<Begin Segment 18>

MN: Now when you entered college, you had no feelings of going into the ministry. Now in 1945 you had already made up your mind. How did, what did, how did this change of heart come about and when did you commit to going into the ministry?

LW: I think it was the influence of, really from childhood on through. One of the, while I was a Sunday school child one of my teachers, a Mennonite Brethren Sunday school teacher said to me as a child, I must've been about four or five years old, she said to me, "Lloyd, I'm hoping that one of these days you will be a minister." I didn't even know what that meant, but I remember that. She must've thought that I was somebody special, a child that was special, so that kind of experience as I grew through childhood and youth stayed with me. And I felt like I always wanted to be loyal to my Christian faith. I wanted to be a good Christian, and so in the camps, with the two ministers, my peers, I felt like these two guys are real. They're fun to be with, they're human and they're very positive about life, so that gave me a good impression about ministers. They could be human and they could be, have a good time at it. But that was a strong influence on me, and my, all through those years, the church meant a lot to me. It played a great influence on my life, so while I was at college for many of my, my fellow students, some of them were preparing for the ministry and that whole atmosphere of affirmation of those in the, preparing for the ministry, really moved me, influenced me. And I remember one experience before I left camp, knowing that I was going on to, into a new thing, I went out at night meditating and thinking to myself, "Oh God, I'm going to enter a new journey in my life, and I know that you will be with me, but I want to be, to do the right thing, and I feel like I'm doing the right thing by going on to college." So that kind of, making those kinds of decisions in life, I felt like I was ready to go into this, into the ministry.

MN: But in the meantime, when the camps closed, did you return to Poston to help your family return to California?

LW: No. They were able to return on their own, but I did return to help my brother on the farm. It was, again, during the... oh, that's right, yeah, after the, yeah, it was a summer break, I was able to return from Asbury to my brother's farm, because by that time he had moved into the Dinuba home, so I decided, well, I'm gonna go home since he's there. I have a few, a month or two. I want to go home and do what I can to help my brother.

MN: And then by then had you already told your mother that you were not going to be taking over the farm?

LW: Yes, 'cause she was, yeah, she had returned. I think it was my brother and my youngest sibling that helped my brother return to Dinuba, so she, when I returned she was there and knew that I had made up, made my decision.

MN: So with all this change going on, did it cause any problems in the family?

LW: No. You mean in terms of tension and negative feelings about my going into, my doing what I decided to do? No, I don't, I didn't experience any of that tension. I felt like since the whole family had been in this, had the church experience, or had the influence of the church, this, the decision of Lloyd to become a minister is okay with them.

MN: Now, when you return to the family, or I guess your brother had returned first, do you know if the house was kept up and if the farm was kept up?

LW: Yes. It was kept up well. The responsible couple there took good care of the, of the house. The farm I'm not sure 'cause that was about three years of farming and how experienced he was and how committed he was to caring for the farm I'm not sure. But at least he kept, kept the farm going, but I guess my brother would be the judge of what the, what shape the three pieces of property were in.

MN: Now some people, I know when they returned to their house the people living in it during the war refused to move out. Did you, did your family experience anything like that?

LW: No, this, this couple knew that when, if and when the family returned they would need to vacate, so there was no problem at all of my, my brother and his family and the rest of the family moving in.

MN: Now, after you helped your brother with the farm for the summer, you, did you return to Asbury College?

LW: Yes, I returned to Asbury College for my final year. So I finished, I decided that, I've finished two and a half, or three years of it since I went to summer school, I need to finish up the, the last year at Asbury.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.