One of the most ambitious outreaches to feed the homeless on O`ahu is the First United Methodist Church of Honolulu. Through a ministry entitled "H5"(Hawai`i Helping the Hungry Have Hope) they meet at 8 different times and locations(**see listing of times and places elsewhere in this issue**) on four days of each week to offer prepared meals to those who would approach. H5 was founded in 1997 by Siuea Utuloa Langi, known to all as "Utu", and he continues to direct this effort.

"The inspiration for the beginning of this ministry came as my two sons, age 4 and 5 then, saw a newspaper picture of a little boy appearing hungry. One asked, 'Dad, what's wrong with that kid?'"

"Well, he's hungry."

"The picture was in profile with the young child looking off to the side. My son continued, 'Dad, who is he looking at?'"

"The question still stays with me to this day. Here I am, I have two sons. When they are hungry, they come look for me because it's time to eat. This boy in the picture, I don't know if he has anybody to look at when he is hungry. Obviously not, flies appear to be sitting on his face and around his eyes."

"The picture was of a boy in Sudan. Back in 1997 there was a famine going on in Sudan. We joined with other Methodist churches around the country collecting $1,300 from our congregation and sent it to UMCOR(United Methodist Committee On Relief) with a note that this was to be used to send food to Sudan. UMCOR is like the big 'Red Cross' of the Methodist Church."

"That's how we started. The idea of 'H5' as the title came from seeing the new, back then, H-3 connecting the south shore to the east shore of O`ahu. Like H-3, H5's mission is to create a bridge. One from those with an ability to give, to those in need."

"Our mission is to meet a physical need with the hope that we can then reach them at their spiritual need. You notice we don't preach to them at these outreaches, but we continue the work and reach out as lead by the spirit."

The initial outreach to Sudan set the stage to continue with a local focus. "The sobering experience of becoming aware of and then reaching out to the need in Sudan caused me to begin to look closer to home."

"One night very late, sometime after this first outreach, I was coming home from work and was about to pass the Foodland on Beretania. The traffic light right there by that cross walk and bus stop turned red. I was all by myself, in the middle of the night, in my pick-up truck. I looked over to the bus stop benches and there was a guy laying there, with his knees up to his chin, trying to sleep on the bench."

"In the back of my pick-up I had a blanket I used to cover my tools with. I continued on my way to the freeway on-ramp by Pi`ikoi St. troubled by the fact that here I was confronting an opportunity to reach out and meet a physical need, do the 'Jesus' thing, but eager to get home to Makakilo from a long, hard work shift. I debated till I got to Kinau St. still heading toward the freeway to get home before I realized that I got to go do this 'thing'. I turned around, drove back to that bus stop, got out of the truck with that blanket and walked up to the guy. I kind of tapped him on the feet and said, 'Do you need a blanket?'"

"He didn't say anything but the way that he looked at me was all that I needed to see. I left him covered by the blanket and cried all the way back home. The next Sunday, I find my way back up to the front of the church asking the congregation for blankets. I got 22 that first time. So now I'm wandering around with just blankets only to find out, some of these receiving blankets are asking for food. They've been going to bed cold AND hungry. We learn as we go. So we began making food. That's how we've been doing it the past 6 years. We had soup and stuff and blankets and towards the end of the year we go cruising around to find people to give to and tell them the Lord loves them."

"Only this past year has there been an explosion in the numbers of homeless that we've been feeding." Recent media reports have addressed the current explosive growth in homelessness. Since 1999, according to some government agency observations, homelessness in Hawai`i has appeared to have doubled . This rate of growth has been evident on all the islands, the largest raw numbers, of course, here on O`ahu.--**[I can dig up and cite the dates of Honolulu Advertiser stories]**--Utu's experience confirms this observation. "Waikiki is our biggest outreach but all our locations show huge increases in numbers, especially at the end of the month just before many receive alotments that come at the beginning of each month. Early in the month maybe 50 or 60 will show up for a meal that we will serve but that will increase to over 200 at our servings the last week of the month."

When asked about the source for the food H5 uses for these meals, he says that the church has a food bank that is supplied both by parishoners and from the Hawai`i Food bank. "Our food bank is open 5 days a week, some days from 2-4pm, others from 9am to Noon or so."

He also says that First United Methodist has a very limited ability to provide temporary housing for some. "If it were up to me, I would open up this church for people to come and sleep in but we don't have the resources. My ultimate goal is to get a place that I can open up to people and people can come in and get out of the rain, especially this time of the year, and get something to eat. If you show up at 12 o'clock and you are hungry, we'll be able to say 'hey, here is some food for you,' not like some places that open up at some time and shut down at some time. I understand the logic that people have to sleep. But, you know, hunger doesn't sleep, itself. So I'm looking at that and that's what I want to do. If ever one day the Lord provide me, I would have a place to do that, and a place for them to come and wash their clothes,...a place to take a shower."

The recent change in policy for the Central YMCA to double their one-day membership fees to $20 has been seen by some to be a direct attack on the homeless who would be willing to pay the $10 just for the privelege of having a warm shower and a place to change clothes. Utu agreed that "its a shame" that a supposed christian organization would have this attitude. "Right now we don't have the ability to provide showers to those who would have this need."

Speaking of other outreach they are involved in, "Right now we have a daily devotional at 8am where we have at least 10-12, sometimes as few as 4, who are without housing who meet week days."

First United Methodist is not alone in their effort. They have enjoyed collaboration with Pastor Paul Kamanu who is leading the service that follows with one of the meals H5 provides food for each week. Another group that has been involved is Waipahu Assembly of God. "One of the guys who provided our food for several months is a muslim." But the need is great, there is room for others and other groups to become involved.

If you want to join Mr. Langi's effort, call First United Methodist Church of Honolulu at 522.9565 and leave a message for Utu.

When asked if he was ever homeless, Utu tells where his awareness came from. "I was a troubled kid when I was 13. I left Tonga when I was 19. I was homeless most of the time from 13 to 19. Some of the kids that I befriended in Tonga were poor kids you know, they come form the neighboring islands so I used to bring them home and feed them whatever we had because I view myself and my home as having more than these kids and of course we did. My Mom and Dad didn't really like that. In a way, I was very rebellious, so I spent most of the time sleeping in abandoned buildings and fields with these kids and we kinda goofed off this way.