. I'm not sure, necessarily what's coming down from like the NAD ACS.

I'm sure that they're doing their best. But yeah, our ACS representative, who's also our Youth Director. He's been helping coordinate, specifically, trying to help people get food. That's been his big thing, is connecting. Even us, when we had our shelter of about 40 people, we didn't have the manpower and the food capabilities to, take care of everyone.

And so he was hooking us up with all of the people there, and also just communicating with all of the major organizations, like Red Cross. Salvation Army. I'm in all of them to try to figure out one next steps, but also how to get immediate needs for all of the people that we were housing.

And so what would be the situation of the people that you were housing?

Some of the church members that had to come to the other church. If the area is still locked down, like what are they doing? Are they still camping out at the church? Have they found other? Places to stay for now. Like what's what's the situation currently?

Yeah, so they they came for about two weeks where we were taking care of them and then What's been happening is that the government has been opening hotel rooms and things like that So on the west coast on the west side of maui there's huge resorts and those resorts are no longer housing people because the whole west side is shut down and so What's been happening is that the government has been coordinating?

relief funds to be able to help sustain the economy with the hotels and then also providing places for The members and so there's a few people that have taken that option, but also what we did for probably 456 days. We have a we have a young lady there named Melanie Ramirez, who is now a conference employee.

The conference has specifically hired her right now to be coordinating all of the relief over there on behalf of the church and with the church. And she was just, literally all day, every day trying to find them housing, talking to them. Do you have family? Do you have, if you don't have family, how can we provide for you?

And , after about four or five days of just intentionally doing that, she was able to, with, along with others, obviously, , find a place for each of them to be in, at least in the next, three, four months. And then what we've told everyone that we were helping specifically is, listen, we're getting you set up for three, four months.

But don't think that we're then dropping you. We're setting you up for these 3 4 months so that we can continue to journey with you. Can we go with you to insurance meetings? Can we go with you when you talk to the government? Can we go with you when you go back to see your land?

Whatever you need, let us know. And so that's what we did with all of the people that were there. And then we opened it up and we said, Hey, if there's other people in the area that need help, it like to our capacity, come on, let us help you. Let us figure out what we can do. In any way.

So I'm interested in that. So you've helped definitely Adventist church members. What does the church do in the case of community, is there support that the church is offering to people that aren't part of the Adventist church, but are

affected by the fires?

Yeah, , so far what we've done is, first, we, we really intentionally focused on those who are with us, which were about 20 Adventists and about 20 non Adventists. And we just said, we're not going to try to go too big as a local conference, because our conference is very small.

We have about four people that work in the conference office, in total. And so we were just like, let's focus on what we can focus on. And then as we get them taken care of, we're going to open it up. And so that's what we've done now is we've just told other people, if you want help figuring out insurance, if you want help, like navigating that, right.

We're not going to be the ones navigating, like in saying , we're going to decide your insurance, but there's a lot of, for context, Maui is a huge percentage, I think like 60 or 70% of Filipino. And there's a lot of people that can't communicate in English super well. And so we're like, Hey, we'll go with you.

On top of that, , if you need financial assistance in some way, like we're getting donations from around the world and what we're doing with those donations are literally telling people, you can't pay your mortgage, let us help you out for a little bit so that you can make an educated decision on if you want to stay here or go, because we're talking to a lot of people and they were saying we have to sell our land and we have to move away because we can't pay our mortgage on a house that's burned down where we don't have jobs.

And so we've been just trying to get people breathing room , can we give you like one or two months breathing room so you can make a decision that's not just a knee jerk reaction of this is what I have to do. On top of that, we've been helping people like get back on their feet in tons of different ways, like including like helping people buy tools, so that they can start back up their businesses.

We've sponsored, there was three, or there was two young men that were a part of the Lahaina church that lost their home, and so they can't go to high school, and so we sponsored them to go to a boarding academy. , there was about six or seven, elementary school students that said, Hey, we can't live on that side and go to our school.

Some of them, their schools burned down. And so we sponsored them also to the Adventist education. And so all the money that's coming in, it's just going straight to people's immediate needs. And that definitely started with people who were a part of our church. But then we said, we don't want to sit here and be like, we helped people in our church and we have a ton of money and we're waiting for more Adventist.

We were like, no, if money comes in, it's going out and we're definitely going to prioritize like people who. We know and that are coming to us in need, but then when we take care of them, it doesn't stop there. Like it stops when the money stops.

Yeah. I know people like in other countries and probably over there as well are wondering how they can best help. And I think sometimes they send clothes and things, possessions, just cause they want to do whatever they can, but is the best way to help provide money essentially? Like, is that the best we can be doing over here in Australia?

Let's say.

Yeah, the best way right now is finances, because what we found is as you said, like, my first reaction is like, can I give clothes? Can I give items? And that came in droves, like to the point where, there's people that have so many belongings now that have been donated.

They're like, we can't keep all of this. And so the donations are overflowing, like that love has been so well received and amazing. But at this point, I think the best way, is financial needs. And I do believe that in the future, I don't know how far in the future, this will be, , we will be able to, help with different projects.

But at the moment, finances are the biggest thing., there's another big, project that the Hawaii conference that I don't think I can talk about it right now because some things are still going through, different systems, but there's a big project coming up that we're going to need finances for that's going to be directly helping the community.

And so definitely finances is the biggest way. And then in the future, coming and volunteering, if you have some time, whether you're a medical professional or you can hold a hammer or a shovel, like that's gonna be huge. Just not yet.

Are there specific places where you could be sending that money that you're aware of?

Yeah, so if you go to hawaiisda. com, and then there's a big button that says Donate to Maui Wildfires. If you click there, it's through Adventist giving, and so it goes straight to a specific, account in the Hawaii conference.

That goes all of it is going towards the people and this is I mean, I'll be honest. I'm someone and I don't know if this is an appropriate place to say this, but I'm someone that like looks at the church sometimes and I say, I don't know how our finances are like maybe we need to be a little more transparent.

And I'm on the ground, , and I'm someone that if I were to ever see money being spent in a weird way, I'm gonna call it out 100%. Like, I'm not okay with that. And I can say, from this point, , everything I've been seeing is we're literally getting money in and giving it out. There's this one uncle that , he's non adventist.

And we've been helping his family in multiple ways, put his kid in school, taking care of different things while he was going to lose his car, lose his house, all of these things, well, lose his house, he lost his house, but it was going to foreclose on a burned down house because that's just how insurance companies and banks work, which is sad.

But we gave him, you know, we were helping him take care of a bunch of money. And I remember I was just watching him hug Melanie and cry. And he said, I don't even know you guys. Like, I'm not a part of this church, but I want to be. I want to start coming to this church. I want to be Adventist because if what being an Adventist means is being loved and loving other people like this, I'm all in.

You don't need to preach a sermon to me. You don't need to do anything that you've shown me, Jesus. I want to be a part of this. And so that's the impact I'm seeing is when people are sending in this money, like that's what the money's doing 100% of the time.

I saw, Ben, it was on Tik TOK or Instagram or something. There was that footage of the seventh day of Venice church still standing, , a lot of properties around it were impacted. I think there's sometimes a tendency. for us Adventists to be a bit triumphant in that, like God protected us and yet the flip side of that is maybe he didn't protect everyone else.

I'm sometimes uncomfortable with some of those attitudes. I guess this is a more philosophical question, but how do you see God working in disaster areas and, what's your take from on the ground about, what may or may not have happened with the church , and how God moves in disasters.

Yeah, that is a tough question that I've been struggling with, for sure, because I see, I mean, as I get texts and calls every day, people saying, well, look, pastor, , see, God is good. He saved the church and I would say God is good. 100%. But I don't think that I look at the church and I say, whoopie, like all these people lost their homes and lost their lives.

But like, see, God cared about the church more than them. I don't see it that way, right? Like it's hard to like sitting there like you're saying. And so I have a really hard time. I mean, I had one lady come up to me and she's just praising Lord that God is good. He see, I told you he's faithful.

He wouldn't let the church burn. Why? My arm was around an uncle who lost his entire home and one of his best friends. Right. And so it's like, What do you do with that? And I don't think I have a good answer, but, I do see that for a lot of the church members, like the fact , that the sanctuary is still standing is a beacon of hope in the community.

I think that there are people that look at it and say, God is good. And so I don't want to deny that either, but also I, yeah, I don't think I have a good answer, but I also struggle with the side that like, man, these people lost their lives. I don't know. I think , where I land is God is good no matter what, and I hope that the church can be a beacon of hope, and I'm really sad that other people lost everything.

I think that's where I'm at, and I don't have a good answer for what it all means.

It's tricky. It's a super hard question. And I was talking to someone about this, the fact that there was a few churches that, didn't get burnt and they were, they kind of responded like, oh yeah, but that's fires.

Sometimes fires just sweep over things. Like I think you mentioned someone else's home. Other people's homes are fine as well. It's all kind of like a mystery that we can't really comprehend, but, you mentioned, beacons of hope and I know when I saw the floods and fires in Australia previously, It's devastating, but there's also, this beauty in how community comes together.

What are some of the beautiful ways in which you've seen people kind of come together under these circumstances?

Yeah, like, honestly, and this is the craziest, this is the most beautiful thing, I think, of all of it.

It's been insane. Because again, I don't want to down on the government. I'm not an anti government person, but the government, when all of this happened was very absent, , we would see the planes come in with huge shipments of food and water, and then no one would see it and to this day, I don't really know what happened.

But what I do know is that when I drove by Lahaina and I drove up because I eventually I went and found all the members that were stuck in their homes and we did visits and all of those kind of things. And as we were driving, I just saw huge depots of food and water and supplies. And when you looked, it was just people who have also lost their homes, also lost their businesses.

And now they're saying, you know what, whatever, I'm going to be out here all day, just helping people with their needs. There was a collective of I don't know how many restaurants, but I'd say Upwards of 20 restaurants where these restaurant owners and their chef said, we lost our restaurants.

Let's open up a restaurant at the local community college and just make food all day, every day and go hand it out in the community. So people aren't just getting like whatever food they're getting, like these dishes. My wife and I would go to these restaurants, like on a special occasions, it'd be like 40 bucks a plate.

Right. And now these people who are stuck in their homes, lost everything. They're not eating just like random food. They're getting 40 a plate from Papa. I know Hawaii. Like, it's just crazy. And just seeing people come together has been so amazing. Like it makes that community. Just feel like they're going to make it through like in a positive way.

And even last Friday night, and I know, Hey, listen, I know we're Adventist, but I still loved it on Friday night. They had a huge movie night where they put a big blow up projector screen in the middle of a field. And they said, if you lost your home, if you're a part of this community, come out, we lost our homes, but we can still be together.

And there was like hundreds of people just outside watching movies together. And for me, like that just warms my heart to no end. I love that. That was so good. So the community coming together. Has been absolutely amazing and beautiful.

Yeah, it really speaks to the resilience of the human spirit when disasters happen and people just pull together and go above and beyond.

As you said, even when they've lost everything themselves, it's a really inspiring thing to see. So Ben,, what happens now? And, you've gone back to... Your current posting. Is there a pastor there at the church that, that has replaced you or

so two weeks ago? So right after the fire, , the new pastor was supposed to start in September, but the conference said, you know what?

Let's just bring him in early. And so he actually started, two weeks ago. He was installed as a pastor. His name is Rommel and Rommel is an amazing dude. , I couldn't be more, I don't know if the right word is excited , I just feel safe with that community being shepherded by him.

, he's a young Filipino guy and he speaks the language of a lot of people on the island. And I just saw him connecting so amazingly with everybody that he met. And so, I'm just so excited that he's over there . And this is another thing that, for a while I was, it was just kind of confusing, you get a little bit of survivor's guilt type of thing we just left in this community suffering and I'm sitting over here feeling fine.

And Ramel, he was actually supposed to come in the week after I left, which then he would have lost everything. But for different reasons, the conferences ended up stalling his installment until later and they actually moved mine up. I was supposed to not go until, , like mid August, but instead they put me like way earlier.

And it just seems like God has, God, he and I both not be moved in so that we can minister to this community in a meaningful way. And I think the one side of it,, makes me feel like, well, why didn't he save all these people? And I'm just not asking those questions. I'm just believing. That God wanted he and Romell and myself to minister in this way.

And so I'm just praising him that he's put us in a position to be able to do that. But yeah, romell is the pastor over there now. .

What happens next as you look forward for this community? How do they get back on their feet? , what needs to happen to rebuild?

Yeah, so I think like the big thing is going to be a huge amount of time. It's just going to take so much time and I think looking at different fires that have happened in the U. S. It just takes so long to rebuild a community, especially a community that's on an island, because resources are scarce.

You can't just go to Home Depot , two towns over if they're out of lumber. There's only one Home Depot in Maui, right? There's probably only three Home Depots in all of the Hawaiian islands. And so it's going to take a long time, one, to get back in, two, to be able to figure out how to clear and rebuild the city, but then three, on top of all of that, how do we get enough resources to build a city?

And so it's going to take a lot of time, but the big thing I think that's needed is that, and this is, an appeal that's being made all over Lahaina, is that people will stay and fight for their land. Because right now what a lot is happening is investors are coming in and saying, Hey, your insurance, they're not going to give you enough.

Let us just buy your land for 400, 000 when the land is really worth like 2 million, but they're like, you know what, we'll set you up in Las Vegas. We'll set you up in Seattle. Just let us take your land off your hands. And so investors are coming in and trying to buy up all the land. And so , what really needs to happen is one support from everyone else, but two,

people need to be resilient enough as they've already been to say, you know what? No, we're going to stay and it's going to be hard, but we're going to rebuild together. And I think what really makes impact is when people like you, people like me, we say, hey, we support you financially, we support you in volunteers, we support you in anything it takes for you to stay there and continue to build and put into this community.

Because if they're left alone, I mean, if I'm thinking about it myself, if I lost everything living in Lahaina and it's just on me and no one's helping in my community. Is not receiving any help. I'm probably going to move to Las Vegas. But if it feels like the community is coming together and receiving support from all over, I think that's when the community can actually rebuild and maybe even rebuild stronger than it was before.

Yeah, awesome. We'll continue to pray and, we've got the link there for anyone who wants to donate to, the people who have been affected by the fires. So yeah, we want to thank you again, Ben, for joining us today and just sharing, what you can about, the recovery and the fires.

you're probably emotionally exhausted So we really appreciate your time today.

Yeah, I appreciate you guys just giving me space to talk about it for sure

It's not something we always do, but it might be nice to finish with a prayer for Ben and,, the church there and all the people that are impressed to support them.

So let's pray. Father God, we pray for Maui and for everyone who's been impacted by the fires. , we pray your blessing over them in the recovery attempts. Ben has shared some of the needs. We pray that those needs are filled, that you impress your people around the world to. help financially, help with volunteers and flying build trips and all the necessary things that need to come both now and in the future.

God, we pray for the pastoral team, the conference in Hawaii as they make decisions of what to do and how to support the community. And we pray for the community and all the members who have lost loved ones, families, homes, , may you be close to them. at this time. We thank you for Ben and his ministry and we thank you for the opportunity to talk with him today.

May you continue to bless us in Jesus name. Amen.

Awesome, Ben. Thank you so much for joining us. May God continue to bless your ministry and for everyone else who's watching, 📍 listening, we'll see you next week.    📍 ​

 Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Record Live Today. Well, welcome Jared, I should say, before I jump into things.

Thanks, Zanita. Welcome to you too. As we said the other week, this is a really fun part of the week for us.

