{"id":32446,"date":"2023-09-01T15:27:49","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T19:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=32446"},"modified":"2024-01-30T15:24:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T20:24:13","slug":"pumc-sends-aid-to-maui-8-20-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=32446","title":{"rendered":"PUMC Sends Aid to Maui (8\/20\/23)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">In Early August of 2023, wildfires began breaking out on the Hawaiian Island of Maui.\u00a0 The fires were fed by dry conditions and an off shore storm which delivered gusting winds.\u00a0 On August 8, the fires hit the historic whaling town of Lahaina.\u00a0 In an unprecedented level of devastation, nearly the entire town was destroyed.\u00a0 It&#8217;s <a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/09\/01\/us\/maui-fires-final-number-missing-people\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> that 115 people were killed (as of 9\/1\/23), but the report also stated that over 300 people were still listed as missing.\u00a0 The death toll is expected to rise well above the current 115.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Homes were lost, historic buildings were lost, and loved ones were lost.\u00a0 Life will never be the same for these residents of a location usually referred to as &#8220;paradise.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few views of Front Street&#8230;. as it was before the fire:<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 50%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-32446 gallery-columns-2 gallery-size-medium'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-PioneerInn-_114-26-_400x300-300x225.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-PioneerInn-_114-26-_400x300-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-PioneerInn-_114-26-_400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-FrontSt-_114-28-_400x300-300x225.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-FrontSt-_114-28-_400x300-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-FrontSt-_114-28-_400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>One of the iconic sights in Lahaina is the block-wide banyan tree. At the time of this photo, it was the second largest banyan tree in the world.\u00a0 It survived the fire (so far), but it was badly damaged:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-32454 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-Banyan-_114-31-_400x300-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-Banyan-_114-31-_400x300-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-Banyan-_114-31-_400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As devastating the loss of historic buildings and trees is, this corner of &#8220;paradise&#8221; is also home to many people, and many of them lost their houses.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t know what happened to be below home, but it is likely that the wildfires damaged or destroyed it:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-32452 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-House-_114-33-_400x300-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-House-_114-33-_400x300-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Lahaina-House-_114-33-_400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Where&#8217;s God in All of This???<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>But in the face of catastrophes like this, caring people all over the world along with those who are motivated by God&#8217;s grace step in to help relieve some of the suffering.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On two Sundays (August 20 and August 27), PUMC took a special offering for <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/umcmission.org\/umcor-us-latest-responses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UMCOR<\/a> <\/span>(United Methodist Committee on Relief) which will be given directly to the ongoing relief efforts (100% of gifts to UMCOR go directly to relief; the United Methodist churches have already paid the overhead and operating costs during &#8220;UMCOR Sunday&#8221;).\u00a0 As of the last count, approximately $700 has been given to the Maui relief effort.<\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-info'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><p><span style=\"color: #000080; font-size: 14pt;\">God steps into our lives in unusual and unexpected ways.\u00a0 In what is considered a miracle, the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina avoided the flames.\u00a0 Surrounded by leveled buildings on all sides, the church remains standing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080; font-size: 14pt;\">Christianity Today recently published the following article about this church:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/maui-catholic-church-untouched-as-wildfires-torch-surroundings.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maui Catholic church untouched as wildfires torch surroundings | U.S. News (christianpost.com)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #008000; font-size: 18pt;\">+\u00a0 \u00a0+\u00a0 \u00a0+\u00a0 \u00a0+\u00a0 \u00a0+\u00a0 \u00a0+<\/span><\/p>\n<p>For more about how PUMC is working to be God&#8217;s &#8220;Hands and feet of mercy&#8221; in the world:\u00a0 <a href='https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?cat=16' class='big-button bigteal'><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Missions<\/span><\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In August 2023, wildfires destroyed much of the town of Lahaina on the Island of Maui in Hawaii.  UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief)  quickly responded, and by the end of the month PUMC had contributed to the efforts by taking two special offerings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evrpt","category-go-beyond"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32446"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32461,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32446\/revisions\/32461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}