Above the bridge
Above the bridge
Episode 170 UNCLE DAVID DUNAWAY ( Imua and Aloha Connects )
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Ever wonder how a single song can spark a movement? We sit down with Uncle Dave—educator, musician, and community builder—to explore how Menehune Beach Bum Boogie led to a purpose bigger than charts or gigs. He shares a candid journey from Pololo Valley to 34 years in the classroom, working with at‑risk students and discovering that Aloha becomes powerful only when it moves from slogan to practice.
We break down ALOHA in full: Akahai (kindness with tenderness), Lokahi (unity with harmony), Oluolu (agreeable with pleasantness), Haahaa (humility with modesty), and Ahonui (patience with perseverance). Then we go deeper with teachings passed through Aunty Pilahi Paki and Pono Shim—grace and mercy, unbroken covenant, gentleness as strength under control, the empty cup ready to learn, and active waiting that chooses response over reaction. Through vivid stories—a traffic merge without expecting a shaka, a stallion’s power guided by a bridle, a classroom growing taproots—Dave shows how to turn values into habits.
We also talk strategy: the Aloha Roots Program uses music as curriculum, aligning social‑emotional learning with a clear why before the how and what. Outcomes are fruit; processes are branches; Aloha is the root. Community efforts like Tools for Schools and Valley to Valley put these principles into action, proving that culture shifts when we model it consistently. If you’ve ever felt Aloha was vague or overused, this conversation gives you a practical map—and a reason to start at home, at school, and on the road.
Listen, share with someone who lives Aloha, and help us grow taproots. If this moved you, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it on so more people can practice kindness, unity, humility, gentleness, and patient perseverance every day.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00Okay, welcome to another edition of the Above the Bridge Podcast. I'm your host, Thaddeus Park. Just wanted to take a short moment to thank everybody for tuning in. If this is your first time, please hit that subscribe button. Also, if you're on YouTube, leave a comment. It matters, but appreciate you guys for checking out the podcast. Aloha. Okay, this week my guest have been super excited to bring this person on. I met him, I think it was last week, and he it was a um blessing from the things that he was trying to talk to me about. And I've listened to his music since I was little. He sings uh he's the group Imo, which sings Many Hooney Beach Bum Boogie, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. That's our first figure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. So this is Uncle Dave. How do you say your last name again?
SPEAKER_01Runaway, like Runaway.
SPEAKER_00That's the one. Um I just met you, and I and then you touched me in a in such a special, like a blessing to explain to me what you were doing, and it was a chance meeting, and I was I'm super honored to have you on my show. And thank you, my brother.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Tad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm I've I've been excited all week to talk story with you. Um, can you just give give the people a little bit of background of you before we get into this?
Uncle Dave’s Background And Teaching Path
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, born and raised uh in Hawaii, um, went to Kumeman school from kindergarten all the way through. Uh thoughts the name Imua, because that's the only word we ever seen on the football, you know, the the scoreboard. We only saw Cam School and we've seen Imua at every game. So when me and my friend, he's another 13-year senior, um, we um started playing music together um uh right out of high school. Actually, a little bit more out of high school, maybe like about like five, six years. Um uh we started playing music, but you know, uh went to high school, then I went to the University of Hawaii, graduated in um political science, and then got another bachelor's in uh speech communication. Thought I was gonna go to law school. Um, ended up, that's not where the Lord had me going. Um, he threw me into education instead. Um, and then I just became a teacher. And then uh, but the Lord just had you know other ways to be able to add value in our community. Um, He He got us involved in music, um, and we started adding value there. And uh just in in business in general. Um, I started my first business when I was uh 19 years old. Um and then, but as I was a teacher, um, and then I did some stuff when I was working at Channel 5, did some stuff on the radio, but but basically I ended up you know getting involved in music and um just having always having another business on the side. Um but through my uh education, um, I worked with at-risk students for 12 years out of my 34 years of being in a classroom. 12 years was specifically that designed for this thing called uh CSAP, which is comprehensive student alienation program. So basically, that's your at-risk kids. They one step away from jail. So they used to call them ALC. Okay, it's so it stands for Alternative Learning Curriculum or Alternative Learning Classroom, but everybody had one different um acronym for it. They used to call it ALC, AHO's last chant. Make sense, make sense they one step away from jail, bro. Where was that at? Olomana. No, bruh. Most public schools have this group. So even like when you where you went to school, I went Damien. Okay, but where when did you go to Damien?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I grad 92. No, no, no, no. But uh, where did you go before you went to Damien? Oh I went St.
SPEAKER_01Anne's. Okay, oh, so so it's always private school. But yeah, yeah. So what they do is they have this thing called in the in the elementary, it's called PSAP. And then by the time they hit um middle school, it's called CSAP, and middle school goes from middle school, and then even to high school, it's a CSAP program. And then what they do is they just have this alternative classroom for you to be able to learn in because it's not like more traditional. So I did that 12 years, but in doing that, it stretched my character, it stretched my understanding, and it stretched actually, if anything, it stretched my compassion for students. Where before I had like zero tolerance for excuses, you know, a student doesn't do their homework, or a student makes bad choices. I had zero tolerance for that. But as I started working with these acrias kids, and you see you see that you know what they come from, and it's like I can understand why you make the choices you make, but my thing is you're not a product of your environment, you're still a product of your choices because somebody is speaking life into you. Yeah, I at some point, for you know, they go, oh, but they go home to that environment every day. I said, Yeah, but for 44 for six hours out of day, they're at a school environment, and they're getting they're getting fed different things, and people are speaking life into them. Yeah, and that is and so in teaching, we really, well, being in this um alternative learning curriculum classroom, um, the CSAP classroom, um, I got to know other CSAP teachers, and I was introduced to this aloha program um from this guy named Um, what do you call Alan Alan Silva? And when he introduced me to it, because he was working at Farrington, so he was working with some pretty at-risk high school skill kids. Yeah, yeah. But some of the things he were doing with them was amazing. He was doing some crazy things with them and how they're adding value to their uh their community in Kalihi through aloha. And I said, I want that for Pololo. So just started being able to really understand, and I became more of a student of Aloha versus trying to just run the program, was more of a student of aloha and learning. I really learned a lot from Pono Shen um under his tutelage and some of the things that he was sharing. And since then, I was just going out and talking to a lot of other people about how they do it. Research where I just tried try to read as much as I can about it. And um, we designed our own way of of designing our own program behind it that was hopefully rudimentally engaging, but then understanding uh understandable by you know in a very simple way, where you're coming from.
