A large company of friends gathered at Boston Harbor on a blustery day in December 1834 to bid a tearful farewell to Fidelia and Titus Coan (1801-1881). They knelt for prayer and sang a final hymn together. The couple boarded the merchant ship Hellespont and set sail for the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). They arrived six months later after a perilous journey to begin their missionary endeavors.
Titus centered ministry in the small city of Hilo on the Big Island. Having learned the Hawaiian language in three months, he set off on a foot tour. He resolved to meet all sixteen thousand people who lived on the island. He climbed volcanic mountains, forged raging streams, crossed dangerous ravines, and endured drenching rains. Yet he wrote in his journal, “I would not exchange my humble toil among them for the throne of England.” He kept careful notes of everyone he met, recording their response to the gospel and following up a year later to assess their progress. He also kept copious notes of active volcanoes.
Titus, who came to faith during the Second Great Awakening, was now witnessing a revival that would last six years. One evening in Hilo at a prayer service, when he was preaching on the prophet Isaiah’s words, “Prepare the Way of the Lord,” a tidal wave swept away one hundred homes and thirteen people drowned. Coming so close to death, people realized their great need for God and turned to Christ. One Sunday in 1839, Titus took a bucket of water and baptized by sprinkling 1,705 new believers. By the time he left the island in 1870 for a speaking tour of the US, sixty self-supporting churches had been planted.
In July 1831, during his student days at Auburn Theological Seminary, Titus wrote the following prayer: