With Christmas lights draped along the rock walls and paper lanterns lining the clean-swept pathway, it may have been hard for parishioners to believe the grounds of Trinity Episcopal Church by-the-Sea had been swamped with a thick layer of mud and debris just weeks ago.

For Trinity, one of the many South Maui properties inundated with rain and floodwaters during the Dec. 5-6 Kona low storm, cleaning the grounds, arranging for tree-trimming services and making sure the property was safe for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services was a race against the clock.

“It’s just kind of a blessing that we were able to get everything done,” Chuck Spence, treasurer and former bishop’s warden, said on his way to the service on Friday. “It feels that we were able to pull together and see so many people pull in the same direction and work to the same goal and get it done in time. So it’s really quite rewarding.”

Nearly three weeks prior, heavy rain and winds sent two large kiawe trees toppling onto the roof of Trinity Treasures, the church’s thrift shop. It crashed through the roof and the rafters and left some interior damage as well, though thankfully no one was inside at the time, Spence said. The storm also took out portions of the white picket fence and left the property coated in mud.

Built in 1853 by David Malo, one of the earliest Native Hawaiian ordained Christian ministers, the church has survived its share of disasters over the years, according to Spence. During the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the church walls were burned down to the lava rock foundation. They were rebuilt only to be knocked down by a tsunami in the early 1900s.

Because the church was abandoned from about 1920 until the Episcopal Church took over in the 1970s, a lot of kiawe trees sprouted up around the property “and are now just too big for the soil when we get high winds and lots of rain,” Spence explained.

In addition to the two trees that fell on the thrift store roof, other trees were destabilized by the storm and left leaning precariously over Akamai Kids Club, the preschool located near the thrift store building. Inspectors who came to look at the damage told Akamai Kids Club Program Director Kristen Schiffman that “it’s not a matter of if the tree will fall, but it’s a matter of when.”

They told Schiffman that the cost to remove the trees would likely be “in the thousands.”

“I knew I don’t have a budget for that,” said Schiffman, who spent all day after the storm shoveling mud from the property along with her kids, ages 10, 11 and 13.

Her 13-year-old son came up with the idea for a GoFundMe campaign. In a matter of hours, the school reached its goal of $3,000 after a family who’d sent their kids to Akamai’s summer camp donated $1,700 on top of the $1,300 already chipped in by the community.

“We are just so overwhelmed by the generous support of our precious families that circled around us,” Schiffman said earlier this month. “We reached our goal in four hours. It was incredible. It was really amazing. We’re just, we’re so touched and overwhelmed with gratitude.”

She said the preschoolers would be sending each donor a handcrafted thank-you card.

In total, two trees were removed and four others had to be trimmed down to a safe level, Spence said. Finding tree trimmers wasn’t easy with so many other Kihei residents in need of tree-trimming and removal services after the storm.

With Christmas Eve being the biggest service of the year for Trinity, the church was “really pushing” to get it cleaned up before then.

“We were very stressed,” Spence said. “It’s been very nerve-wracking trying to get people there, especially because we’re not the only ones that were affected.”

So far the church has paid about $11,000 out of pocket just for the cleanup of the property, Spence said. Fencing also needs to be replaced, and Trinity is also waiting for the damaged building to be inspected over concerns that the weight of the kiawe trees might have created foundational issues. That combined with the loss of a shipping container full of thrift store items that flooded could put Trinity’s damages at well over $200,000, if not more, Spence said.

Members of the congregation and community have donated about $4,000, and Trinity is hoping to continue to raise more.

“On the bright side, we have people with the Christmas spirit that came in and decorated the outdoor sanctuary church,” Spence said. “We’re ready to go for this evening and again tomorrow morning.”

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.