SPEAKER_00So that way anybody can relate to it how you break it down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, so you were teaching in Pololo. Yeah, Pololo all my years, but I born and raised. I was I'm born and raised in Pololo Valley. My wife is teaching there right now. Really? Yeah, she's teaching the preschool at Pololo Elementary. Pololo Elementary. No way. Yeah, she just started there to she was in Wainai, and now she's in Pololo, and she does the the publicly funded preschool. Yeah, program, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, but she should ask any of the other teachers.
SPEAKER_01Hey, do you guys know who Mr. Dunaway is at Jarrett Middle School? All the teachers gonna say, yeah, we all know.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. So they would go to you then after her, after well, after elementary.
Working With At‑Risk Students
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all the kids from Pololo Elementary come to Jarrett Middle School. Yeah, all right.
SPEAKER_00Before we get into the Aloha parts, I wanted to know a little bit about your music career. And everybody like know about Menah Huni because because that was such a popular song at the time, and I feel like I would be doing a disservice if I didn't ask you about it. Okay, bruh.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna share with you guys the full-on story of how that song came about. That was the first song I ever wrote in my life. So, me and my wife now, she was just my girlfriend, was driving on the road and had one song come up on the radio. I forget what song it was, but she said, uh, I told her, Oh, that song is junk. And she goes, Nah, it cannot be junk. It's on the radio. I said, just because it's on the radio don't make it good. And she goes, Oh, well, you know, and this typical like girlfriend, like, oh shit, you know, if you think that's junk, you're like, I like to see you write one song. You never do write one song, right? I never see you do anything like that. So I'm like, I bet you I can write a song better than that. But she goes, I bet you cannot. So we literally uh go home and she, what do you call? She, like, you know, go into the living room area. I went into the bedroom, and I, what do you call? I started writing. 15 minutes, bruh. One five. Fifteen minutes. I said, hey, come in the room. I get what I get something, I'll like show you. And she goes, What, what, what? And I said, Come. And I said, Remember, you just told me I couldn't write one song better than a song on the radio. She goes, Wait, what? You took that me seriously? And I said, yeah. And I said, I wrote one song I think is better than it was on the radio. And I played her Menehune Beach Bomb Poogie. Pretty much 95% exactly how you hear it on the recording. Oh, and she was like, Oh, man, that song is, yeah, that song is pretty good. So I never wrote one song before, ever. And here I am, a teacher, right? Yeah, crazy because that year the principal said, Hey, we're having one fundraiser and we need entertainment. And I said, Hey, I wrote one song, and so I got together with the guy Baba, who I play with. I got together with him and I said, Hey, we're gonna play at my my school, and they they're gonna fundraiser, they're gonna feed us. We're gonna play music. He goes, Bruh, we don't play music. I said, I know, but we can practice this one song and they're gonna play one more song. So he goes, Okay, so we're gonna practice, we played those two songs. Okay, at this fundraiser, Ernie Cruz Jr. from Cowcredo Boys was uh what do you call? He was sitting on our table. So he played earlier, then we went up and played, and one of the songs I played was Ben and Huni. As soon as I came off the table, I sat down. Ernie Cruz Jr. goes. And and the thing is, I grew up with his younger brother Guy. So I knew the Cole Cruz family. Oh, okay. Me and the younger brother Guy was good friends actually growing up. And I never knew Guy played music either. And so Ernie goes, Bruh, Dave, you wrote that song. And I said, Yeah. He goes, that many movie song. He goes, bruh, that's a cool song. I said, Oh, thanks. And then after that, I look at my friend Baba. Brother, that's where the Cruz Jordan said that song was good, bro. And he goes, I told you. He goes, Hey, if you like, bruh, I can shop it around. But we ended up going and playing for my friend Baba's fundraiser for his workplace. So we got to eat for free over there, too. So we went to Hope. And sure enough, bro, we played a different song I wrote because guys started writing. After I wrote Mini Money, I started teaching an Ukulele class at Jared. And during the class, I would, you know, give assignments to the kids. But every time I got free time, I would sit and I start writing. And I started writing a lot of songs. So I just had to all these songs I started writing. And it was crazy because when we went in, we did his fundraiser. The producer didn't hear Menehuni. And all he heard here is other song I wrote called Hanabada Days.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
Discovering The Aloha Program
SPEAKER_01He loved that song. And he goes, Bruh, do you get any other songs? And I said, Oh yeah. And I started playing Menehuni. Then I played Red Light. And I started playing all these other songs that I was that I wrote. And he goes, Holy moly! That was literally. So we played for my fundraiser. We played for his fundraiser. In the audience was a producer. We were in the studio two weeks later. Kind of. Oh wow. So we was like the most Cinderella story you ever got here. Well, and all stem from your doubting girlfriend. Exactly, bruh. And then my girlfriend goes, and now she's my wife, right? Yeah. I bet you you're not can write one song. Now she's. I bet you you don't can make a billion dollars.
SPEAKER_00Well, you gotta prove that was gonna take a little more effort. That one is gonna take a little bit more time than 15 minutes. Oh, that's a cool story. I always wanted to know. And bruh, that song Transcends Generations, my daughter knows it. Like, yeah, it's crazy because they're all cool for May Day. Think about it. You guys did them and you guarantee May Day. That's right. Guarantee every May Day, one class gonna do them. Guaranteed. Guarantee one class gonna do them. Yeah, that's super cool. Hey, that's a cool legacy.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. But we're just so blessed, bro. We yeah, we just so blessed.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I want to take this short moment to shout out my sponsor, Defend Hawaii. They've been my sponsor since day one. If you give them a look on their website, defendhawaii.com. They got some new drops. Give them a look. They have a store in Winter Mall called No One. I will rock their stuff all the time. Defendhawaii.com. If you use promo code ATB Pod upon checkout, you'll get 15% off your entire purchase. Defendhawaii.com, winter mall, no one. Go give them a look. Check them out. Defendhawaii.com. Aloha.
SPEAKER_01And we just, yeah, so we got five albums and we just, you know, and then we started raising family. So I was we wasn't doing as much music. So that's why this music that um we just released um uh right at the beginning of January was the first song we released in 20 years. First original song that we released in 20 years. We were just we were just gigging, just gigging, gigging, gigging, but just not releasing new music because that takes a lot more effort and time in the studio. And we was raising families, so we couldn't be away from our families as much to you know, you produce an album, then you gotta go promote your album, and then you you produce a like you tour and all of that stuff. And yeah, it's just harder. Like your kids are young, you understand how it is, right?
SPEAKER_00Yep, definitely. But you got you got to kind of live that lifestyle for a little bit, and yeah, like that that's cool because it kind of makes you diverse, and now you can kind of use your musical talents in connecting with what you're doing now. And you know what?
SPEAKER_01Actually, thank you so much for bringing that up. That's exactly right. And um, what we're trying to do is like like you were just talking about, connecting, connecting kids, because the the song is actually that we released is a tool for curriculum we created so that it'll connect the kids to the lyrics of the song with the values of aloha.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so let's break this down because this is what pulled me in um when you were talking to uh the girl from the news. I overheard, and then I sat down and I I wanted to talk to you, and this blew me away. And it it definitely changed my outlook huge enough to where I was thinking about it for the next couple days, and um I'm so stoked that you're gonna speak about it right now to be honest. So let's break it down.
Music Origins And Menehune Story
From Gigs To Purposeful Music
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay. Well, real simple. Um, if you went into like say just you go into Kahalama, I this is kind of how I usually start it up. You go into Kahala Ma, you're going to Alamoana, and you ask a hundred random people, you know, describe aloha. You know, what do you think aloha is? And you're gonna get hello, goodbye, I love you, almost 90% of the time. Because why? Because that's all they know of what aloha is. And I thought I think that's kind of sad because we don't we're supposed to be the aloha state, right? We're the aloha state. So I would tend to think the people in that state would have a deeper understanding of what the word aloha means. So I always look at it like this. If you had and and metaphorically, if you had a tree standing, you know, um in the forest, and that's your aloha tree, okay? And you gotta look at this. If you only had if that tree only had surface root, surface roots, okay, and the wind started blowing in the forest, what might happen to that tree? Blow over. Why? Because only had surface roots. What would make that tree withstand all of the wind that was blowing on? It means a taproot, the taproot going down. I love what you just said. That word, right, is super good. Is taproot. That means it's gotta go a lot deeper. The root gotta go deeper. Yeah, and that's the thing. So if everybody's understanding of aloha is just hello, goodbye, I love you, doesn't that seem kind of surface, right? Yes, definitely. So, what they need is a deeper understanding of what aloha is. So, what we did was we started a nonprofit organization called Aloha Connects, because that's what Aloha does and does and is supposed to do connect people, connect ideas, connect organizations, connect um communities. That's what aloha is supposed to do. So, how does it connect? What we did was we said um what our nonprofit is gonna be founded on is there is actually a law in the state of Hawaii, Hawaii Revised Statutes 5-7.5 that talks about the spirit of aloha. And it's really the spirit of Allah. Well, you guys can chat GPT it, you can Google it, and you put HRS, which stands for Hawaii Revised Statutes, 5-7.5, and it's boom, it's gonna pop up spirit of aloha law. Then what it's gonna do is it's gonna explain what aloha is, and how we got that explanation was from this uh older woman, she started coming out in the 60s and 70s explaining aloha, but um her name was antipilahipaki, and she made it very simple. So I can share the story that I heard, and you can you can go double check this story, you can go on the internet and double check this story. Actually, it was uh Mo Keale shared this story uh on one of his videos, and he talked about Anti Pilahi Paki. She was invited to speak at uh the University of Hawaii back in 19, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was like 1972 or 74, maybe 76, right around in the 70s, where they had this really strong um Hawaiian renaissance where everybody was moving towards Hawaiian, Hawaiian language, Hawaiian culture, and really strong in Hawaii and Hawaiiana. And uh what she ended up doing was she was at this, there was at the it was at the East West Center. And at the East West Center, it was actually the whole conference was what is the year 2000 gonna look like? We're right now in 2026. We're way beyond 2000. Yeah, yeah. In 1976, 75, they were looking at that's 25 years from now. What is the year 2000 gonna look like? So they were just talking with all of these professors in linguistics, you know, in uh psychology, sociology, all of these professors all talking at this conference. But one of the questions they had was, what is aloha? Now I'm gonna talk a little bit about what aloha is later, okay, and why I think that might not be the most appropriate question. But they were talking, what is aloha? What is aloha? What is aloha? And for two days, okay, this conference goes, everybody's saying, Aloha is this, aloha is that, aloha is this. But then on the second day, towards the ending of the conference, and Tipi Lahi Paki, she stands up and she goes, Excuse me, um, I'd like to share what aloha is. And she said, Aloha is a word, but it's made up of other words. So we have A-L-O-H-A. And what those letters represent is other words that describe how you aloha. Like one acronym. Yes, like an acronym. Perfect. I don't think she used that name, the word, but it isn't. I use the word acronym all the time. So I say it's an acronym. So the first A stands for the word Akahai. Okay. So it's A-L-O-H A. Akahai. And the word Akahai means kindness to be expressed with tenderness. Okay. And then she said the L Lokahi. Lokahi is a uh sorry, unity to be expressed with harmony. Then she said, Oluolu. Oh, oluolu. So oluolu is agreeable to be expressed with pleasantness. Then she went to H, haha. Ha ha is humility to be expressed with modesty. And then she goes, and then the last A is Ahu Nui. Ahu Nui is patience to be expressed with perseverance. To be applied with perseverance. But what she did was she gave actually two levels of understanding. So how this is how I look at it. She never said it this way. Okay. But how I looked at it when I started thinking it, because I'm I'm more a visual learner, right? But I needed a metaphor in my head. So when I look at the tree and I look at the levels of roots, I look at, like you said, you have that surface roots, but we didn't get into the tap root yet, but we got the surface roots. When you look at the surface roots, and she said, a kahai, kindness, I said, Oh, that's a simple definition. Really, that's that's really simple. But now with tenderness. Then she went to lokahi, unity, and then she went to harmony. So the surface understanding is what is called the hopukaku. Okay, hoopukaku is like the simple understanding, simple meaning of a word.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
Defining Aloha Beyond Hello And Goodbye
SPEAKER_01Then you get to this other level of understanding called the kaunna. The kaunna is the symbolic, okay. Little bit more, it's more in depth, but it's more symbolism. So you guys get there, there's more visualization of it. So when you look at acahe, ackahai kindness, okay? Um, kindness, let me give you an example. A little, like a child opens up the door for his his grandma, because the grandma is coming in. So he runs it, let me go, grandma, let me go. And he runs ahead, he opens up the door. Come, grandma, now I now I open the door so you can come in. That's kindness, right? Yeah. And then the grandma walks through the door, and then what happens is the boy runs next to his grandma, and then the grandma starts stroking his head. Says, Thank you so much, right? Yeah. And that's tenderness. But they both mean a kahai. Okay, that makes sense. So you got kindness and tenderness. Then you got lokahi, unity, harmony. So unity is just together. Things that are together. That's unity. Okay. But harmony is things together that bring about peace. That's harmony. So now you got one little diff a deeper understanding, right? Yeah. Yeah. So all the words do that. Olu Olu, agreeable. That means we can come together and agree that we're gonna we're gonna try and work things out, right? We're we can uh to work together. Okay, say like with the lokahi, but but now we gotta agree to work together. Because then maybe there's different groups. Yeah. So we gotta agree that. But then it's like pleasantness. How do you agree? Can we agree in a way that is pleasant to others? That's the Olu Olu. Because we can agree it, but but we can be nuha about it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? You know, you're gonna go abut whatever, you know, whatever. You still agree, but then you have. Yeah, but then agree with pleasantness. Is that we might not necessarily uh we might not necessarily see eye to eye kind. Or yeah, see eye to eye, but yet we can live with it, but we can live with it, you know, in peace, but pleasantly. Yeah, but you can see that. Then you got ha ha, ha ha, it's humility. Okay, humility is again, you know, it's not about yourself being unselfish, looking at the other person. Humility, modesty now. So now, now you think about somebody that's modest. What do you think of? Somebody that doesn't necessarily isn't really flamboyant, really humble. So then yes, it's humble. So you say the word humble, but now when you look at the modesty, how do they show their humility on the outside, right? So I think that's the hardest one.
