PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — On weekday mornings, Fofoga Timoteo would come to the Territorial Administration On Aging to weave mats and baskets with her friends under the faded yellow-and-green fale by the bay.

Her son, Timo Timoteo, dropped his 75-year-old mother off on Tuesday morning like he always does. Stopping for a cup of coffee on his way home, he felt the rattle of the earthquake and saw the tsunami tear through the bay. Frantic, he got into his car to go back and save his mother, but the road was blocked, as many people had abandoned their cars and fled for higher ground.

When Fofoga Timoteo did not show up by noon, her family sensed the worst.

Another son, the Rev. Petaia Timoteo of Trinity Samoan Congregational Church in Kalihi, talked his way onto a Hawaiian Airlines relief flight on Wednesday afternoon. When he arrived here, he learned his mother's body had been recovered in the harbor.

"She liked to weave with her back to the bay," the Rev. Timoteo said. "We miss Mom so much. She was always by our side. She is a lady of integrity."

At the Congregational Christian Church in Fagatogo yesterday, the Rev. Ned Ripley remembered Fofoga Timoteo and the other victims of the disaster at a Holy Communion service.

"We're very mindful of the drastic situation that our people are facing, both here in American Samoa and in western Samoa," Ripley said.

Over the weekend, volunteers wearing surgical masks and gloves cleared debris from Territorial Administration On Aging buildings and tried to preserve some of the soiled paperwork: enrollee time sheets, accounts pay- able vouchers, timecards.

The files are mostly useless now, but they were stacked carefully outside near the fale, bringing some order to an otherwise mournful scene.

Fa'afiti Tauanu'u, the TAOA director, said his staff and seniors who work at the center recently watched a tsunami preparedness message from the American Samoa homeland security office. He thinks the message may have saved lives.

A few on his staff were swept away by the surge — one ended up on the roof of one of the buildings — but they survived.

Tauanu'u suspects Fofoga Timoteo either did not have the time or ability to flee. The senior center and fale are tucked near the back of the bay — like at the narrow end of a funnel — so many people probably did not realize the degree of danger until it was too late.

"They didn't see it," he said.

PAUSE FOR SERVICES

American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono asked disaster relief workers for a pause in recovery operations yesterday as people went to church on the first Sunday after the disaster.

Religion, the governor said, is foremost on an island where there is a church or cross on nearly every block.

At a national prayer service yesterday afternoon at the Congregational Christian Church at Kanana Fou, Tulafono, Kenneth Tingman, who is the federal coordinating officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and many of the island's political and religious leaders came to pray and remember the victims.

"We pray that God, with all of his might, and all his glory, will guide us through this service," said the Rev. Dr. L.S. Seva'aetasi, the secretary of the National Council of Churches, which coordinated the prayer service.

Johina Liaina, who is 9 years old, came to the prayer service with her mother, Peka Liaina, from Tafuna. "We came to pray for those who are poor and we came to the church for worship to God," the young girl said. "And we love the people who are poor, and people that don't have any clothes, or don't have any families (where they can) live.

"They have no homes and all their family died, and we care for them."

While Fofoga Timoteo was the only one of Ripley's parishioners to die, many others lost relatives here and in western Samoa. He said he has tried to offer them perspective. He has suggested that the actions of man may have "some effect on the order of nature."

"It's a message of hope and also to try to let them understand that these things are happening in the world today," he said.

Timo Timoteo, who used to work at the COS Samoa Packing cannery before he went back to college to study Samoan culture, said all he wants is enough money to buy food and drinks for a nice reception after his mother's funeral service next weekend.

His brothers and sisters and other relatives are coming from the U.S. Mainland and Hawai'i. "I miss my mother," he said outside church yesterday morning.

Like Ripley, Timo Timoteo also believes the disaster may hold a lesson for man. "They know God. They know about God. But they don't follow in God's footsteps," he said.

"That's why this thing has happened."