North Carolina Catholics renovate warehouse, build community

Published: 2004-06-11

STEDMAN, N.C. (CNS) -- The St. Isidore Mission has beautiful wooden pews, slick with age and patina. To the left of the raised sanctuary, a rose-framed print of Our Lady of Guadalupe hangs above a candle-covered table. A 4-foot statue of St. Isidore -- San Isidro to the mainly Hispanic community -- looks over the pews to the French doors leading outside. But from the outside, the "church" is a warehouse of cloudy-sky gray, the supersized garage door replaced with French doors and a wooden portico. A second empty warehouse sits nearby, peeling paint in the office window advertising its past life as a painting company. Just past the parking lot of gravel, sand and spindly azaleas, trucks rumble by on busy Highway 24 toward the one-stoplight Stedman downtown. The mission's physical transformation in many ways reflects the greater transformation of an outreach ministry into a vibrant church community. Three years ago a handful of parishioners at Good Shepherd Parish in Hope Mills started an outreach ministry in predominantly Hispanic areas of town at the urging of former pastor Father Joe Gaul. "We were aware that there was a growing Hispanic population," said Father Gaul.

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