About Us

Meet Our Staff - Lori Higa

Pastor: "All Stars " Children's Ministry
Operations Manager
lorih@hopechapel.com

Hometown

Hilo, Hawaii, the City by the Bay (Hilo Bay that is!)

Family Info

Married to Cas Higa for 2 decades and live in the rainy town of Kaneohe. We have a son named Jonathan who attends Hawaii Baptist Academy and loves any kind of sport or competition, and a daughter named Kate who is a lively, rough and tumble kind of girl who loves the outdoors, animals and water. We also have a dog named Lucy, who is cute as a button and not quite as smart. We also have two land turtles, three water turtles and hundreds of fish. Yes, we’ve down-sized our menagerie of pets.

How did you come to HCKB?

When we first moved to Kaneohe, over 15 years ago, I kept seeing cars with Hope Chapel bumper stickers. At that time, it was not common to see bumper stickers advertising a church and so I figured it must surely be a cult kind of church. Being a non-Christian, I also thought that people that would put a church bumper sticker on their car were probably a little koo-koo, to put it nicely. Then one day after our lives were pretty much in the toilet, I decided that we needed to go to church and wanted to find one in Kaneohe. The name Hope Chapel suddenly popped into my head and so I looked it up in the phone book and asked about services. We attended the 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning service at Ben Parker Elementary School, and since that first time about 12 years ago, Cas and I have made Hope Chapel our home. And guess what? We are now those koo-koo people who have Hope Chapel bumper stickers on our cars and have all kinds of Hope Chapel paraphernalia to boot!

Ministry Passion

I love my ministry, which is the Children’s Ministry because I not only serve the children, but all the wonderful volunteers that serve in the ministry.

Biggest influence in your life over the past year and why:

The biggest influence is God because He is the ruler of my life. Another big influence is Cas, who keeps me centered and grounded, both spiritually and mentally. I also am influenced by our ministry volunteers for their love and faithfulness to the children and to God.

Fun Stuff

Travels
We’ve been so blessed to have been able to travel to different places. Several times a year we travel to the Big Island, where my family is and to other outer islands. We have also been to several different states from the West Coast to the East Coast and on a cruise to Alaska, which is my personal favorite. We have also traveled to countries such as Korea, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and Canada and in a previous job at the University of Hawaii, I traveled to Guam, Saipan, the Micronesian Islands and even to Fiji. I enjoyed traveling to all of those places and believe it or not, have found shopping opportunities everywhere, even in the Micronesian Islands! I don’t believe any trip is complete if I don’t get to go shopping!

Hobbies
My favorite hobby is shopping (or did you already figure that one out!) Actually I also enjoy doing many different kinds of crafts and I love reading.
What you do for fun: I love getting together with our family and friends for picnics, potlucks, dinners, outings and camping. I also love a good movie and dinner.

What makes you laugh
My son, Jonathan, when he watches Three Stooges shows. He has the most infectious laughter I have ever heard. My daughter, Kate, when she laughs and my husband Cas, when he says some off-the-wall remark. I also crack up at Sandy Murakami and Shelley Okamura’s abilities to make anything into a competition and then dare ANYONE into competing with them on ANYTHING.

Favorites

Books
I really like a wide range of books and don’t have a particular favorite genre that I read. But for entertainment purposes, I enjoy books like John Grisham’s, Lois Ann Yamanaka and Gail Tsukiyama’s books and Harry Potter books. For family issues, I am a James Dobson fan. I also enjoy books like Wild at Heart and Experiencing the Spirit and most especially any Beth Moore books and studies.

Music
The Beatles; Hawaiian music; the 70’s disco music (yes, I was a Disco Queen!), and United Live.

Movies
I love most any Tom Hanks movies, Last of the Mohicans, Memoirs of a Geisha, LOTR trilogy, Star Wars, Braveheart, Titanic, A Hard Day’s Night, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Godfather Trilogy and many more.

TV
I don’t get to watch much TV and if you ask my son, he would say my favorite show is the news or the Food Network channel. I also love Friends reruns.