SPEAKER_00That that one, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So humility is on the inside, modesty is what they show on the outside.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01So that's what you project. That's what you're projecting. What they project, how they dress, you know, that that's your modesty. Okay, so that's all what people receive. Humility, because you can be humble without anybody receiving anything of your humility. Yeah. But yet, as soon as they start receiving your humility, now that's modesty.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. That oh, that's a good way to break down both of those words. Yeah, I feel like that would be the hardest one to in this day and age. That's probably the hardest.
SPEAKER_01Like you called it humble. Yeah, that's the same thing. But you can use modesty. And then when you go to the last one, which is ahonui, it's patience to be expressed with perseverance. Now, when people think perseverance, it's like, oh, but we keep on working, we keep on working. But when you're looking at patience, it's not patience where you sit and you wait and do nothing. A lot of times people tend to think that that's patience. Oh, the little kid that can be patient is just sitting there doing nothing. That's lazy. Yeah, ahonui is, and it's gonna come, we're gonna give that later, but it's active waiting. Where you can wait, but you you actually preparing. You're preparing because there's gonna be an opportunity for you to respond. So mentally, physically, you're preparing. So you're not doing nothing, you're waiting, but you're waiting in preparation for an action at an appropriate time. So that is patience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, see a little bit. I definitely can relate to that. It's kind of what I'm teaching my daughter. She's a volleyball player, and she's she'll train and work, and it's like, hey, you you you may not get the results tomorrow, but if you keep working at it and being patient, one day it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Kind of like that.
The ALOHA Acronym Explained
SPEAKER_01And that's the thing, right? But see, but like in when when we talk about ahunui, a lot of it is active waiting where you you patient, but well, well, and you patient in, but there's a and that's why it's hard to do it without the lowest level. But there's a sense of stillness. There's a sense of stillness where you're not actively moving, but you're preparing, you're preparing mentally, you're preparing physically inside because you know what's about to happen, and there's gonna be an appropriate time to respond. You're not reacting, you're responding. So, but you you're sitting there and you you you you're just maybe nodding and like that. They're like, oh, you're so patient. But yet in your brain, you're moving already. You already doing you're pursuing, yeah. That's it's long endurance. Basically, that's what it is. It's it's it's it's uh it's endurance and an enduring patience.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I want to take this break to shout out our sponsor, iRip Detail Supply. They're your one-stop shop superstore for everything you need to detail, whatever vehicle you have. They have a store in Temple Valley Shopping Center, they also have one in Las Vegas. Their staff is very knowledgeable of everything you need to know to detail whatever vehicle you have. Um, check them out at their store or go to iRepdetailsupply.com. And if you use promo code ATBPod upon checkout, you'll get 15% off your entire purchase order. iRep Detail Supply. Aloha. So breaking it down to that just widens the whole scope of what aloha means. It's not that that's taking the surface out of there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so what's crazy is that's only two levels. Okay, so that's the ho'op kaku, the ho'op kaku, and then the kalna is what I just gave. Now, so antipilahipaki only gave those two levels, but she had a nephew, a grandnephew, Pono Shim, and she told him she was gonna teach him. So when he told, you can go on uh a lot of different um uh YouTube videos and they'll share about his story with his antipilahipaki, and she ended up teaching him another level of aloha that wasn't said earlier at the UH convention. So, what she did was she gave him that I think this is how I look at it, she gave him the noahuna, she gave him the deepest spiritual understanding. So, again, you get surface level, simple understanding, the kauna, that's the that's the symbolic, and then you got the deepest level, which is the noahuna, which is very, very spiritual and esoteric. So, esoteric is what you know exists, but you don't necessarily see it.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's the one you take on faith, you know it's there because it's by faith I know it exists. Yeah, so what he did was he gave akah.
SPEAKER_03So again, we had kindness, tenderness, and then the deepest level was grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, so let's go back to the example of the grandma. So the grandma, the little boy, grandchild opens up the door, kindness. The grandmother starts noticing that and says, Thank you so much, starts stroking his head. She goes, he goes, Wow, that's tenderness. That's still a high. Then now the boy goes and he goes and he he plays your grandma's slipper, right? And he starts, you know, he played, you know, like when he was a little kid, it's like now you're playing, you know, everybody like, well, yeah, well, we let's go play pickleball. He's like, I don't want a pickleball paddle. It's like, ah, he's my grandma's slipper. And they were playing pickleball with grandma's slipper, right? And then he broke the slipper, right? So he comes to grandma, he goes, Grandma, I broke your slipper. I was playing pickleball. I sorry. When grandma can give him grace and mercy, because out of aloha, that's where akahai is. Akahai at the deepest level is grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_00And in your opinion, is that the hardest thing to do?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah. Because then now you're getting super deep, right? Yeah, yeah. You look at unity to be expressed with harmony. But what the deepest level is called, she called it unbroken. So he used the word unbroken. Uh pronoun. I tend to use the word what is unbroken. Because I was like, what does that mean? That means together. That means that that's luck lahi. That's the beginning, one, right? That means just the first part, which is just unity. That's unbroken. And and later on, again, I forgot to mention that I'm a I'm a pastor. Yeah. So one of the words that actually God gave me to really explain the word unbroken was He were used this word covenantal. Oh, wow, God. What is why would you want me to use that word? He goes, like, let's look at it, Dave. You and your wife got married. Yeah. Okay. If I wasn't there, now it's a contract between you two. And that's why when you look at divorces, a lot of times people get divorced. They get divorced mainly because one person might not necessarily be happy. And then what happened is so in a contract where one party isn't happy, what happens? You break the contract. Yeah. But that's and then they look at that as divorce. So that's the broken contract. But when it's covenantal, remember, I got married in a church and everything. It's covenantal was me, my wife, and the Lord. There's three parties in a marriage: me, my wife, and God. So that became like if you look at a piece of string, then you get a second piece of string and you twine it, you go like that. It's strong, but every once in a while you put enough hold that thing can break, right? Yeah, yeah. But add one third string and weave them in. You're not gonna break them. Why? Because that's covenantal, unbreakable.
