Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia
Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia, a Hawaiian youth who found Christ in New England, longed for his people to know the true God instead of false idols. In his memoirs he prayed that he might return to teach them the way of salvation, a vision that inspired the first missionaries to sail to Hawai‘i. Though he died young, his love for his people and his faith in Christ became the spark that ignited the Hawaiian Mission.
Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia
Featured in this mural is the birthplace of Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia, the young Hawaiian whose faith and vision helped launch the Hawaiian Mission. His story begins in Kaʻū on Hawai‘i Island, where he was born in 1792.
Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia, also known as Obookiah, was a Hawaiian youth whose life and faith lit the spark that brought the gospel to Hawai‘i. Born in Kaʻū on Hawai‘i Island in 1792, he experienced tragedy at an early age when his family was killed during warfare. As a teenager he boarded an American ship and sailed to New England, where he longed for education and truth. He was taken in by Christian families in Connecticut, where he learned English, studied the Bible, and eventually became a student at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall.
ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s hunger for God was deep and personal. He poured out his heart in his memoirs, writing of his people: “Great is my sorrow to see so many thousands of my poor countrymen without the knowledge of God and his Word. O that I may be the means of opening their blind eyes, and of making them know the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. O that the Lord would help me to go back to my countrymen and to teach them the way of salvation, through Jesus Christ!” His words revealed both his grief over the false gods of Hawai‘i and his great love for his people who were without the gospel.
Though he longed to return to Hawai‘i with the good news of Christ, ʻŌpūkahaʻia died of typhus fever in 1818 at the age of just 26. His death was a blow to those who knew him, but his memoir, published soon afterward, carried his testimony to the churches of New England. His story stirred countless hearts and directly inspired the first company of missionaries to sail to Hawai‘i on the Thaddeus in 1819. In this way, God answered the prayers of the young Hawaiian, who had wept and prayed for his people to know the true God.
Though he never returned to his homeland, his body was later brought back and laid to rest in Hawai‘i, where his grave remains a testimony to the young Hawaiian whose longing for Christ and love for his people helped launch one of the greatest missionary movements of the nineteenth century.