Korean Ministerial Appointments to Hawaii Methodist Churches
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Korean Ministerial Appointments To Hawaii Methodist Churches C D H L M ‘ Published in October by the Center for Korean Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, as a project of the Centennial Celebration of Korean Immigration to the United States. Contents Introduction Appointments by Year Alphabetical List of Ministers Name Index Release Notes photographed at a conference in Chemulpo in October . Standing on the le end in the back row is Seung Ha Hong. Hong arrived in Hawaii in February and took charge of the Korean Evangelical Mission until illness prompted him to return to Korea. e preachers are pictured with missionaries E. M. Cable and C. S. Deming. is photograph is reproduced from e Korean Mission Field, , no. (March ). K M A H M C: – rior to the first official appointment of Under this charter, Methodists constructed a ministers of the Hawaii Mission of the sanctuary seating two hundred persons. Unfor- PMethodist Episcopal Church at the end of tunately, trustees soon began to quarrel about the December , many Methodist ministers had building debt, and some members began to find been leading and ministering churches for Cau- fault with their minister. Turner le, and his succes- casian, Japanese, and Korean congregations. is sors were unable to recapture the original enthusi- introduction describes the historical background asm. e transient congregation withered to four of the appointment. men and three women. In the downtown property was sold to the Anglican (Episcopal) Church, which was just making its entry into e Beginning of Methodism in Hawaii Hawaii at the invitation of King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma. Protestant Christianity in Hawaii was established In , a fellowship of Japanese Christians in in by the Congregational denomination (the San Francisco heard of the plight of Japanese sugar- present United Church of Christ). By the plantation laborers in Hawaii. ese immigrant Hawaiian Congregational Board claimed , workers were mostly young and unmarried. ey converts in a population of little more than ,. were lonely, and the lack of customary restraints In the Methodist bishop in San Francisco made them susceptible to vice and immoral prac- appointed the Reverend W. S. Turner to establish tices. Eventually, the Reverend Kanichi Miyama, a Methodist church in downtown Honolulu.1 For ordained a deacon of the Methodist Episcopal the next two years the charge flourished. John T. Church in , was sent to Honolulu on March Waterhouse, a prominent merchant, contributed 16, 1888. On July , , a Japanese Methodist land. In King Kamehameha IV granted a char- Church was organized as a part of the Pacific Coast ter, making it the only Methodist church in Amer- Japanese Mission. is was the beginning of the ica opened under a royal charter granted by a second attempt at Hawaii Methodism. king. While the Japanese work was going on, the First . For the details of the beginning of Methodism in Hawaii, see Rev. and Mrs. Richard H. Bimson, Hawaii Mission of the Methodist Church: – (), –. 5 . In the back row, from le to right, are Chin T'ae Ch'oe, Yi Che Kim, Yu Sun Kim, and Hong Kyun Shin. In the front row, le to right, are Young Shik Kim (?), Sun Il Yee, Chi Pum Hong, and Chan Ho Min. Methodist Episcopal Church was reconstituted in In the spring of , when the Methodist Gen- when the Reverend Harcourt Peck, the secre- eral Conference met in Los Angeles, it was decided tary of the Honolulu YMCA, was appointed pastor that the Hawaii work should no longer be a part by Methodist Bishop Merriman C. Harris of San of the Pacific Coast Japanese Mission but should Francisco. e Reverend Peck also became the be organized as the Hawaii Mission of the Cali- first superintendent of the Honolulu Methodist fornia Conference. e First Session of the Hawaii churches. In , Dr. George L. Pearson succeeded Mission was held at the First Methodist Episcopal the Reverend Peck in Hawaii as the superintendent Church in Honolulu, from December to Decem- and pastor of the First Methodist Church. All the ber in . work in Hawaii was still a part of the Pacific Coast Prior to the coming of Japanese contract work- Japanese Mission. ers, Chinese workers were brought to Hawaii in 6 KOREAN MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS and assigned to plantations on all islands. important role in persuading his church members Chinese-language services were begun by the Con- to go to Hawaii. When recruiters of immigrants to gregational and Anglican churches. In , a fra- Hawaii encountered difficulty in convincing Kore- ternal agreement was made between the Hawaiian ans, the Reverend Jones assured them of the pleas- (Congregational) Board and the Methodists that ant weather, educational opportunity and higher the Methodists would be in charge of Japanese and wages, free housing, and medical care4 and encour- Korean work and that the Congregationalists were aged church members to go to Hawaii.5 with Jones’s to care for the Chinese and Hawaiians.2 encouragement, fiy members (men and women) of Nai-Ri Church6 applied to immigrate, along with some laborers at Inchon Harbor.7 e Arrival of Korean Methodists When the first group of Korean immigrants gathered to embark at Chemulpo on December rough dealings among representative of the , , Jones “held a large tent meeting in order Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association (); Horace to inspire them with laudable ambitions and pre- Allen, the American minister to Korea; and David pare them for the strange experiences so soon to W. Deshler, owner of the East-West Development overtake them.” In addition, Jones “supplied them Company in Korea,3 the first boatload of Kore- with a liberal amount of good literature” and “also ans landed at Honolulu Harbor on January , . handed a few of the leaders among them letters of Among the passengers were many fellow church introduction to Superintendent George L. Pearson members of Nai-Ri Methodist Church in Che- of the Methodist Mission in Hawaii.”8 mulpo (also known as Yong-dong or Chemulpo During the ten-day voyage from Nagasaki to Wesleyan Church). Honolulu, exhorters Chung Soo Ahn9 and Yee e Reverend George Heber Jones, minister of Chai Kim10 from the Chemulpo Nai-Ri Methodist Nai-Ri Church and superintendent of the Meth- Church organized a prayer meeting in the steer- odist Church in the Chemulpo region, played an age of their ship and carried on Christian work . Bimson, Hawaii Mission, . It was further agreed later that ship service at the Nai-Ri Church was and for Sunday-evening the work among the Japanese and Filipinos would be divided on a worship service was – during . e th Annual Meeting geographical basis. W. Vernon Middleton, Methodism in Alaska and Korea Mission Methodist Episcopal Church (), . Hawaii: New Patterns for Living Together (New York: Board of Mis- . Soon Hyun, Powa yuramgi, . sions of the Methodist Church, ), . John W. Wadman, “Educational Work Among the Koreans,” . For a detailed account of Korean immigration to Hawaii, see Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to the Governor of Wayne Patterson, e Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to the Territory of Hawaii, December , —December , , . Hawaii, – (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, ). Shinhak wolbo [Biblical and church monthly] (Seoul, June . ese conditions were spelled out in the recruitment “poster,” ), –. Ahn was also an interpreter together with Jin Shoo and such posters were posted at various port cities, such as Wonsan, Chung. Chung is one of the few whose names were not mentioned Inchon, Pusan, and Mokpo. It is not certain how large the poster in the early Methodist publications in Korea. was. Copies of a “notice” (one each in Korean and English) of x . Yee Chai Kim arrived in Hawaii with his wife and a seven- inches are kept at the Department of Special Collections, University year old son, Chan Jay Kim, according to the “passenger list.” Chan of California, Los Angeles (e Hei Sop Chin Archival Collection, Jay was actually his brother, however, not a son. Honolulu Star-Bul- Collection ). letin, November , . Korean Passengers Arriving at Honolulu, . For details of the Reverend Jones’s involvement, see Soon –, compiled by Duk Hee Lee Murabayashi, is on the Web Hyun, Powa yuramgi [Travel log of Honolulu] (Seoul, ). site http://www.koreancentennial.org/resource/resource.html. e average number of attendees at Sunday-morning wor- TO HAWAII METHODIST CHURCHES 7 among the fellow emigrants. Exhorter Yee Chai went to Korea and came back with Kim. Kim was a Kim preached the gospel at the prayer meeting.11 local preacher of Kanghwa Island, just across from By the time they landed in Honolulu, they had Chemulpo. e manifest of alien passengers for a Methodist Episcopal Church organized. Fiy- this voyage contains the note, “Kim was ticketed eight of the first group of 102 immigrants were to San Francisco but elected to stop in Honolulu members.12 ey were greeted at the Immigration to assist Rev. Wadman.” Both Moon and Kim, how- Station by the Reverend Pearson, who had been ever, went on to the United States mainland shortly apprised of their coming.13 thereaer. is first group of Korean immigrants was sent to Mokuleia Camp of Waialua Plantation on the North Shore of Oahu. A second boat of sixty-four Establishment of the Korean Methodist Korean immigrants arrived on March , . Churches in Hawaii and the Revival of e interpreter on board was Soon Hyun, who Hawaii Methodism attended Nai-Ri Methodist Church while he was employed at the East-West Development