Who was the 1st woman ordained in the Community of Christ? I was surprised to find out that Paul Debarthe’s wife, Rina, was the first woman ordained following the 1984 revelation. Paul shares photos and stories about his amazing wife who passed away earlier this year, and the prejudice she faced, not only for her gender, but also the color of her skin. Check out our conversation….
1st Woman Ordained in Community of Christ
Paul 00:44 Let me go back to my wife’s story, because it ties in here.
GT 00:46 Okay.
Paul 00:51 I will get choked up here a bit, too. But she came to the United States under the direction to love the people of Zion. And she did the best she could with that. And she was discriminated against because she was a person of color. She had to drink from the colored people’s fountain.
GT 01:07 Oh, really?
Paul 01:07 She had to go to the colored people’s bathroom.
GT 01:11 Because she was Tahitian?
Paul 01:12 Because she was dark skinned, yes. And her family were dark-skinned people. She was one of the lighter skinned people of her family. But nonetheless, they were dark-skinned people. When I, in 1969, approached three different ministers to ask for counseling regarding marriage, all three of the church appointees said, “Don’t get married. Cross cultural marriages never work.” And we found one that said, “Yes, I’ll marry you.” And he did. That was Reid Holmes and our marriage only lasted 52 and a half years.
GT 01:53 Wow!
Paul 01:54 And it has been a marvelous blessing to have five decades with an angel. She had to face that criticism of having the wrong-colored skin. Some people have told her even that there’s no room in Zion for people of color. That, to me, had to be dreadfully painful. Our kids all have Tahitian names, and she was chastised for not giving them names like Bill and Sue. But who wants to get a bill and who wants to be sued? Our kids all have names that are meaningful, and they’re Tahitian names. Hinano Joi is a joy flower. HaiAta is Love Light. Tehani is a beloved lady, and Haumana. These four beautiful girls, and we were warned that our kids would be spotted. And Haumana Alexandra, a person who loves God and helps people, is our pastor. Our son, Tehau Jean- Paul, a gentleman of peace. And they all live up to their names. They’re beautiful people. And yet we were discouraged from marriage, because, well what would people think of your children? People are proud of our kids and so are we. Until we can learn to embrace those people that criticize us, we don’t belong in Zion, I believe. And Rina profoundly taught that message. And she embraced those people who criticized her. We had some that came to her funeral, who had voted against her being ordained and it took 30 years plus for her to love them from a distance before they would come around to even pay respects at her funeral.
Paul 03:44 But if you love people, it’s just amazing what can happen, the healings happen. And I saw that with her. She came out of a family of healers and navigators. But the fact that people respond so favorably to being loved, even if they are discriminating and harsh and angry, to be able to feel the impact of someone who’s willing to love you, anyway, is such a profound thing. I believe that’s what the cause of Zion is all about. And that’s something we need to learn to embrace. Things like the battles at Mormon War, the massacres, otherwise, until we can learn to repent, to be sorry, to pay the reparations, to make it so that we can be treated equitably–there’s no reason why all people should not be seen as children of God. That makes us equals, brothers and sisters, all the same family. Rina did such a beautiful job of illustrating that. We had the first celebration of her life after two weeks, after she passed. That was on Zoom. And here the people from around the world, from Africa, from Asia, from Europe, from all across the Pacific and the Americas had nice things to say about her, because she spoke to them in their own language, because she wanted to learn people’s language so she could speak Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian. She grew up speaking Tahitian and French, then came to the United States to learn English and majored in Spanish. {both chuckling} It was such a delight to escort her to an international conference and be introduced by someone who was so widely loved and appreciated.
GT 05:35 Wow. Well, let’s stick with Rina for a little bit because…
Paul 05:39 Well, let me go on with that one, then, because there was a lady on that Zoom from Tahiti who wanted to speak. In French, she explained that she’d had a baby 20 years ago, who had congestion. Her lungs were full of fluids, and she couldn’t breathe when she was born. The doctors, she said, put tubes down her nose into her lungs tried to help her respire. And it failed. And so, the doctors went to make a death certificate out. They came back. Rina had come by and prayed for that little girl. And somehow the little girl had pulled those tubes out of her nose was coughing up stuff from her lungs. She’s now a healthy 20-year-old woman.
GT 06:23 Oh, wow.
Paul 06:25 Those people who think that women should not be ministers, have another thing coming. It was our honor to be ministers together, and to be able to share in praying for people, to share testimonies, to share sermons. We had 30 some years of that beautiful experience. I can’t help but recommend it to the LDS Church and all the others that don’t allow women to be ministers, because one of the greatest blessings of my life was to be able to share in ministry with that beautiful angel.
GT 06:59 Well, and I didn’t realize when I met her last summer that she was the first woman ordained in the Community of Christ. Is that right?
