Deaths Shatter Life of Latino Church : Religion: Victims belonged to a small, close-knit congregation of immigrants who rely on each other for support.

Those who died in Orange County’s worst-ever auto accident were not all related by blood, but they were linked spiritually through the church they were nearing when their lives abruptly ended.

Deeply religious, the members of the Non-Sectarian Church of God were a small, close-knit community of people who relied on each other and the church for support in a land far from home. The church was the center of their lives.

“All the brothers (in the church) were good brothers,” said Juan Guzman, whose brother, Julio, was killed instantly when he was thrown from the van Sunday evening. “They were always together.” Joining the church a year ago made the 27-year-old Guzman a new man, relatives said.

“Recently he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior and he changed,” said Guzman, 33. “By going to church, his way of being got better and more positive.”

Another of the dead, Iris Roman, 13, a seventh-grader at Willard Intermediate School on Ross Street in Santa Ana, was a quiet, smart student who loved to play with friends but whose attention was monopolized by the church also called Iglesia de Dios.

“Her favorite hobby was to go to the church,” said Tina Beltran, a neighbor.

“That was the only one,” corrected the girl’s mother, Yanira Enriquez.

For Sonia Castro, 30, who left her native Guatemala about 10 years ago and lived with her parents and brother in Santa Ana before dying in the accident, the church was “her favorite pastime,” said her father, Rojelino Castro.

“She was a Christian,” Olga Marina Palma said simply when asked to describe Sonia, her sister-in-law. “She would love to praise God.”

Pastor Octavio Valentin, who is Puerto Rican, started Iglesia de Dios seven years ago, preaching out of his Garden Grove home. In 1987, he began leasing a chapel from the First United Methodist Church at the corner of French Street and Santa Ana Boulevard, and for the past year had been picking up his flock of Spanish-speaking parishioners and ferrying them to services several times each week.

On Sunday night, Valentin, 55, had picked up at least 15 passengers who could not otherwise attend 6 p.m. church services. But before they could reach the church, his van collided with two other vehicles, killing seven people and a woman’s unborn fetus.

The church’s independence from any major religious body and the fact that there are only about 80 members gives it an informal air and attracts new immigrants. Members come from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and several South American countries, according to Ana Valentin, who called her husband’s ministry “an international church” of Latinos.

Valentin is one of several preachers who lease space at the Methodist Church, which occupies the entire block at Spurgeon Street and Civic Center Drive. The Methodists also lease worship space to Tongans and Cambodians.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the older Methodist church, whose membership is declining, and the newer, growing churches composed of ethnic minorities, explained the Rev. David R. Pasamonte, senior pastor at First United.

“They call themselves Church of God, but it is best to describe them as independent,” Pasamonte said. “They are Christian-based in that they profess faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ and they believe in the Christian Bible.”

Religious symbols were prominently displayed among family photographs at the homes of those who were killed in the crash.

“Christ is the way. Christ heals and saves,” read embroidered cloths in the home of Iris Roman’s grandparents, where the dead girl’s mother, Yanira Enriquez, was comforted Monday afternoon by dozens of relatives and counselors from her daughter’s school.

Enriquez, whose husband returned to his native Guatemala a few weeks ago, lay on a bed holding a wet paper towel to her forehead as neighbors and relatives offered condolences. “Just one, she was the only one,” the mother cried over her only child. “She was a very quiet girl, she was very sweet. Always she went to the church.”

“She was the kind of kid you like to have at school, the kind of kid you want to have around,” counselor Patrick Yrarrazara said of Iris, adding that her friends were all such good students that they were torn over whether to miss school Monday because of their grief. “Death is unfortunately something we’re familiar with. Gangs are part of life in some parts of Santa Ana,” Yrarrazara said. “But this, because it was not related to gangs at all, the kids take it harder. This was totally unexpected.”

At the Castro home in Santa Ana, the shock of the accident was still in the air Monday afternoon. Sonia’s mother, Mirtala Castro Lopez, remained in critical condition at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo; Sonia’s brothers wailed in the background as her father, Rojelino Castro, spoke.

“She was a treasure for me, she was a loving daughter,” he said, adding that Sonia’s funeral will be in Guatemala because she wanted to be buried there. “I feel so bad, like I’m crazy. I don’t know what to think.”

A few blocks away, relatives were grieving for Julio Guzman, the youngest of nine brothers, whose wife and 5-year-old daughter remain in Guatemala. At the same time, they were relieved that Sandra Guzman, Julio’s sister-in-law, survived the crash with just a bruised shoulder and some pain in her ear. She was released after treatment at Doctors Hospital of Santa Ana Sunday night.

“God guarded me. He protected me. It wasn’t my time to die,” Sandra Guzman said through tears Monday afternoon at her home in Santa Ana. “Julio--his time came. God said there would be no more Julio.”