SPEAKER_00Covenantal, unbreakable. That's what God did with Moses, right? The Ten Commandments, a covenant, yeah. Yes, yeah, we're in Catholic school. Yeah, yeah, that's right. You're in Catholic school.
SPEAKER_01But that's why when God, because it was between him, because God was a part of it, was God, the people, and again, you had Moses, right? So now that's like, okay, now we got this covenantal relationship. Because Moses was bringing the law to the people. So here you got Moses with the law, you got the people. But now when God comes in, that's the third party. Now it's covenantal. Now the law is unbreakable. But people still choose to break it, but the actual covenant of that is unbreakable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's it doesn't sway. It doesn't waver. It's it's solid.
SPEAKER_01It's very solid. So, you know, I mean, and again, this program, I know this program is not about, you know, just promoting, you know, uh, Christianity or religion, but this is an easier way for us to understand it when you're bringing another party. So, like, I was sharing with a friend the other day, and he goes, Oh, well, Dave, what about if people don't believe in in Jesus or they don't believe in God? And I said, Well, let me let me ask you something. Um, what do you think your third party would be to make it unbreakable? And he said, Well, what about the aina? And I said, Okay, that's the if the aina is your third party to make it unbreakable. That's why we have aloha aina, right? Yeah, if the aina is the third party for you, then that's good. See, and that's good for you. Me, I'm a Christian, so my third party is God all the time.
SPEAKER_00Well, God, God is the aina too, right? He's part of the left. Exactly. So it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01But I never like offend him, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I connect with him, and that was the thing. Yeah, so that's lokaheed. Now, when you look at Olu Olu, so you have agreeable, pleasantness, and then at the deepest level, it's gentleness. Now, what is gentleness? Gentleness isn't meekness. Everybody, I mean weakness, sorry. Everybody tends to think, oh, when you're gentle, you're weak. I said, no, gentle is meek. And they're like, oh, what is meekness? I said, meekness is you have the strength, but you have the self-control to not on the strength. So perfect example is like, for example, one one stallion, okay, one super strong horse, right? Yeah. Okay. So what you do is they have the strength, okay, to be able to just terrorize the what do you call the uh the the herd of horses, right? Because they they they're the wild stallion, right? They have that strength. But when you put a bridle in its mouth and a bit in its mouth, and you can control that horse, then they still become, they still have the same strength, but now it's controlled, and you can do stuff powerfully with that strong horse now. Now they can add value to the field, to the farmer, to the farm, to the community. Because you took that strength that they had, but you put it under under control.
SPEAKER_00So when people have strength under control, that's the deepest level of aloha when it comes to you have a good way to um kind of link it to like someone like me who you can make it relatable just just by your horse analogy. That's that's super cool.
SPEAKER_01Again, I thought I taught middle school all my life, right? 34 years, and I figure, hey, if I can understand it, then hopefully my sixth graders and seventh graders and eighth graders can understand it. I don't know, right?
SPEAKER_00Some of these adults need that level too, you know, kind of eight grades.
Deep Meanings: Grace, Covenant, Gentleness
SPEAKER_01100% agree with that, because most adults are visual learners, they need a visualization of that, and then it helps them understand. But when they get that understanding, now they can practice it a little bit more. Now they can actually apply it in their life a little bit more, right? Because it's not about education, it's about application of information. That's what it is. See, at school, it's always about the information, information, information. And I'm like, if you got all the information, but you don't apply any of information, you're not adding value. It's useless. Yeah, it's useless. You just got information, it has to be applied information.
SPEAKER_00It's like one tape recorder can do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, then you adding value. That's what I keep on saying. So then that is we we stop at Olul. Oh, we got oh, this one is to me my favorite. Ha ha. You got the humility again inside, you got the modesty, which is outside, yeah, at its deepest level. Is anti pilahi used this thing called empty. And I was like, oh, why empty? And she goes, If you have a Cup and it's full of you, yourself, and your pride, nobody can speak into you. You gotta empty a cup so you can be of service to others. See what happens is a prideful person won't be in service of others. In service of themselves. So what happened? Because that's what they do, right? They want to serve themselves. That's the full cup. When you can empty a cup of you, now you can serve others. Does that make sense? And that's super huge. Because then now other people can pour into you. Because now you're open to listen to others. You're open to listen to something that maybe comes in contradiction to you what you believe. You don't have to keep it, but at least you're open to it.
SPEAKER_00You know what I mean? That's that's hard in this society, though, right? In the in this day and age.
