It wasn’t the Christmas they were hoping for.
But two weeks after a fire damaged the historic Second Samoan Congregational Church, Christian worshippers still gathered alongside the West Long Beach site to celebrate the birth of their savior.
The parking lot of the iconic church, which is home to two separate congregations, planned multiple Christmas services on Sunday and Monday, Dec. 24-25, despite the clergy’s and parishioners’ ongoing grief over losing access to the building and many of the relics that were inside.
Mision Catolica del Divino Nazareno, which is affiliated with the Brazilian Catholic Church, hosted a Christmas Eve service on Sunday evening and planned a morning service on Christmas Day.
The congregation for the Second Samoan Congressional Church, nicknamed “Second Samoa,” gathered Sunday morning for a Christmas Eve service, according to its Facebook page.
“We are suffering,” Bishop Rodrigo Romano, who leads Mision Catolica del Divino Nazareno, said during a Friday, Dec. 22, interview. “We have more than 200 families in our congregation and we don’t have a place to go.”
Bishop Romano led Sunday’s Mass predominately in Spanish (with a few passages in English here and there) in a tent assembled behind the church.
The crowd was about 60-70 people as the service started at 5 p.m. start but grew steadily as the evening went on. Worshipers kept bringing in more and more chairs and eventually there were nearly 150 people on hand.
A tent was constructed behind the church for the impromptu services. It was very nicely decorated for the Mass with a large painting of Mary to the left of the altar, along with flowers and banners. The tent had ample soft lighting and heat lamps for the visitors and took up most of the parking lot.
“Tonight is very different for us,” the bishop said, declaring the tent his flock’s sanctuary.
Elvis Losa of Los Angeles, who has been driving to the church for the past six months, attended…
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