Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry: By Lara Hughes
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KeOlaMagazine.com | November-December 2020
elping people is a common theme that both boiler room that blew up. It was below deck and it was very John and Theresa Kaiwi have enjoyed throughout their lives. hot. We had to pull the guy out and medevac him...It was so Theresa and John run Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry, in Hilo. rewarding; I was so happy that the Lord pushed me toward John graduated from Kamehameha Schools and University that heart that I already had instead of taking lives.” of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is a Navy combat veteran who now Just like John, Theresa has always had a passion for serves as the neighbor island area manager for a Hawai‘ihelping others. She and her four siblings were raised by her based employment agency. Theresa is from San Antonio, grandmother in San Antonio. “I remember as a child, she Texas, and ran a number of different businesses before retiring converted our garage into this area where she had boxes and and moving to Hawai‘i in 2015. They met in Kona in 2016, boxes of clothing labeled for all different sizes. She would have and moved to Hilo this key around in 2018. Theresa her neck for when glows, “When we homeless people met, we knew would come to immediately that the house. My we were meant to grandmother would spend the rest of sit them down on our lives together!” the front porch The couple and go in and get teamed up for the them clothes, and first time in May go to the kitchen 2018 to volunteer and make them when the lava food, and she eruption hit Leilani would give them Estates. In 2019, whatever little bit still wanting to help of change she had feed those in need, in her pocket. That Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry founders John and Theresa Kaiwi. photo courtesy of Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry they started Hawaii is where I saw the Brown Bag Ministry, first delivering lunches to 20 people. Today giving heart.” Theresa recalls her oldest brother telling their they help distribute more than 350 meals per week, and their grandmother his concerns that the people she was helping corporate partners include The Salvation Army, IHOP, The Food were not stable and his worry that one of them might harm Basket, and Southwest Airlines. her. “My grandma looked at him with that confident face that she always had and she said, ‘What if it is God knocking at the Having Heart door and I don’t answer it. I cannot live with myself knowing John used to take the bus to school and he would have that it could be our Lord and I have turned him away. If it is to walk through Fort Street Mall in Honolulu on the way. He my time to go, it is my time to go.’” Theresa says, “That is the remembers keeping change in his pocket after buying 25-cent way I live my life—you never know who you are going to help coffees. He would give the extra money to the people on the and no one is above anyone.” street. At the time, John also worked in the cathedral parish, Theresa went on to become a successful business owner. answering phones in the evening for the chancery. They would “I ran all sorts of businesses, from full-service luxury spas give out peanut butter sandwiches to the homeless who would to telecommunication companies, and eventually worked for come in. “I would always give them two, or three, or four, Nationwide Insurance. I was working anywhere from 12 to and I would always get in trouble with the pastor,” he says, 16-hour days, and I said, ‘That’s enough’. I decided to retire laughing. “Growing up, I always had that heart—I can’t see and move to Hawai‘i.” When asked what drew her to Hawai‘i, people go hungry.” Theresa says, “I just woke up one morning and decided I Later, John joined the Navy and served as a combat wanted to live in Hawai‘i.” She moved to Hilo, sight unseen, in search and rescue operator attached to a helicopter combat 2015. squadron in Kuwait during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He reflects, “There were a lot of different missions that The 2018 Lava Flow in Puna we were on, whether it be a medevac, or rescuing a sailor John and Theresa started volunteering together with Puna from an explosion on a ship, to rescuing Navy SEALs that Relief after the volcanic eruption in Leilani Estates forced are literally running for their lives at an extraction point, or people to abandon their homes in May 2018. Their church rescuing civilians on the water.” John does not recall how many asked people if they could help fill volunteer shifts to serve people he helped rescue, but he says, “It was a lot.” He still breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The hardest shift to fill was remembers the feeling he had after his first rescue mission: the 3am breakfast shift every Thursday. John recalls, “We 20 “We were aboard the USS Detroit and we were called out to volunteered every Thursday at 3am from May all the way a United States Navy frigate where there was a sailor in a until October.” They would prepare the food—scrambled eggs,