SPEAKER_01You can do anything you want to do. See what then what it does is it builds up our pride in ourselves versus it takes a family, it takes a group, it takes a team to move everything, the community forward. Because remember, we're a member of the community, right? We're not the community, we're not the unit, we comp unity, right? So that's it, community. See, like one is called unit. Community is a bunch of units working in harmony together. Community.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that makes sense. And I think with like you explained when you said, like, oh, I'm I'm we're taught to be like, oh, okay, like I gotta be prideful because I can do it and all this. Yeah, you can feel that way, but know when to be also uh receptive and understand like, oh, like I could learn something from this or I can help somebody with that. And when you break down that wall, and like you said, when you empty your cup, that's when the magic happens. Because then that's when you're really connecting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And then when you can get poured into when you overflow your cup, you overflow onto others, right? That's what you want more than anything. And then the last one is ahonui. The deepest level, again, we had patience, perseverance, but the deepest level we talk about is active waiting and stillness, and that's the thing, being ready to respond. And that's the deepest level of understanding in the fact that I I'm not lazy, I'm not doing nothing. I'm mentally, I physically preparing for a time to respond versus react. Because when we act, we react on our emotions. Yes. When you respond, there's reflection of what can happen if I do this or I do this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If I do this, I make a decision here, I make a decision here. But now you want to make sure that's the kind of smart decisions you're making. Yeah. So in a very huge nut on this nutshell, that's kind of what how we at Aloha Connects, how we like to communicate what aloha is.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I want to take this moment to let you know about my sponsor, Medicinal Mushrooms Hawaii. They're a locally based medicinal mushroom company. Um, they're in Hawaii, they have five different mushrooms right now. It's extracted mushrooms. We have lion's mane, chaga, red raishi, turkey tail, and the last one they just came out with is the cordyceps. And if you don't know the medicinal properties of these mushrooms, uh go to their website, medmushroomhigh.com, and it'll explain to you all the medicinal properties of each and every one of these mushrooms. I take all five religiously. I'll take uh the lion's mane, chaga, turkey tail in the morning with my coffee. I'll take the quarter steps for uh pre-workout and the red Reishi I'll take at night to help me sleep. But go give them a look, medmushroomhigh.com. And if you use promo code ATB Pod Upon, check out all capital letters, you'll get 45% off your first tincture of extracted mushrooms. Medmushroom High. Aloha. That's super awesome. It's very relatable, and I feel like for me, it helped me a lot. And I've of course I'm human and I started, yeah, I kind of explained this to you the other day where I feel like it aloha cannot be um like on the whim, like it when it's convenient or when it's easy. When everything's easy, of course you can be a aloha and all that, but when when rough, when you gotta dig deep, and when when it's not as convenient, then it then it becomes more of a stronger, stronger force. Because like just like somebody cutting in front of you, yeah. If you ah screw you, or whatever, but if he gives you the shaka, then it's it's all good. But it should be it should be all good either way because you you wave that person in. You wave that person in. You shouldn't expect that shaka. Because you're because I'm letting that person in with aloha. Come inside my labor, drive good. And I shouldn't be expecting the shaka. But then when I don't get it, I shouldn't be like, ah, screw you there. I'm never gonna let you in. Remember your car. You know what I mean? It's like that's not aloha. So it's not like I'm intending to do something nice, but then it's for the gratification of the shaka or the thank you. But it should be unconditional, right? Aloha is unconditional.
Humility As An Empty Cup
SPEAKER_01You would hit it right on a point, uh, right on point, Tad. Because see, the thing is, is when you inlet the person in with an expectation of gratitude, that's actually not aloha. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's actually not aloha. What that is, is because you're feeding your pride. You are feeding your pride on, hey, come on in. Oh, look how good I am. I let the person in, and then they gotta say thank you because I was nice enough to let them in. And so it was you feeding your own pride, you're feeding your own ego. And then when they don't, then now what? You you're quick to anger, right? Yeah. Now you look at the fact that, okay, if I'm quick to anger, it's like, oh, now that's total the antithesis of aloha. That's the total opposite of aloha. Because now you got angry because of an expectation. Yes, that's why true aloha is being able to do all of those things we taught, being kind, being patient, being unified, you know, being humble, being all of those things that when you really look at practicing all of those things without any expectation on anyone, gotta be unconditional. That's what you do. Yes, you're doing it because that's who you are, and that's what you do. And then when you start noticing, things are gonna come back, but don't ever expect it. Yeah. Because as soon as you get the expectation, you're gonna sign yourself up for disappointment. Yeah, and then when you get disappointed and then you get angry, then now you aloha's out the window. Yeah, yeah, aloha went out the window. I mean, that's the thing, right? I mean, I love the example you brought up, you know, because people cut off people in the freeway all the time, and I see it, right? The one finger shaker, and I look over there like, wow, shakka is it too. Yeah. Come on. So I said, I've been doing that. The one-finger shotgun don't work. Then that's not aloha, and then the other guy behind getting all mad. Yeah, the guy went stick fingers, and that's like, oh, heightened, right? Yeah, and that's that makes it even more difficult. So yeah, yeah. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00What what put you on this path? What sparked you to feel like, okay, I gotta start making a difference, and and it has to stem from aloha. Let me try use this and start educating these these people and kids. Like, how how did you figure out like this was your calling? Oh, that that's a really good question.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for asking that. Um, it was basically, I think, working with the kids I was working with, yeah, I noticed a lot of times it was always about them. And I understand because the young, you know, as you mature, see, maturity has nothing to do with growing older. Maturity has everything to do with making good decisions. So if we could start teaching them to make decisions, like you just said, without any condition, unconditional, making decisions without any expectations in working with others, what that's gonna do is gonna allow them to add so much more value to their community. And what I always talk about that is when you add value to your community, your community can be a family, your community can be a school, your community can be a grade level, community can be, you know, your neighborhood. Okay, the community can be your church, it can be the whole state of Hawaii can be a community. The whole world is a community. It's just what we need to do is how do you add value to that community? And when you add value, are you adding value with aloha or are you adding value without aloha? And that's the thing. So when when I started looking at a lot of my students that were, you know, they had a very difficult time doing that, I said, why are they having a difficult time doing that? I said, they don't have enough examples, they don't have enough of models of that. So I said, why do they not have enough models? It's because people weren't taught that. So the thing is, is some like we were maybe taught, I was taught like how to behave a certain way from my parents, my grandparents, and stuff like that. But because of living in Hawaii nowadays, and everybody says it, you know, everybody gets three, four, five jobs in order to make ends meet, and I get it. So what happens is the parents aren't there to be able to mold and create this ethical behavior and uh, you know, in their in their children. So where did now that doesn't mean, oh, well, that's the excuse. Well, nobody's there to bring up the kids in in in you know with ethical behavior. So we just gotta what, throw ethics out the window or throw, you know, uh morals out the window. I said, no, there we have morals. So I said, well, where are they gonna learn it? I said, well, we gotta teach them in school then.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And if they already went and they already left school, I said, then we gotta go out into the workplace. We gotta go teach them there. But if we teach the kids and they go home and help and work with their family, maybe when they work with their family, they can be able to learn that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's super cool. And I feel like you're a great spokesperson for it. And you you yeah, you're linking it with music. So you guys wrote a song to help kind of inspire or help remember it. You know what I mean? It helps you remember. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's the whole thing with that song. It was the song was designed to to work as a tool for the curriculum so that that way the kids could um when they learn the music and they learn the lyrics, they actually learn the values of a lot of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and they probably not even knowing it at the moment.
Active Patience And Stillness
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, yeah. They they they don't. They just they're just singing along with a song that their teacher taught them in school. Yeah. And then later on, when they start talking about it, they because then we also have it's a curriculum. So when they when the teachers, because we're gonna be doing some some um professional development with teachers, and that's why our our our program is called Aloha Roots Program.
