<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Jack, tell us a little bit about your involvement with the church. What ways did you use your faith to help others in the camp?

MT: Mostly we felt the need to, those who were interested, to set up, if you want to call that, opportunities for people to worship. To gather together to worship, to have a church community of our faith, the Protestant faith. Not only because the Catholic church was also offering that, and also the Buddhists were, and that's fine. And we felt that the Protestants, we should offer also an opportunity for those who were of the Protestant faith, who were to come together to worship, to have fellowship, and to have a sense of identity with each other. As I remember, my immediate responsibility in those areas was to help others begin to have that feeling, a sense of that need for gathering for worship and for fellowship, and for exchanging their points of view. And to honor each other, to have the strength for the living of these days that they were passing. We all were going through change, and we needed, I always thought we needed each other more than anything as we went through this kind of change and so forth. And so it took us a little while to set up a council of church people interested to provide worship and so on.

And so I do remember that it was at, I think, a Christmas Eve service, and I only had one because only one Christmas. But Christmas Eve, sure, I think it, must have been Christmas Eve service, that we set up in the afternoon, three o'clock, maybe, and we worked hard to get soloists, letters, used people to read scripture, and even do drama, some of the Christmas concepts and so on, little drama presentation, nativity scene. And this was scheduled at three o'clock, and around two, a sandstorm came up, real heavy sandstorm. Well, you've been here, just couldn't see anything. So the question was, what should we do? Should we cancel? What should we do? So we finally said, oh, we're going to do it. We're going to go, and we're not going to cancel, we're going to just go ahead. Whoever will come will come and we'll celebrate the Christmas story in whatever way you could. Well, the place was full. [Laughs] I remember that, the barrack was just full, just completely. And though the storm was, sandstorm... it sent another message in terms of, in the midst of this storm of Manzanar, we seek a faith that will carry us through. That's what the birth day, the Christmas birth day is about, in terms of life's problems. And so I'll always remember that.

And not just that service, but putting just, having people come and be with one another and be strong, helping, supportive, through this time, help was an important thing the church needed to address. I think after being in the ministry fifty more years or so, I'm speaking it in a more mature way, so to speak. But back there, I was just a kid, nineteen, and I was just trying along with everybody else. And I'm sure my conversation was pretty much academic and not very professional, so to speak. But the experience was very memorable to me.

RP: Were you in, you had responsibility for Sunday services, regular services?

MT: Yes.

RP: And what was that? Did you help organize events?

MT: Yeah, we organized the service, we organized, we were to participate, and there was a committee of us, a committee of people. And oftentimes the participation revolved around those people being, who were interested in forming a partisan chapel or whatever, and was interested, would be the one who would provide the leadership until we began developing more interested people.

RP: Did it take a little while for things to catch on like regular services? Were people a little hesitant at first to come?

MT: Oh, yes. You didn't know just who, you know, was...

RP: You've kind of got to get your name out there.

MT: Yeah, right. You know, who was Protestant, whatever, you just didn't know was, 'til you were able to make the services available, and who came. And then you say, "Will you tell the story on? And next Sunday we're having the service at three, you have to pass the word on."

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.