It is really fun. I understand that you just came back from A game of mini golf, especially for this recording today.

I did. We had a, strategy day and as part of the strategy day, we had team bonding, bit of mini golf, I'm not going to brag or anything, but I did get two holes in ones. It's like the first time in my life. It was amazing. So it was a good fun. So yeah, but this is a great conversation and important conversation that we're going to have today.

So rush back to the office for it and yeah, can't wait to get into it.

Yeah. Awesome. So today, yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation, but I also, it's not a fun conversation that we're having today. We are. As probably everyone here is aware, earlier this month, wildfires broke out in Hawaii. Burned so quickly that people had to escape to sea to survive.

, over 115 people have died and there's still heaps of people missing. So, today we have with us a guest from, well, he was the previous pastor of Lahaini Church. , we have with us Pastor Ben Williams.

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me.

, thank you so much for joining us. We know that you've previously, we've just been helping in the town of Lahaini. And you were the pastor of the church there. Can you tell us a little bit, like, how long were you there for?

I was there for about two years. And then about a month and a half ago, the conference here in Hawaii, they moved me to a different island, to Oahu.

, and so I had my first Sabbath at my new church and then two days later is when the fire started breaking out. And so the conference, , just sent me back over there to just help as much as I could, obviously you can't do a ton in those situations, but just to be over there and help.

And so, , I was the most previous pastor there in Lahaina for about two years. .

Can you just tell us a little bit, for us in Australia,

we hear all sorts of different things. What actually happened? How did the fire start?

Yeah, it was on Tuesday, there was a fire in the morning. And so, just for context, Lahaina is a very dry place on Maui. Even when I was living there, there was multiple times where I would, look out the window, and there's fires coming down the mountain, and you're kind of like, Oh,, that's worrisome, but we'll probably be okay.

This happens, , once a year, so there's a big fire, but usually it doesn't get all the way down into the town. It usually stays kind of up on the West Maui mountains. And so what happened is there was a fire flare up and,, some people say it was like electrical lines, but then obviously now the electrical companies are denying that it was them.

So I think it's a little bit unclear fully what started it. But that day there was a fire flare up in the morning. And so everyone was, worried. And then the fire department said, you know what, we contained it. It's all good. And so then as the day went on. There was fires in a few different places on Maui.

There was in Kula, there was one in Kihei, and then there was one in Lahaina. And so as the fire started again in the evening, what happened was there was a hurricane coming just south of the islands, and so we had upwards of 80 mile an hour wind gusts. And so when the next fire started, it took out all of the electricity and all of the cell towers, like right at the beginning of the fire.

And so as the fire started to move through the town, the problem was there was no ability to communicate. And so no one could see like, Oh, I'm getting an alert on my phone. There's this fire coming. And then the police officers and the , fire officers, they were trying to get down into the town, but the fire was going so quickly.

And there was telephone lines down everywhere. There was just like. It was just a horrible situation, like no one could get to anyone to tell people what was happening, as well as there was, you know, a questionable decision on not to use the sirens, which would have let people know the fires were coming.

And there's lots of debate on why that happened, which I don't think that's why we're here today to debate those things. But because of that, people just some people there, there was 1 NT I know. Um, and she said, I didn't really know that the fires were coming until my house was on fire. And so she ended up getting out and it was praise the Lord.

Like she made it out, which was just a crazy story. But yeah, the fires were moving so quickly without any notice that the only way you would know the fire was coming is if you were looking for it. If your house was, getting hot, those kinds of things. Cause no one was coming around telling anyone.

And so it was just, yeah, just a horrible, like coming together of. multiple horrible circumstances to make it such a horrific fire.

It's incredibly frightening, , not knowing what's happening. And I guess there was smoke and it would have been hot and the winds, as you say. So, , very, chaotic in that sense.

Can you tell us a little bit about the community, the town itself? What's it like? What's the context, that these fires entered into?

Yeah, you know, line is just for anybody that's been there. If you go there, it's like one of your favorite towns you've ever been to because it's about 14, 000 people that live basically right on the ocean and they called old, old historic Lahaina town because there's historic buildings everywhere.

Everything's basically made of wood. , and it's literally like right on the ocean. Like, there's this thing called front street where people would buy and sell tons of businesses. And it was literally built out over the water. Like, if you're on a boat and you're looking at line of town. It's coming out and it's on stilts over the water, just a beautiful, amazing thing.

There's a banyan tree there that's world famous. I think it was like a full block. There was one tree and it's a full block. The banyan tree grows , its roots from its branches into the ground. So it just became this amazing symbol of Lahaina town. And so yeah, there's the front street, there's a school right there.

And that day there was no school. And so a lot of kids were home. And so it's just, it's a, it's a. It was a population that's densely packed in there, lots of people living there, but also everyone's livelihood. And something that I've been trying to explain to some people is, that in Lahaina, that's on the west side of Maui, and there's a few towns above it, and there's one town a little bit below it.

And so people have been like, oh, , those towns were fine. They're all good. But what people don't understand is that the entire West Maui revolves around Lahaina towns. It's not like, oh, that's just a town that's next to me, I'm gonna keep living my life. It's like, if you lived in Napili, if you lived in Honokauai, your entire life revolved around Lahaina.

