HOLUALOA – A historic Kona church with origins dating back to the 1800s was destroyed in a fire Thursday morning.

Helani Congregational Church in Holualoa was a small but mighty house of worship.

Parishioners and church leaders were devastated to learn about the fire which reduced the building to rubble.

“It just breaks you,” said Jonathan Roach, associate conference minister for the Hawaii Conference United Church of Christ. “Each of these churches are just filled with so much memory and so much spirituality of our spiritual ancestors who have gone before, but kept the faith alive, who have practiced, and carried on through the trauma and history of Hawaii.”

Roach added, “It’s a church that makes a denominational leader proud because they do a lot with a little.”

The building that bu

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