On May 7, 2011, Hope4Gaston Replaces siding on 5th Avenue Fellowship Building. Painting, land scaping and flooring also done.
Article by Bernie Petit/The Gaston Gazette
The expansive, open great room is empty now, but Wavey Williams already envisions it being filled with neighborhood folks stopping by to worship.
Upstairs, he sees a refuge for people of faith who are down on their luck or struggling to make ends meet. The tree-shaded backyard will become a community gathering spot for popcorn and movies.
The former bedroom off the front entry will serve as much-needed office space for Mission Gaston, the multi-housing complex mission for which Williams pastors.
The two-story, 13-room house on Fifth Avenue in the York Chester area of Gastonia still needs work, Williams admits. But that doesn’t temper his enthusiasm for what will become Mission Gaston’s new headquarters and neighborhood outreach undertaking.
“Sometimes I come here and stand in this (house) and know God did this,” Williams said. “Someone might say it’s not all that or whatever, but it is all that because we didn’t have this.”
This latest mission is in the vein of one Williams helped start at the Highland Hills Apartments in Gastonia back in 2007. Now known as Mission Gaston at Beavercreek, church is held in a two-bedroom apartment at the housing complex, where the ministry also sponsors vacation Bible school activities, community movie nights and regular discipleships for adults.
The fledgling Mission Gaston Fifth Avenue Fellowship will offer similar programs and more, Williams said, such as low-cost boarding and small group activities. A food ministry is also a possibility down the road, he added.
“Our big thing is just to serve the community,” he said, “and to take the gospel to the street more or less, in a place where people don’t expect it to be.”
And it’s taken a group effort in getting the Fifth Avenue Fellowship ready to open, which should be later this month, Williams said.
Mission Gaston started refurbishing the well-worn house in June. Shortly after, Pastor Kelly Lowe and members of United Baptist Church selected the mission as an “Operation INASMUCH” project and knocked out some walls to expand what will become Fifth Avenue’s worship gathering area.
Habitat for Humanity of Gaston County has helped out, Williams said. So has Pastor Dickie Spargo with Bethlehem Baptist Church of Gastonia and the Greater Gaston Baptist Association. A Black Mountain, NC, church has offered to donate 70 chairs to the mission.
“It’s been a community project where people have seen the need also,” Williams said. “They know what needs to happen in this community.”
The area has its share of low-income homes and single-parent families, but it’s got a good multicultural mix and residents that are excited about Fifth Avenue Fellowship becoming a part of their neighborhood, Williams said.
“We’ve already been out in the community talking to people and they’re welcoming us, telling us they’re glad we’re here,” he said. “There were folks who were wanting to come to the services we haven’t started yet.
“It’s a neighborhood that’s in need and we just want to be stationed right in the midst of everything that’s going on.”
Want to Help?
Mission Gaston Fifth Avenue Fellowship could still use some help as it prepares to open to its community and is need of the following supplies: baptism pool, Bibles, folding chairs, podium, van, Bible study games, youth study Bibles, high-back straight chairs, office furniture, book shelves, Christian books, Sunday school helps, tracts, pens/pencils, notebooks, outdoor furniture, lawn mower, weed eater, trash cans and bags, file folders, towels, water hose, tote bags, baskets, lamps, movie screen, rugs, toiletries, bicycles and sports equipment.
To donate supplies, money or to volunteer labor to help get the mission ready to open, contact Wavey Williams, Mission Gaston, at 980-253-8025 or Cassandra Byrd at 704-923-4606.