And so even though only Lahaina has burned, the entire West Maui has basically come to a halt with no one knowing, what happens next, because we've lost, the center of our entire community.

Yeah, that's rough. The spread is huge, then, it sounds like. I had a friend, , well my housemate actually, she went to Lahaina about six months ago and she was showing me photos of all the banyan trees and the colourful town and, , I know that recently, well last year in Australia we had massive floods go through a town near us and it just completely looked like a war zone afterwards which, judging by the pictures we've seen, it's what Lahaina looks like now as well.

How is the recovery going? I know this happened like two to three weeks ago now. I think it's starting to come together, I think it's starting to be cleaned up, like, what's happening in the town?

Yeah, so that's, another whole thing that's just really tough because people are still not allowed to go in into any of the burn zone.

And so, we haven't been able to even assess damage. Like, I mean, I have a few previous church members who they live, they're now staying with a brother outside of the burn zone and their house actually didn't get burned down. But they're not allowed to go in and look at it or anything. And so they're still, they're now having to pay mortgage on their house.

They're having to now pay also rent to the brother and both parents have lost their jobs. And so it's just like, yeah. And it, and, and the government, you know, I, I'm not one of those people that's going to down on the government. I think that they're doing their best, but at this point, like they have no good, even estimate of like when people will go back in, because at this point, I believe there's still, there still are looking for bodies, , on some level, as well as.

Then, you know, FEMA, which is this disaster relief, operation that comes from the government are now trying to figure out what do we do next, because as things burn, chemicals get released into soil, and so now they're having to decide, are we going to have to scrape a big layer off of the topsoil? Is it just going to be you can clear your land and start building?

And it's all of these questions that they're having to decide before anyone is allowed to even go back in. And so a lot of my church members, I mean, there's this one old uncle, his name is Uncle Lito, sweetest man in the world, but, he does a lot of landscaping. And so from the highway, he can look into the burn zone and see his truck with all of his tools sitting there, but he's just not allowed to go and get it.

And so it's just so strict and locked down, so no one is able to go back in. In any videos and pictures that you've seen, maybe you've seen some of the Lahaina Church or even in there is either people that, , aren't necessarily supposed to be in there or first responders that were in there.

We've had a few different Adventist first responders that have gone in and they've taken videos and things like that just to send to, the conference president or whoever it may be. But to this day still. Completely locked down. No one's able to go in.

If that's the case, Ben, what's your role as a pastor in the response in the disaster?

What when you say you went back there to help and to serve? What does that look like?

. So the fires happened. Basically, I'll just tell a little bit of what happened on my perspective. So you can know what I did. So On Tuesday, , I was tracking things going on. I was corresponding with people like, Hey, did you see there's a fire?

Oh yeah, it's all taken care of. And then Tuesday night, going to sleep, I saw that there was another flare up and I was like, ah, happens all the time. So I go to sleep and I wake up the next morning just to the entire town being gone. , and so then when I saw that, I just started, I texted and I called every church member that, I went on eAdventist, made sure I didn't miss anyone, made a spreadsheet, and just was contacting anyone and everyone that I knew on that side and telling them, hey, like, if you need something, let me know, and then as that day went on, I got a call from the conference president here, Eric Vandenberg, and he said, basically, hey, go to the conference office, grab a bunch of cash, like, just the treasurer will let you just grab some, and then fly to Maui and do whatever you can do.

And so I flew over, and there's another church in central Maui called the Kahului Seventh day Adventist Church. And so I showed up to the Kahului Seventh day Adventist Church about midday, and I just sent out another text and left a voicemail with everyone, all the church members, and I just said, Hey, I'm setting up a shelter at the Kahului Seventh day Adventist Church.

If you need somewhere to go, come here. I don't know if you're going to get this, but if you do, come here. And so then I just waited, I was still texting, still calling,, and just not hearing anything, because again, all the cell coverage was down, all the electricity was out. And then about, I would say maybe 3 or 4 p.

m., I got a text , from one lady that would come to church, her name is Sharon. And she said, Hey, pastor, like we've lost everything. Can we come to the church? And I said, 100% come to the church. And she said, can we bring the whole gang? And for context in Hawaii, a lot of people live, multifamily homes.

And so I knew that if she says, I'm bringing the gang, it's going to be a lot of people. And so I went out to Walmart. I bought, just tons of beds, tons of food. And I just prepared, started putting beds everywhere, putting bedding, putting food out. And when they came in, it was about 40 people that showed up.

Most were from the church and the others were just people that were living with the church members in their homes. And so then we set up shelter for them, got them all situated and had food ready for them. And that first night, I just remember., people coming out of their cars, just shelf shocked, just, covered in soot.

One of the uncles, he had holes in his shirt. He was just literally covered in head to toe in black soot. And as he got out of his car, he just started crying. And I just hugged him, just talked to them. And so, to be honest, the main thing that I did in relief was providing for people somewhere to stay, getting them showers, getting them food, and just talking to them and loving on them as much as I could.

Mmm. What about,, ADRA? Are they involved, in any way on the island there?

Yeah, so ADRA is an interesting topic technically ADRA is the Seventh day Adventist, relief for disasters for, the global. But then for North America, there's a thing called Adventist Community Services.

