{"id":117882,"date":"2022-10-04T17:18:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T00:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=117882"},"modified":"2022-10-29T15:34:39","modified_gmt":"2022-10-29T22:34:39","slug":"tina-christian-maintaining-closeness-in-time-of-adversity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=117882","title":{"rendered":"Tina Christian: <br>Maintaining Closeness in Time of Adversity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-04-at-5.20.34-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-117885 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-04-at-5.20.34-PM-285x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-04-at-5.20.34-PM-285x300.png 285w, https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-04-at-5.20.34-PM.png 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a>Tina Rayette Christian, 9, was born September 1, 1969 in Houston, Texas. Her parents were Vernetta, 33, and Robert Christian, 31; her brother was Robert II.<\/p>\n<p>I remember the Christians playing an important part in our accommodations and helping in every way they could, when Jim spoke in Houston on a cross-country trip that I went on. Soon after the trip ended, the Christians moved to San Francisco from Texas to become members.<\/p>\n<p>Her family emigrated to Guyana in July 1977. She entered the country with her mother and brother on July 23; her father had arrived three weeks earlier. All died in Jonestown.<\/p>\n<p>Tina was the subject of an item in the March 1, 1978 meeting in Jonestown, after her parents sent a note to Jim complaining that she had been treated too harshly on the Learning Crew. Tina&#8217;s dad, Rob, said he disagreed with the discipline program. Jim damned him for criticizing the Office. Vernetta admitted she couldn&#8217;t see the faults of her own child, and gave Tina a spanking. Rob admitted to being arrogant and asked for two weeks on the Learning Crew, which Jim denied.<\/p>\n<p>This confrontation seems to show, first of all, that the Christians, incredibly, were able to maintain closeness as a family in spite of a raft of mandates in contravention of that; and second, that Tina&#8217;s dad was one hell of a gutsy man.<\/p>\n<p>Tina looks just like her dad; her brother resembles their mother. I see both parents cooperating to deflect, defuse and minimize any blowback from Rob&#8217;s daring to disagree. After all, he was co-chair of the political enlightenment department, so his criticism had to carry some weight. It would have carried more if he had advanced it in a case where the subject was not his offspring.<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Kathy [Tropp] Barbour joined Peoples Temple in 1970 with her companion, Richard Tropp, and was living in the San Francisco Temple on November 18, 1978. <\/em><em>Her earlier writings on this site can be found\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=17042\"><em>here<\/em><\/a><em>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tina Rayette Christian, 9, was born September 1, 1969 in Houston, Texas. Her parents were Vernetta, 33, and Robert Christian, 31; her brother was Robert II. I remember the Christians playing an important part in our accommodations and helping in every way they could, when Jim spoke in Houston on a cross-country trip that I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":117881,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-117882","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/117882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117882"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/117882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118436,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/117882\/revisions\/118436"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/117881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}