Paul 07:12 There were four women ordained that first night on November 17 in 1985. Rina and I were ordained together and I think she was the first woman in the RLDS Church to be ordained. We went to Tahiti two years later. Let me back up on that, because when the pastor came to tell us that we were both called to be elders, Rina had received her patriarchal blessing from her father, 10 years earlier. And in that, he reminded her to pray always for your children. Pray for your husband. Pray for your family. But with all the discrimination, she got angry. She felt picked on. She felt discriminated against. It had gotten pretty serious, and she stopped praying. And our two little girls who would have been probably three and four at this time, got sick. I was a teacher, trying to make it on $5,000 a year. We didn’t have health care. Rina had not been praying and so she didn’t feel like we should call for the elders. Our girls were sick, running a high fever. They went into convulsions and I saw her put her hands, one on each leg of those two little girls, and bowed her head to pray to God to ask forgiveness. It was a pretty long prayer. She told me afterwards it was a long prayer because she had a lot to ask forgiveness for. Because she had stopped praying. She had given up on that faith, but here for her girls, recognizing that they needed that blessing. She asked God to forgive her. And if he would heal those girls, she would serve him. Ten years later, when the call came for her to be first woman called, she had already given her answer to the Lord. Her mother had spoken just two months before at the conference in Tahiti in opposition to women being ordained.
GT 09:16 Oh really?
Paul 09:18 So when the pastor came, Rina asked him to wait, because she wanted to call home and talk with her parents, knowing that she had to deal with her mother. We called that night, and her father answered the phone. She was gratified, because he would be the easier one to talk with. Her mother came out of the heritage of the warriors. And her father came out of the very calm people. the people would say “Haere mai e tamaa i piha’i iho ia matou E e faahoa t” Come and eat with us and we’ll make friends and maybe you’ll marry into our family and we’ll live happily ever after.
Paul 09:46 Her mother’s side had been going out to collect slaves and people to eat. And it was just very, that was quite a sandwich that she grew up in. And her mother didn’t think that women ought to be inserting themselves, because after all, the Polynesian tradition was a very patriarchal one. Women had to stay away from the mau hi’ora, from the temple sites. And so, Rina’s father passed the phone to her mother. So, Rina explained to her and her mother, said, “A, A, A.” Rina didn’t understand that was yes, yes, yes. So she explained again, Hamatu said A, A, A, and passed the phone to Papa. Rina explained to Papa and he said, A, A, A. Rina was a bit confounded. But her parents had received spiritual witness. That this is right. And they said,” Yes, yes, yes. The Lord calls you to be a minister.”
Two years later, we went to Tahiti, and I think it was the first time any woman had occupied any pulpit in Polynesia, but she was asked to speak to a conference of 1200 people. At that conference, there were a whole bunch of people who opposed the idea of women becoming ministers. I remember she was asked to speak in Tahitian, but that’s the language she left behind as a child. Here she came back even though she had all these other languages, now she’s supposed to put together a sermon in Tahitian. What a challenge! But she consulted with her father. And I remember I was holding our baby boy at the time when she went forward, and I urged her to be led by the good spirit. She thanked the people who were mentors, her Sunday school teachers and those that had fed her because in Tahiti when you feed a child, you’ve adopted that child.
GT 11:43 Oh.
Paul 11:44 And when we arrived in Tahiti, she warned me papa, you’ve got to be prepared to hug and kiss my Mamas and Papas. And at five o’clock in the morning, the airport is here where a dozen Mamas and Papas for me to hug and kiss. And this Iowa farm boy had a cultural immersion. That was just amazing. It’s so much better way to go.
GT 12:05 These aren’t polygamy Mamas and Papas though. {both laughing}
Paul 12:07 Right. These are people that had fed her, that cared for her, who felt like she was like their daughter.
GT 12:08 Aunts, Uncles, friends basically?
Paul 12:16 Well, and in Tahiti, it’s a generational system so that all the sisters are going to be recognized by their children as mamas.
GT 12:26 Oh, wow.
Paul 12:27 And the fathers as papa’s. And so, for a given generation, they’re all brothers and sisters. And then you get to the grandparents. And so, it’s just lifelong. It means that the children always have parents available. Nobody is an orphan.
GT 12:44 Oh, wow.
Paul 12:45 It’s a so much better system in many respects. Anyway, she then proceeded to thank the people that had cared for her. She told them about the house that her father had built. He had gone down to the wharf and taking the discarded crates, that she as a little girl had to help to hold a crate on either hand on the bicycle and he pedaled up the valley to where he had a sight for a house. And there they ripped the crates apart, re-sawed the boards, pulled nails and he built a house for his wife and 10 kids.
GT 13:22 Wow.