And so Adventist Community Services, I believe, are doing their best to try to figure out a way to help. , we have an Adventist Community Service, , Director here in Hawaii named Mark Tamalea, and he's been doing his best to help out. I'm not sure, necessarily what's coming down from like the NAD ACS.

I'm sure that they're doing their best. But yeah, our ACS representative, who's also our Youth Director. He's been helping coordinate, specifically, trying to help people get food. That's been his big thing, is connecting. Even us, when we had our shelter of about 40 people, we didn't have the manpower and the food capabilities to, take care of everyone.

And so he was hooking us up with all of the people there, and also just communicating with all of the major organizations, like Red Cross. Salvation Army. I'm in all of them to try to figure out one next steps, but also how to get immediate needs for all of the people that we were housing.

And so what would be the situation of the people that you were housing?

Some of the church members that had to come to the other church. If the area is still locked down, like what are they doing? Are they still camping out at the church? Have they found other? Places to stay for now. Like what's what's the situation currently?

Yeah, so they they came for about two weeks where we were taking care of them and then What's been happening is that the government has been opening hotel rooms and things like that So on the west coast on the west side of maui there's huge resorts and those resorts are no longer housing people because the whole west side is shut down and so What's been happening is that the government has been coordinating?

relief funds to be able to help sustain the economy with the hotels and then also providing places for The members and so there's a few people that have taken that option, but also what we did for probably 456 days. We have a we have a young lady there named Melanie Ramirez, who is now a conference employee.

The conference has specifically hired her right now to be coordinating all of the relief over there on behalf of the church and with the church. And she was just, literally all day, every day trying to find them housing, talking to them. Do you have family? Do you have, if you don't have family, how can we provide for you?

And , after about four or five days of just intentionally doing that, she was able to, with, along with others, obviously, , find a place for each of them to be in, at least in the next, three, four months. And then what we've told everyone that we were helping specifically is, listen, we're getting you set up for three, four months.

But don't think that we're then dropping you. We're setting you up for these 3 4 months so that we can continue to journey with you. Can we go with you to insurance meetings? Can we go with you when you talk to the government? Can we go with you when you go back to see your land?

Whatever you need, let us know. And so that's what we did with all of the people that were there. And then we opened it up and we said, Hey, if there's other people in the area that need help, it like to our capacity, come on, let us help you. Let us figure out what we can do. In any way.

So I'm interested in that. So you've helped definitely Adventist church members. What does the church do in the case of community, is there support that the church is offering to people that aren't part of the Adventist church, but are

affected by the fires?

Yeah, , so far what we've done is, first, we, we really intentionally focused on those who are with us, which were about 20 Adventists and about 20 non Adventists. And we just said, we're not going to try to go too big as a local conference, because our conference is very small.

We have about four people that work in the conference office, in total. And so we were just like, let's focus on what we can focus on. And then as we get them taken care of, we're going to open it up. And so that's what we've done now is we've just told other people, if you want help figuring out insurance, if you want help, like navigating that, right.

We're not going to be the ones navigating, like in saying , we're going to decide your insurance, but there's a lot of, for context, Maui is a huge percentage, I think like 60 or 70% of Filipino. And there's a lot of people that can't communicate in English super well. And so we're like, Hey, we'll go with you.

On top of that, , if you need financial assistance in some way, like we're getting donations from around the world and what we're doing with those donations are literally telling people, you can't pay your mortgage, let us help you out for a little bit so that you can make an educated decision on if you want to stay here or go, because we're talking to a lot of people and they were saying we have to sell our land and we have to move away because we can't pay our mortgage on a house that's burned down where we don't have jobs.

And so we've been just trying to get people breathing room , can we give you like one or two months breathing room so you can make a decision that's not just a knee jerk reaction of this is what I have to do. On top of that, we've been helping people like get back on their feet in tons of different ways, like including like helping people buy tools, so that they can start back up their businesses.

We've sponsored, there was three, or there was two young men that were a part of the Lahaina church that lost their home, and so they can't go to high school, and so we sponsored them to go to a boarding academy. , there was about six or seven, elementary school students that said, Hey, we can't live on that side and go to our school.

Some of them, their schools burned down. And so we sponsored them also to the Adventist education. And so all the money that's coming in, it's just going straight to people's immediate needs. And that definitely started with people who were a part of our church. But then we said, we don't want to sit here and be like, we helped people in our church and we have a ton of money and we're waiting for more Adventist.

We were like, no, if money comes in, it's going out and we're definitely going to prioritize like people who. We know and that are coming to us in need, but then when we take care of them, it doesn't stop there. Like it stops when the money stops.

Yeah. I know people like in other countries and probably over there as well are wondering how they can best help. And I think sometimes they send clothes and things, possessions, just cause they want to do whatever they can, but is the best way to help provide money essentially? Like, is that the best we can be doing over here in Australia?

Let's say.

Yeah, the best way right now is finances, because what we found is as you said, like, my first reaction is like, can I give clothes? Can I give items? And that came in droves, like to the point where, there's people that have so many belongings now that have been donated.

They're like, we can't keep all of this. And so the donations are overflowing, like that love has been so well received and amazing. But at this point, I think the best way, is financial needs. And I do believe that in the future, I don't know how far in the future, this will be, , we will be able to, help with different projects.

