The Land of Eb

During the last few months of my mission, my mission president sent me and my various other Marshallese companions to remote areas on the outer islands where Marshallese people were being found. Where on O’ahu we had a branch and other units, the outer Hawaiian islands only had a handful of Marshallese members. Most of them were inactive, which made things even more difficult.

Marshallese Elders on the Big Island, Spring 2004: Elders Austin Lowe, Bryan Boaz, Brian Tanner, and Steve Lutz.

My last area was in Kealakekua, on the south western edge of the Big Island (Where Captain Cook was killed). Just before I arrived there, a huge community of Marshallese was discovered in Ocean View, near the southern tip of the island. Ocean View is the world’s largest residential subdivision, located between two lava fields. The land is cheap, and a two hour drive from  civilization in any direction. As missionaries, we would joke that Marshallese elders who were sent there were “banished.” I was never personally “banished” there, but most of my other Marshallese companions were.

 

Map from Coldwell Banker

I recently discovered that some students from the University of Nations are making a film called The Land of Eb about Marshallese living in Ocean View. “Eb” is a Marshallese word for “dance”.


The Land of Eb from Andrew Williamson on Vimeo.


As a side note, the University of Nations is a Christian university in Kona, and is similar to a evangelical version of BYU. Their campus includes a youth ministry training, similar to the MTC, if the MTC was designed for missionaries to tract only Provo and Utah County. These guys caused a lot of headaches for us as missionaries, but I appreciate their efforts to teach the islanders filmmaking skills while making this documentary. This looks like a really interesting film.

Coincidentally, all of those Marshallese Elders who went to the Big Island in 2004 with me were groomsmen at mine and Jennifer's wedding.

Former Hawaiian-Marshallse Elders and convert at the Tanner Wedding, June 2008: Rick Nang, Steve Lutz, Bryan Boaz and Austin Lowe