Tracing the lives of some two hundred Native Hawaiian teachers, preachers, pastors, and missionaries, Nā Kahu provides new historical perspectives of the indigenous ministry in Hawai'i. These Christian emissaries were affiliated first with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and later with the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. By the mid-1850s literate and committed Hawaiians were sailing to far reaches of the Pacific to join worldwide missionary endeavors. Geographical locations ranged from remote mission stations in Hawai'i, including the Hansen's disease community at Kalaupapa; the Marquesan Islands; Micronesia; fur trade settlements in Northwest America; and the gold fields of California. In their reports and letters the pastors and missionaries pour out their hopes and discouragements, their psychological and physical pain, and details of their everyday lives.