But at the moment, finances are the biggest thing., there's another big, project that the Hawaii conference that I don't think I can talk about it right now because some things are still going through, different systems, but there's a big project coming up that we're going to need finances for that's going to be directly helping the community.

And so definitely finances is the biggest way. And then in the future, coming and volunteering, if you have some time, whether you're a medical professional or you can hold a hammer or a shovel, like that's gonna be huge. Just not yet.

Are there specific places where you could be sending that money that you're aware of?

Yeah, so if you go to hawaiisda. com, and then there's a big button that says Donate to Maui Wildfires. If you click there, it's through Adventist giving, and so it goes straight to a specific, account in the Hawaii conference.

That goes all of it is going towards the people and this is I mean, I'll be honest. I'm someone and I don't know if this is an appropriate place to say this, but I'm someone that like looks at the church sometimes and I say, I don't know how our finances are like maybe we need to be a little more transparent.

And I'm on the ground, , and I'm someone that if I were to ever see money being spent in a weird way, I'm gonna call it out 100%. Like, I'm not okay with that. And I can say, from this point, , everything I've been seeing is we're literally getting money in and giving it out. There's this one uncle that , he's non adventist.

And we've been helping his family in multiple ways, put his kid in school, taking care of different things while he was going to lose his car, lose his house, all of these things, well, lose his house, he lost his house, but it was going to foreclose on a burned down house because that's just how insurance companies and banks work, which is sad.

But we gave him, you know, we were helping him take care of a bunch of money. And I remember I was just watching him hug Melanie and cry. And he said, I don't even know you guys. Like, I'm not a part of this church, but I want to be. I want to start coming to this church. I want to be Adventist because if what being an Adventist means is being loved and loving other people like this, I'm all in.

You don't need to preach a sermon to me. You don't need to do anything that you've shown me, Jesus. I want to be a part of this. And so that's the impact I'm seeing is when people are sending in this money, like that's what the money's doing 100% of the time.

I saw, Ben, it was on Tik TOK or Instagram or something. There was that footage of the seventh day of Venice church still standing, , a lot of properties around it were impacted. I think there's sometimes a tendency. for us Adventists to be a bit triumphant in that, like God protected us and yet the flip side of that is maybe he didn't protect everyone else.

I'm sometimes uncomfortable with some of those attitudes. I guess this is a more philosophical question, but how do you see God working in disaster areas and, what's your take from on the ground about, what may or may not have happened with the church , and how God moves in disasters.

Yeah, that is a tough question that I've been struggling with, for sure, because I see, I mean, as I get texts and calls every day, people saying, well, look, pastor, , see, God is good. He saved the church and I would say God is good. 100%. But I don't think that I look at the church and I say, whoopie, like all these people lost their homes and lost their lives.

But like, see, God cared about the church more than them. I don't see it that way, right? Like it's hard to like sitting there like you're saying. And so I have a really hard time. I mean, I had one lady come up to me and she's just praising Lord that God is good. He see, I told you he's faithful.

He wouldn't let the church burn. Why? My arm was around an uncle who lost his entire home and one of his best friends. Right. And so it's like, What do you do with that? And I don't think I have a good answer, but, I do see that for a lot of the church members, like the fact , that the sanctuary is still standing is a beacon of hope in the community.

I think that there are people that look at it and say, God is good. And so I don't want to deny that either, but also I, yeah, I don't think I have a good answer, but I also struggle with the side that like, man, these people lost their lives. I don't know. I think , where I land is God is good no matter what, and I hope that the church can be a beacon of hope, and I'm really sad that other people lost everything.

I think that's where I'm at, and I don't have a good answer for what it all means.

It's tricky. It's a super hard question. And I was talking to someone about this, the fact that there was a few churches that, didn't get burnt and they were, they kind of responded like, oh yeah, but that's fires.

Sometimes fires just sweep over things. Like I think you mentioned someone else's home. Other people's homes are fine as well. It's all kind of like a mystery that we can't really comprehend, but, you mentioned, beacons of hope and I know when I saw the floods and fires in Australia previously, It's devastating, but there's also, this beauty in how community comes together.

What are some of the beautiful ways in which you've seen people kind of come together under these circumstances?

Yeah, like, honestly, and this is the craziest, this is the most beautiful thing, I think, of all of it.

It's been insane. Because again, I don't want to down on the government. I'm not an anti government person, but the government, when all of this happened was very absent, , we would see the planes come in with huge shipments of food and water, and then no one would see it and to this day, I don't really know what happened.

But what I do know is that when I drove by Lahaina and I drove up because I eventually I went and found all the members that were stuck in their homes and we did visits and all of those kind of things. And as we were driving, I just saw huge depots of food and water and supplies. And when you looked, it was just people who have also lost their homes, also lost their businesses.

And now they're saying, you know what, whatever, I'm going to be out here all day, just helping people with their needs. There was a collective of I don't know how many restaurants, but I'd say Upwards of 20 restaurants where these restaurant owners and their chef said, we lost our restaurants.

Let's open up a restaurant at the local community college and just make food all day, every day and go hand it out in the community. So people aren't just getting like whatever food they're getting, like these dishes. My wife and I would go to these restaurants, like on a special occasions, it'd be like 40 bucks a plate.