SPEAKER_03Okay, okay.
Aloha Without Expectation
SPEAKER_01So right now in schools, they do this thing called SEL, which is social emotional learning, and it's really, really good. But the thing is, is what schools want is they want this thing called outcomes. Okay, that's results. So they want results, they want outcomes. I always look at that. That's fruit and that's leaves on a tree. Okay, okay. Then they have what do you call the the systems to get the what, these are all the what out there, the what you want to have, then you got systems and and and processes. Sorry about my dog, but we got systems and processes and branches that go to the what. That is the hype, how you get to the what. But before you get the how and the what, you gotta have the why. Yeah. And the why is the purpose, and the purpose is I we feel at aloha connects, we feel our purpose is uh the and the why is aloha. Because if the purpose of is aloha, then your system is gonna be all designed to how do you get to the aloha? I mean, uh the from aloha, how do you get to the what? The what do you want? Okay, and and the only reason is because we were I was just talking to someone about that. Um, and we were talking about, you know, like, oh well, we want the the outcomes is to have good um, what do you call good test scores? And I said, Okay, like that's school, right? That's a good test scores. Okay, so that's your outcomes. That's the that's the apple you want at the top. Okay. Okay. Now, what are the systems? They're like, oh, well, the systems is, you know, the curriculum, the instruction, the motivation, you know, the engagement, all of these things. It's called pedagogy. The pedagogical approaches to learning these things, so that is all the systems, right? And they say, and in order for you to get to the system, you gotta use this thing called social emotional learning. So we teach it socially, we teach it emotionally. In these systems, they're gonna get this what, which is the test scores. But then you ask the question, well, why? Why those test scores gotta be so good? Yeah, right? And it's like when you look at aloha. Well, it's because you kind. You wanna be kind to your community. And if being kind, you're gonna do this, and in being kind, you're gonna do that, and in being kind, you're gonna do this and that, and then you're gonna get the what. And or if you're patient, right? Ahonui, if you're patient and you keep on persevering, then the system's gonna work, and then you're gonna get your what. If you work together, lokahi, you know, that's the deep part, right? The lokahi part. The system's gonna work, you're gonna get your what. Yeah right? And that's kind of what it is. When you're gentle with yourself, systems work, you get your what. You know, when you're humble, it's not about yourself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's how that's that's what we do.
SPEAKER_00I think that's awesome. I really do feel like in this day and age, our society needs aloha, not just here in Hawaii, but um worldwide. And I feel like Hawaii is the beacon of aloha, so it has to start here. And primarily it has to start with our children and our teachers, and I feel like what you're doing is hitting the nail on the head. You're going to the source. And if kids can grow up with aloha, that's just gonna transcend to their kids, and it's just gonna keep evolving. I feel like we're we kind of might have lost our way a little bit.
SPEAKER_01I love what you just said, you know, because we're gonna teach it to our kids. The kids are gonna teach it to their kids. Okay, so this is a perfect example that I have, and I use it as um, what do you call in the classroom when you were a little kid, had one rubbish can, right? When I was a little kid, only had one rubbish can in my classroom. That's where all that went to. Yeah. Right now, in my classroom, get three rubbish cans. Why? Because you get one rubbish can for trash, one for paper for recycling, and one for plastic and cans for recycling. Now, when did that happen? We think the last two generations. Guaranteed. Because we went, we started talking about how important recycling was in the classroom and in the community. Oh, that makes sense. Everybody went changed the way they thought. And now got three rubbish cans in every single classroom. Go to your daughter's classroom, go to your kids' classroom. You're gonna see three three trash cans.
SPEAKER_00That's a good analogy.
SPEAKER_01Trash, paper, paper, plastic, three cyclicals, which is the cans and the what do you call it? And that's what we do. So aloha gotta be like that now. It's not a trash can, but we gotta teach it to change the way we think, and it's gotta come from the classroom and society, so that's all they know, and it's gonna change a whole generation of people. Yep, I agree. It's to transform our community.
SPEAKER_00I feel like we're um kind of needing it more now than ever. And I feel like the uh community aspect has to kind of combine with the the movement and and kind of keep it moving forward. I I feel like sometimes I get super discouraged and it's like I see somebody's like teenage kids and it's like bruh, well, how come your parents never teach you right? Or and it's it's disappointing to me. And then I'm like, bruh, I I try to promote aloha after talking to you the other day. I realized I didn't even have a uh in-depth understanding of what it meant. So how can I promote something that I I don't really understand? And I think what you're what you're doing is is giving people more a deep embedded root to what aloha means, to where that when they share it, it'll stick, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01No, what I love what you just shared was the humility and the ha-ha-a- in that because you were willing to empty a cup. Yeah, see, that's the thing is you were willing to empty a cup and listen to maybe a different perspective of what aloha is. And in learning that little different perspective, now you're going to change the future of your daughter. Do you get one daughter and one son or two daughters? I I just get one daughter. Yeah. Okay, one daughter. So you're gonna change the future of your daughter because of the knowledge that and look, see, we were only talking for like one hour. We just talked for one hour, and that all right, imagine if you got this every single day from when you were kindergarten all the way to you graduated high school, or at least two to three times a week, or at least two times a week from kindergarten all the way to twelfth grade. Would you have a deeper understanding?
SPEAKER_00Definitely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. You already got one deeper understanding in one hour. Yep. Imagine if this was twice a week, every week, for an entire life of going to school. You would have came out with uh at the school, and I've been saying it three never. And fall, and I can say that. I can say we're never gonna trip up because we're human by nature, okay, and we we're gonna make up, we're gonna screw up, we're gonna screw up, but because we belong to a community of people that value aloha, they're gonna have akah, they're gonna have grace and mercy with us, and then we can akah ourselves, we can have grace and mercy with ourselves, and then we can grow stronger as a community.