Paul 13:23 She was seven, and she pulled nails. But she pointed out to the people in that auditorium, that if you lean up against the wall that how she would get splinters. Suddenly you’d hear chuckles all across for people that had been there. He painted it blue and she thought was a beautiful house and loved it. But it had a little bit of jeopardy. But then she held up a crooked nail and said we are all crooked nails. And we need to be straightened so God can use us in building up his kingdom. Just like my Papa had to straighten the nails that came out of the crates so that they be used to build his house. So, it is the God wants us to be straightened in our lives so that we can work for him in his kingdom. And across that body you could just feel the transformation as people recognized that sure enough, through the Spirit of God, we’re being ministered to by a woman. The following Sunday, we shared a joint sermon. And in the week that followed that calls for 34 women were processed to be ordained.
GT 14:27 Oh wow. In Tahiti?
Paul 14:29 In Tahiti and one of those was Mareva Arnaud, who in 2013 was called to be an apostle. And when Mareva was ordained, after the prayer she came down and grabbed Rina first and hugged and kissed her and said thank you for being the Pathfinder. In 2015, Lana [Tetuanui], I forgot her last name, was elected in Polynesia to be the Senator to represent the Polynesians in the assembly in France. This little wife of mine, who basically wanted to love and take care of her own family, to bring a greater equity to the world in Polynesia.
GT 15:08 That’s really cool. So, tell me about something about the Community of Christ. When you’re called to be an elder, I know a lot of elders are the pastor of the congregation. Is that why you and your wife were called to be elders at the same time? Was one of you the pastor of the congregation
Paul 15:26 No, no. Neither of us ever became pastor.
GT 15:28 Okay.
Paul 15:30 Isn’t that fun? Our daughter is. Our daughter has been our pastor for the last couple of years. Our youngest daughter.
GT 15:37 Okay.
Paul 15:39 The spotted child. {both laughing} That is, God spotted her and recognized that she was someone qualified to be a pastor. No, Rina and I served as ministers as co-ministers; that was more frequently in things like hospital ministry, where we would find out about somebody that was ill and we’d go pray for them. So many times, for a lady to be ill, if it’s a woman minister that is able to come and empathize, identify with, counsel with, let me give you an example. It was February of 2016, I believe. And I’d put on the church sign,” Listen to His whisper”. And the next day, I got a phone call from Edna Tebby. Edna Tebby is from the Cameroon’s in Africa. She and her husband, God-love, live in Independence, Missouri. Edna Tebby called because the Tebby’s had come to visit Rina when she was in the hospital getting her new kidney. The Tebby’s knew that Rina had been through nine years of dialysis, knew that she’d been through the cancer. Edna Tebby’s principal in the school that she taught in in Kansas City, or maybe it was Independence. Her principal was in the hospital. She had one foot cut off. She had a serious case of diabetes. She had cancer. She was giving up on life. She asked if we would come and pray for her. We went. That was Monday, we went that evening. And when we walked into the room, Rina saw the lady in the bed and called her by name. Missy. A Chinese girl in Tahiti had been adopted by American missionaries 50 years earlier. Those missionaries were at the church where Rina attended, and Rina took care of that baby. Here 50 years later, she walks into the hospital room, [she was] asked to pray for this little girl without knowing the lady from the Cameroon’s knowing that they were connected.
Paul 18:05 How does this happen? And Missy not only was able to get the benefit of prayer, but the culture because Rina had been through some of the same problems. And Rina said, don’t let them take that other leg off unless you really think that’s right, because she was scheduled to have the other leg removed. And Missy listened to Rina. Two weeks later, she invited us over to her house for dinner. Such a profound transformation that occurs, with the woman’s ministry, when we allow that kind of blessing to be forthcoming. Missy lived another two years. Missy and Rina were real sisters. I mean, what a remarkable bind to be reunited by a lady from the Cameroon’s in Kansas City when they first met in Tahiti 50 years ago. And then we got reunited with the Condit’s, the missionary family that had adopted Missy as well. What a small, intimate, marvelous world that God has created and allows us to participate in it. And if only we could open her eyes to a little bit more faith, a little bit more prayer. About the third celebration of Rina’s life was at the end of our world conference. And the kids determined to put together a feast for the people that knew Rina. And so, they got the basement of the Stone Church and laid out the tables with coverings and put about 500 pictures of Rina on there for people to take home. I knew that I was called upon to speak to that group that night. This was going to include the Polynesian delegation, the French delegation, people from around the world that knew Rina. And what do you say to all these people whose lives have been touched by your loving wife. That morning two months to the day, April 28, 2023, Rina whispered in my right ear at six o’clock in the morning, woke me up. And said, tell them “Don’t forget to love each other. Tell them, don’t forget to love each other.” So fundamentally and profoundly the message of her life, and just look how much better our lives are when we don’t forget to love each other. And if we do forget to love each other, we go back and make things right and try to get to love each other again, how much better our lives are. That fundamental message that she left is the message that I want to relay, and I feel is the call of my life now until I get to be with her again. {tearfully}
Paul 20:55 Not everybody gets the privilege of living with an angel like I did. And she came back to see me. I’ve been so blessed. {tearfully}