Right. And now these people who are stuck in their homes, lost everything. They're not eating just like random food. They're getting 40 a plate from Papa. I know Hawaii. Like, it's just crazy. And just seeing people come together has been so amazing. Like it makes that community. Just feel like they're going to make it through like in a positive way.

And even last Friday night, and I know, Hey, listen, I know we're Adventist, but I still loved it on Friday night. They had a huge movie night where they put a big blow up projector screen in the middle of a field. And they said, if you lost your home, if you're a part of this community, come out, we lost our homes, but we can still be together.

And there was like hundreds of people just outside watching movies together. And for me, like that just warms my heart to no end. I love that. That was so good. So the community coming together. Has been absolutely amazing and beautiful.

Yeah, it really speaks to the resilience of the human spirit when disasters happen and people just pull together and go above and beyond.

As you said, even when they've lost everything themselves, it's a really inspiring thing to see. So Ben,, what happens now? And, you've gone back to... Your current posting. Is there a pastor there at the church that, that has replaced you or

so two weeks ago? So right after the fire, , the new pastor was supposed to start in September, but the conference said, you know what?

Let's just bring him in early. And so he actually started, two weeks ago. He was installed as a pastor. His name is Rommel and Rommel is an amazing dude. , I couldn't be more, I don't know if the right word is excited , I just feel safe with that community being shepherded by him.

, he's a young Filipino guy and he speaks the language of a lot of people on the island. And I just saw him connecting so amazingly with everybody that he met. And so, I'm just so excited that he's over there . And this is another thing that, for a while I was, it was just kind of confusing, you get a little bit of survivor's guilt type of thing we just left in this community suffering and I'm sitting over here feeling fine.

And Ramel, he was actually supposed to come in the week after I left, which then he would have lost everything. But for different reasons, the conferences ended up stalling his installment until later and they actually moved mine up. I was supposed to not go until, , like mid August, but instead they put me like way earlier.

And it just seems like God has, God, he and I both not be moved in so that we can minister to this community in a meaningful way. And I think the one side of it,, makes me feel like, well, why didn't he save all these people? And I'm just not asking those questions. I'm just believing. That God wanted he and Romell and myself to minister in this way.

And so I'm just praising him that he's put us in a position to be able to do that. But yeah, romell is the pastor over there now. .

What happens next as you look forward for this community? How do they get back on their feet? , what needs to happen to rebuild?

Yeah, so I think like the big thing is going to be a huge amount of time. It's just going to take so much time and I think looking at different fires that have happened in the U. S. It just takes so long to rebuild a community, especially a community that's on an island, because resources are scarce.

You can't just go to Home Depot , two towns over if they're out of lumber. There's only one Home Depot in Maui, right? There's probably only three Home Depots in all of the Hawaiian islands. And so it's going to take a long time, one, to get back in, two, to be able to figure out how to clear and rebuild the city, but then three, on top of all of that, how do we get enough resources to build a city?

And so it's going to take a lot of time, but the big thing I think that's needed is that, and this is, an appeal that's being made all over Lahaina, is that people will stay and fight for their land. Because right now what a lot is happening is investors are coming in and saying, Hey, your insurance, they're not going to give you enough.

Let us just buy your land for 400, 000 when the land is really worth like 2 million, but they're like, you know what, we'll set you up in Las Vegas. We'll set you up in Seattle. Just let us take your land off your hands. And so investors are coming in and trying to buy up all the land. And so , what really needs to happen is one support from everyone else, but two,

people need to be resilient enough as they've already been to say, you know what? No, we're going to stay and it's going to be hard, but we're going to rebuild together. And I think what really makes impact is when people like you, people like me, we say, hey, we support you financially, we support you in volunteers, we support you in anything it takes for you to stay there and continue to build and put into this community.

Because if they're left alone, I mean, if I'm thinking about it myself, if I lost everything living in Lahaina and it's just on me and no one's helping in my community. Is not receiving any help. I'm probably going to move to Las Vegas. But if it feels like the community is coming together and receiving support from all over, I think that's when the community can actually rebuild and maybe even rebuild stronger than it was before.

Yeah, awesome. We'll continue to pray and, we've got the link there for anyone who wants to donate to, the people who have been affected by the fires. So yeah, we want to thank you again, Ben, for joining us today and just sharing, what you can about, the recovery and the fires.

you're probably emotionally exhausted So we really appreciate your time today.

Yeah, I appreciate you guys just giving me space to talk about it for sure

It's not something we always do, but it might be nice to finish with a prayer for Ben and,, the church there and all the people that are impressed to support them.

So let's pray. Father God, we pray for Maui and for everyone who's been impacted by the fires. , we pray your blessing over them in the recovery attempts. Ben has shared some of the needs. We pray that those needs are filled, that you impress your people around the world to. help financially, help with volunteers and flying build trips and all the necessary things that need to come both now and in the future.

God, we pray for the pastoral team, the conference in Hawaii as they make decisions of what to do and how to support the community. And we pray for the community and all the members who have lost loved ones, families, homes, , may you be close to them. at this time. We thank you for Ben and his ministry and we thank you for the opportunity to talk with him today.

May you continue to bless us in Jesus name. Amen.

Awesome, Ben. Thank you so much for joining us. May God continue to bless your ministry and for everyone else who's watching, 📍 listening, we'll see you next week.