Crosses Erected as Memorials Following Maui Fires
By Movieguide® Contributor
Following the Maui wildfires in August, two friends erected crosses to bring hope to their community and create an area where people could mourn.
“We just needed a place to gather and catch our breath and hold each other,” Sunya Schlea told Good Morning America.
“[It was] a place where people could just go and put flowers and just go there and grieve and just have some place to give reverence to their loved ones,” added Schlea’s friend Shawneen.
Schlea had the idea to create this place, and after telling her husband about it, he and his friends worked to create wooden crosses to erect on the hill in Lahaina where the fire started.
“People just came, saw us holding a little meeting and saw us setting these things up and people were just pulling over walking up to help,” Matty Schweitzer said. “It was really touching.”
The crosses were put up before President Biden visited the island to show just how much the island had lost.
Since then, it has become a full-blown memorial, with hundreds of yellow bows tied near the crosses representing the missing people. Others have also erected crosses of their own, some of which represent pets lost in the fire. Others are decorating the crosses with beautiful flower leis.
“We were in such grief and such shock and such trauma, and nobody really knew what to do. Working together as a family and as a team, it made us feel like we were giving back to the community,” Schlea explained. “And so even though we were in grief, it was a healing process.”
The Maui fire over 2,000 acres of land, causing $6 billion of damage. The fire also killed over 100 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over 100 years. The community is still struggling to recover two months later, and many remain conflicted about when the island should reopen to tourists, especially given how reliant many in the community are on tourism dollars.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Pastor Greg Laurie and his church located in Maui are sharing the gospel and bringing relief to those who have suffered from the wildfires that broke out on the island earlier this month.
“The church is here for such a time as this. And I think there’s hope for the people here, but the hope is in God and you know, hope actually grows in the garden of adversity and I believe that our church reaching out and other believers living as they should as Christians, we will be able to bring help and hope to the people of Maui,” Laurie said, per CBN.
Laurie pastors Harvest Kumulani Chapel located on Maui, and many of its congregants have suffered.
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