On this day, a cell phone ring in church is welcome

Posted by adn_jomalley

Posted: September 29, 2009 - 8:54 pm

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Praying for relatives: Sophie and Mel Fanene, in back, and Faamanu Salevi were among those who gathered at the Samoan Seventh-day Adventist Church in Anchorage to pray for those who might have been affected by a tsunami in Samoa and American Samoa. (MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

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Wednesday morning update: I talked this morning to Pastor Poua, who told me he'd been able to reach some of his relatives in Samoa. They told him his mother was okay but another relative, the sister of an in-law, was likely killed. The phone connections only last a short time and then they cut off, he said. He had not heard any new news about the families of the people in his congregation.

I also made a round of calls to several other ministers in the community I know, and I'm waiting to hear back.

Mao Tosi, a young leader in the Samoan community, said he was working on planning a fundraising event on Saturday at the Northway Mall. I'll post when there's more information.

Have you heard about events taking place in response to the disaster in Samoa? Email me: jomalley@adn.com.

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I slipped into a back pew of the Samoan Seventh-day Adventist Church early Tuesday afternoon. Pastor Lauilo Poua led the prayer in the cool, dim sanctuary. A dozen people knelt in the pews. They took turns praying out loud in Samoan while the others murmured in response.

I couldn't understand them, but I could hear worry in their voices. I knew they were praying for their families in Samoa and American Samoa, islands in the South Pacific many thousands of miles away. Tuesday morning the earth shook and then the sea rushed in, flattening villages near the shore. From my phone in the back pew, I checked the news. The death toll had been creeping up. First just three. Then 14. Then more than 20.

The congregation sang "Have Thine Own Way Lord." A cell phone rang and someone made their way out the side door. Everyone was waiting for word from home, but few could get through.

Poua invited me to the front of the church. He told me he heard utilities had been cut off and that coastal villages had been flooded. He was worried about his mother there.

"Her house is very, very near the ocean," he told me.

Poua has been in Anchorage 10 years. He has watched the Samoan community grow to several thousand. His church now has 300 members, he told me. The connection between Anchorage and the islands was strong, and all morning everyone's telephones were ringing. But the news on television and the Internet was coming slow.

"We hope that what we have heard, it will stop there," he said. "We want no more sad stories."

After that, I sat for a while with Elisapeta Tagaloa, who had spoken to her 18-year-old daughter in Samoa just after the tsunami. After the earthquake the girl left her village with family and went to higher ground. From where she was, she told her mother, she could see water pouring into her village.

"All the houses down by the sea, they were all gone, even the pastor's house," Tagaloa told me. "I thank God she left the house."

The phone went dead while they were talking and Tagaloa hadn't been able to talk to her since.

"We can't get through to any phone since 10 this morning," said Sophie Fanene, who was sitting nearby. She worried about Manono Island, she said. I looked it up later online. It was a tiny pinprick on the map between Samoa and American Samoa. Pictures of a resort there showed houses with grass roofs on pilings sitting at the shoreline.

Leone Sua, a younger guy who looked like he'd just come from work, told me he'd finally gotten through to someone at the Samoan embassy in New York City a half hour before. He'd asked about fatalities.

"They didn't confirm anything," he told me.

I asked Poua what he'd prayed about. He said he had prayed for the families of the people who had died. He told the congregation that the tsunami was a reminder that you never know what God's plan is, he said.

Cars were still rolling up in the church parking lot when I left. Back at my desk, I looked online for the latest news. It was late afternoon. The death toll had grown to possibly 100 people, with 20 confirmed dead. Water had risen 15 feet in some places. Because the earthquake that caused the tsunami was so close to the island, some people had very little warning to get to higher ground. Officials were still trying to estimate the damage.

I thought of a woman I'd passed on the way out of the church. She'd been pacing in the lobby, a cell phone pressed to her ear, redialing.

I hoped she'd finally heard a voice on the other end of the line.

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