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A little Hawaiian hula and a lot of love
It was an unexpected sight at Colombo's Trans Asia Hotel two weeks ago. In the wind-swept pavilion, a small audience was transported briefly to Hawaii as flower bedecked dancers swayed to a gentle rhythm, singing and dancing with spontaneous joy.

But that carefree moment aside, this was a group on a serious mission. Sixty three members had travelled all the way from Hawaii, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles not for a sunshine holiday but on a goodwill journey that would take them from refugee camps to border villages and rural schools in the Anuradhapura, Vavuniya and Puttalam districts, distributing medical supplies, school equipment, clothes and food to the needy.

Their schedule was gruelling for they were to visit 16 camps, six hospitals and 16 schools all in the space of five days. But they had been working for this for all of five months and were delighted to be in Sri Lanka finally to spread 'a little Aloha'.

It all began when Audrey Kitagawa, head of the International Spiritual Family Network met a Sri Lankan in the US and felt moved to visit the country. Kitagawa, a UN Advisor of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict is deeply committed to the cause of those affected by conflict. Working with the International War-related Trauma and Humanitarian Intervention Trust (IWTHI) in Colombo, she visited refugee camps in Puttalam and Vavuniya, then border villages in the Anuradhapura district. "I saw the suffering and hardship of all three communities Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim," she says.

What was urgently needed was clothing, medicines and school supplies, she felt. Back in the US, the Spiritual Family went into action collecting used clothing, linen, books, school equipment, medical and hospital supplies, sorting and packing all of it themselves into a 40-foot container. Handling all the formalities of transportation in quick time, they were ready to come to Sri Lanka to deliver it themselves.

"The members of the Spiritual Family are a diverse group," explains Kitagawa. "There are doctors, lawyers, engineers, students, housewives, elderly people, who have all experienced the power of love. Our mission is to share that love and they have each paid their own way to come here."

Audrey Kitagawa's own mission is for people to realize God through inner seeking and not through the quest of material gain and worldly success. Her personal experience is what makes this dimunitive dark-haired woman a dynamic force, inspiring the International Spiritual Family Network, (that unofficially numbers some 9 million members) to share the message of love to build more enriching relationships within their families and communities and as in this case, to reach out to countries across the world.

Born in Hawaii, the youngest of five children to Buddhist and Shintoist parents, the young Audrey had her sights firmly set on a career in law when she met the Divine Mother, a suburban housewife in Waipahu who followed the teachings of Swami Ramakrishna. Winning a scholarship to the University of South California, she went on to law school at Boston College but her encounter with Flora Nomi, the Divine Mother, whom she described as 'the embodiment of unconditional love' was to take her on a new path.

Nomi had a huge following in Hawaii with people seeking her spiritual messages even though she herself rarely left her home. In campus, Kitagawa was prompted to explore the philosophy of Sri Ramakrishna which sees all religions as leading to one God and advocates the seeking of God-realization through the awareness of one’s own divine nature.

Years later after becoming one of Hawaii's most high-powered attorneys with a burgeoning brief in family law, Kitagawa continued her quest for the spiritual that the Divine Mother advocated. She became deeply involved with the Divine Mother's work. When the mantle passed on to her on the death of her mentor, Kitagawa decided to relinquish her active law career and professional life to work full time in the Spiritual Family. “God is the doer. I am only the instrument,” she says.

The Spiritual Family, a non-sectarian movement which functions on a voluntary, informal basis and is completely self-funding, now has followers around the world, not just in the US, but also in Australia and the UK.

So what is it that binds them together? "Everyone is looking for love in their lives. Love is the ultimate healer. It is a very special asset, and through our lives, we try to share that love and inspire others to love," says Kitagawa. The challenges in life will always be there, but with a philosophy of love, you can accept and meet them.

And so it was a message of caring and goodwill from people from another part of the world accompanied by a Hawaiian hula and a smiling aloha that greeted villagers and children in areas of the country that we ourselves do not often care to visit.

- R. S.

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