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community. We've been practicing here for many years now, cultivating the land, watching our
<br /> trees and our kids and ourselves grow. And we've helped make Konalani what it is today. It's a
<br /> sacred space of our own making and is the expression of our aloha, and we are part of this Kona
<br /> community.
<br /> Since the County's order,the cease and desist order, we have stopped our meditation program
<br /> since July of 2019, and since then we've had to hopscotch around the each of our member's
<br /> houses who compose about roughly 14 people to meditate together. And if the County's mission
<br /> is to help Hawai`is land and its people thrive, depriving a group of people from worship and the
<br /> space they've owned and operated for 20 years now is not the way to do it. SGRY has and will
<br /> continue to work to address each of the County's concerns: we first met with our neighbors and
<br /> are working to remove structures, drawing up new site plans and seeking the appropriate permits.
<br /> And, but as the conditions of approval read now, we are, will still not be able to practice together
<br /> during what's likely a year or more long building and permit seeking process. And what's more,
<br /> our managers and teachers, Joe and Anna here, who live there will not be able to live there on
<br /> other current conditions of approval. And we can continue to work with the County, but that is
<br /> only if they recognize the protections afforded to us by the federal government via RLUIPA, the
<br /> Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and the First and Fourteenth
<br /> Amendments. So far, right now, to us it seems that the County's actions have continued to
<br /> threaten these rights, and I just seek and ask that the County, well, I just want to say that we have
<br /> the right to worship God together at this place, and we have the right to live together at Konalani
<br /> Yoga Ashram and Church.
<br /> F. STONE: My name is Faith Stone. I was impressed, Keith, how you opened the meeting last
<br /> month with Hawaiian, so, I believe my name in Hawaiian is Mana`o`i`o Pohaku. I found another
<br /> translation for faith; it's paulele, which means stop jumping. However, years ago my hulu kumu
<br /> told me that a woman's name cannot start with"pau."
<br /> My life's work has been focused around children together with Anne Saks who will speak here
<br /> today. I was a Girl Scouts troop leader, and I'm a lifelong member of Girl Scouts'. We had a
<br /> Girl Scouts troop, was held at Konalani Yoga Ashram, and about twelve kids, five of them from
<br /> the Sea View Circle neighborhood and from five different schools. Also with Anne Saks, we
<br /> started the first Big Island Pony Club, which is like Girl Scouts on horseback. We worked with
<br /> Nani from Ka`u Nani's Ponies, to have ponies enough for girls who didn't have horses, which
<br /> was 90 percent of our troop. In this way, we could keep it affordable and cut up scholarships for
<br /> low income. And I'm a retired art teacher. I worked with K through 12 kids but found my ideal
<br /> work as high school teacher with at-risk school students, like counseling department of the
<br /> public school that I worked at would tease that I was part of their department and they would let
<br /> kids come, having a really hard time, come to the art room. I didn't talk to them about their
<br /> problems but let them paint, draw, gave them a cup of tea and some cookies and gentle
<br /> encouragement about their art,pat on the back or shoulder. I am a working artist. I brought
<br /> along a couple of my books I did with a Tibetan friend, Karma, "Karma & Faith," and it has a lot
<br /> of our philosophy, so if anybody would like to look at that, it's all Buddhist art, religious art.
<br /> In order to support the ashram in the early years, my husband and I started Rudi's Restaurant and
<br /> Rudi's Bakery in Boulder, Colorado. Rudi's bread is nationwide now. Unfortunately, you can't
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