SPEAKER_00I feel like the patient aspect comes into play a lot because for myself, a lot of things that I learned when I was young, I didn't know I needed it or used it until I was older, and then the dots connected.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Why Teach Aloha: Models And Community
SPEAKER_00So that's where patience is, right? Like, oh, you're teaching these kids this stuff. They might not get it and they might not understand, but they learn in it, and all of a sudden gonna click when they're older or sometime during their life and be like, oh, that's what it meant. That's what I need, that's how I gotta live, this is what I gotta do. And I think that's the tap root. They can they can pull into that tap root and it's gonna be there for them. And and that's that's kind of cool. Because like for me, I learned a lot when I was younger, or things that I've my parents did for me, I never appreciate until I was older. I see them doing them for my daughter, I'm like, oh, that's why now I get it. That's how you did that for me. Exactly. And I think um giving them strong taproots like is is gonna just keep that tree going, you know what I mean? And I think what you're doing is is different and uh it's strong, like your vibe is strong. Oh thank it's infectious because you're you believe what you're teaching and and yeah, you know how to relate it, and that's gonna be that's gonna be the key. How long have you guys been on this movement?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, we started the nonprofit about four years ago, but um it was actually way back maybe in the early 2000s when I was or the mid-2000s, when I was started working with Alan Silva because he was at Farrington, and I started seeing some of the things he was doing, and I was like, wow, I never saw aloha that way. And then when I started really thinking about it, working with it, I was like, bro, our kids need to know this, man. Because I never really looked at aloha that way either. Yeah, and I was because I I always saw aloha as a brand, you know, aloha as you know, just a market of market value of what aloha was. Yeah, and that was one of the things is we gotta understand that aloha is not transactional, aloha is not contractual, yeah, aloha is relational. We have to understand that. Yeah, and that's like on our posters and everything like that. So, yeah, so if anybody wants to get any more information about this, they can. They can tap us into HTTP, okay, no more S. It's just HTTP and then www.uh aloha connects.net. Okay. And this is why we did aloha connects.net instead of.com and dot org. It was because one net is how we're supposed to be connected.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I see.
SPEAKER_01Connected by one net. Yeah. So we that makes sense. Yeah, so we went to aloha connects.net.
SPEAKER_00All right. I feel like that's the thing. Um nowadays is information's out there, you just gotta you gotta seek it. And yeah, you're pretty much being the ambassador of aloha, but oh thank you, thank you. But got so many other more ambassadors than me. Yep, I and that's what we need. The more the merrier.
SPEAKER_01We need more. We need more. And that's what I think. Maybe this is a renaissance of aloha. Oh, but I love that. Actually, I love how you said that. Renaissance of aloha. We need to see that in our community.
SPEAKER_00It has to happen now because the the longer it doesn't, the harder it's gonna be and the more watered down it's gonna be. But that's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_01That's uh thank you so much for bringing that up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, we've been going for an hour, and I don't want to take too much of your time. I promise I want to have you back. I got so much more stuff on the back. Oh, God. You know what?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, again, like I said, if we can, you know, yeah, I'd love to come back and and just see, you know, like and and this is okay, not getting real, real scripture about it, but in the Bible it says we will defeat the enemy, which is all those negative things in the world. We're gonna defeat the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. So our testimonies are stories of how aloha is being applied in our life. And then, you know, if we I come back next time, please share. And we can have maybe a couple other people share some of the things that they tried to do in their life and and where they failed. And failure is just an opportunity to grow. That's all failure is an opportunity to grow and never look at it because a failure doesn't defeat you. Okay, that's the thing, is a lot of times people look at failures as defeat. And I said, No, it's not a defeat, you know. What we're trying to do is trying to, you know, allow you to grow. Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I appreciate you taking time out. And yeah, I'm I'm definitely what I've learned tonight. I definitely can pass to my daughter. I'm gonna probably when I'm editing this, it's gonna sink in more, and you know, I'll figure out ways I can connect with her from what you described. And that's so that's what learning's all about. And yeah, I truly believe that the chance meeting you the other day at the the TV station was uh divine alignment. Yeah, I'm divine intervention, it happens. Yeah, I I definitely definitely believe that. I 100% believe that.
Aloha Roots Curriculum And Outcomes
SPEAKER_01You don't want to see the devil will use the word coincidence. Why? Because he wants you to explain it with something else other than God's intervention. Oh, that's that's what he wants to do. So he'll use the word, oh, that's just a coincidence. So when you don't use that fact that it was divine intervention, it takes God out of the equation. So when you bring God into the equation, you say, Hey, bro, that was divine, bro. God wanted us to get together. Yeah, and then what it does is it takes the devil out of the situation with the word coincidence, it takes him out, and uh yeah. That's a good well didn't look way to put it, but that's how I am. That's good. Um, one more time, your website. Okay, so our website is www.aloha connects.net.
SPEAKER_00Right on, and you can find him over there. Yep, yes, and get all the information.
SPEAKER_01You can listen to the song, you can listen to um yeah, the song is on the website, get the words on the website, um, get a little bit about our what do you call our curriculum, the Aloha Roots curriculum on our website. And it just shows a lot of the other things we do. We do this thing called Tools for Schools, where we we we we uh collect all these bags and then we we we donate it um to the kids before they go back to school. We have this thing called Valley to Valley, where we collect uh Christmas presents that we give to the kids up in Palolo Valley um in the housing, and we we just want to just bless them and allow them to have a great Christmas. And it's called Valley to Valley because that's what we gotta do is we gotta understand that we live a lot of times, not necessarily I'm gonna tell everybody in despair, but we have valleys in our lives. Yeah, yeah. And then, but from the valley to the valley is on peak. Yeah, so let's look at what was the peak. What was the things that went good? And that's right, from valley to valley, and then what we do is Christmas is the good.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So what happened is from the valley to the valley, we got kids. Yeah. That's the peak. And then during that Christmas, you're giving away stuff.
SPEAKER_00Blessing people. You do everything very purposeful, I notice. Like everything has a purpose. It's all God, bro.
SPEAKER_01It is all God, bro. I I am a ding-a-ling, bro. I'm an idiot. I don't know what I'm doing, bruh. God just says, hey, go do this.
SPEAKER_00And we're like, all right, let's go do it. You know, at least you're listening, bruh. Some people, like myself included, I'm I'm learning how to listen and learning how to be uh understanding the direction he wants me to go.
SPEAKER_01And that's that's why I tell people, ha ha, that's a biggie, bruh. Because you're gonna be open to listen when you empty your cup. Yeah. God can pour in, bro. God can pour in. That's what I tell everybody. God wants to pour in your cup, but he cannot pour into a full cup. And if your cup is full of you, he cannot pour in.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, for us, you can find us on our website, atbpod.com, our YouTube channel, Above the Bridge Podcast, Instagram Above the Bridge Podcast, and my Instagram is daddy daddy high. Um, thank you again for taking time out to explain what Aloha is. And uh just makes me feel good, bruh. This whole night made me feel good. So that's right on, bruh. Aloha, Ted. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01I really appreciate this opportunity.
SPEAKER_00All right, man. Yeah, well, shakers for the camera. Right on, we're out. Aloha.
