In Haiti, where our Community lived, collectively, for forty years, one would meet vowed religious brothers and sisters who at age seventeen or eighteen gave their lives to the poor ... now turning seventy and eighty. They poured themselves out freely each day, still giving, still smiling, still joyous. You will meet these women and men all over the world, but you will not meet them through social networking, nor read about them in the media, or see them on television. When we left, not wanting to leave, we did not know where we would end up. Our reasons for our present home were not spiritual ones .... or only spiritual in that they grew out of our vow of intentional poverty. Wherever we lived, we could not afford a heating bill, an AC bill, a large property tax bill, or medical care. In time, we realized that few places match with those criteria.
After we arrived to Polynesia's northernmost islands — the most remote place on earth from any major land mass — the ministries of Na Pua Li'i Hermitage grew rapidly. Our agricultural ministry began to require all our waking hours threatening to eclipse the spiritual character of Na Pua Li'i Hermitage and its oratory, Church of Saint Mary and the Angels. With the helpful and kindly guidance of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, we founded a 501(3)(c) nonprofit, public charity, Hermitage Ministries, which now oversees, and is responsible for, all our ministerial work.
This ministry is offered free of charge.
Hermitage Ministries works each day to feed the poor,
is in the process of constructing a retreat center,
and
seeks to be of service to any and all neighbors in need regardless of race, religion, or creed.
This enables the Hermitage itself,
a simple religious house,
to sustain its members and all Catholic-minded followers of Jesus Christ with the Sacraments
and
to carry out all such works of spiritual mercy
as God has given us to walk in.
To say it simply,
the hermits are Na Pua Li'i Hermitage.
Hermitage Ministries,
together with its
Farm,
is where the brothers and sisters offer their daily labors,
doing corporal works of mercy.
Together
Hermitage Ministries and the Hermitage Farm are all-volunteer organizations
forming a
pure example of a nonprofit public charity.
That is,
no one in these organizations receives any kind of salary or remuneration of any kind,
from the laborers in the fields to the officers to the members of the board.
Some recent pictures will help to bring you closer to our work.
Don't forget to visit the
Farm,
where you will see much more of what we do.
Please contact us if you feel called to help us as a volunteer!
We can be reached at NPLH@pualii.org or at 808-339-1020,
which is Sr. Annie's phone.