Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407280018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
On a muggy Sunday morning, under the glow of a bare light bulb, Linda Henderson does what she can to prepare the Good Shepherd Mission Church of God in Christ for its first-ever Sunday service.
She sprinkles rug freshener on musty scraps of carpet. She bends down in her housecoat and slippers to straighten out the scraps, tugging the frayed squares to the left, then right.
She sets up folding chairs borrowed from a funeral home, flips on two rusty fans and then twists open the front-window blinds, exposing what preacher Samuel A. Wade calls his ``souvenir'' - a gunshot hole surrounded by cracked glass.
The hole reminds Wade of what 1306 Rorer Avenue Southwest was less than two years ago: a hang-out for crack dealers and drunks.
Back then, he could smell the stench of urine from the front walk of the abandoned house, hear the ringing of nearby gunshots, see the sea of crack vials, beer cans and wine bottles on the roof, on the porch, in the yard.
``Used to be, you couldn't get no rest, day or night,'' Elder Wade, 67, recalls. ``They just about took our street, the gangs. They were brave enough to shoot in the day.''
Wade and his wife couldn't even sit on the front porch of their home across the street.
"This was the place where everyone drank; it was bothering the whole community," Henderson recalls as she leaves for home to change into her church clothes.
She passes Wade outside as he leaves to pick up Freddie Fralin, a recovering alcoholic and crack addict who plays electric guitar, does construction work when he can find it and sings like Jesus is calling him home.
He is the very first member of the Good Shepherd Mission Church of God in Christ.
``I used to be a fall-out drunk in that yard,'' Freddie says in Wade's car. ``I used to buy wine at the Corner Store and then drink it on the porch.
``Now I wanna help people who are the same way I was. 'Cause these people in the big churches aren't helping 'em. These people in the big churches, when they get straightened out they put on their three-piece and go on up with the big shots, when they should be staying here and helping the others up behind them.''
``Amen, Brother Fralin,'' Elder Wade says.
It's 10:30 a.m. - a half-hour past the Sunday School starting time announced on the church fliers that are stapled to telephone poles in Roanoke's West End and posted at the welfare-office bulletin board downtown.
Inside the church, Fralin takes a seat in the front row of folding chairs. Outside, Elder Wade comes up the front walk for his ceremonial first service, his worn leather Bible in hand.
On the front porch of a nearby house, a fight is going on. One woman is shouting at another, ``You f---ing!! Get inside, you f---ing b----!!"
The obscenities don't distract Wade from his calling.
He enters the church. Standing tall and dignified in his black suit and black collarless shirt, standing tall on the creaky carpeted floor, Elder Wade calls to order the Good Shepherd Mission Church of God in Christ.
``I hope the Lord might bless this place on Rorer Avenue,'' he says. ``Who would've thought we'd be here? Well, amen, 'cause he turned water into wine, and he's still working today.''
For the first hour, Fralin is the only one in attendance. Between segments of the lesson, Wade and Fralin - preacher and congregation - sing hymns with Fralin on guitar. There'll be freedom after while when Jesus comes. . .
Outside, two young women walk by - one pregnant, the other pushing a stroller - glancing into the church. Neighbors on both sides of the church sit on their porches, listening to the soulful, electric hymns.
``I'm an alcoholic; you can write that down,'' says Betty Ann Leftwich, on the front porch of the duplex next door. ``I don't do crack, I don't do cigarettes, but I like my wine.''
Leftwich looks over to Elder Wade, who has come out to anoint the front-porch columns with olive oil.
``Mr. Wade and me, we had a long talk and he's not putting on,'' she says. ``I told him I'd come to church and I was going to, but I didn't have no clothes to wear.''
Two of Wade's friends, an elderly couple from Bedford, show up as he finishes his Sunday School lesson, titled ``God Brings Victory.''
``My aim is to reach these hearts here on Rorer Avenue and get 'em saved,'' Wade says.
``Amen,'' the Bedford man says. ``If this building is full, it matters not.''
And then Wade closes the first lesson of the first Sunday School service on the first day of church at the Good Shepherd Mission.
He says, ``Never look down on a human being unless you are stooping to help pick him up.''
Three days before the first service, the elder's wife, Estelle Wade, surprised him with renovation supplies: five sets of window blinds, a rake and two 5-gallon buckets of paint.
Elder Wade was running back and forth from the church to his home across the street. He forgot to lock the padlock on the church's boarded-up front door that afternoon, and in the time it takes to recite ``The Lord's Prayer,'' the supplies vanished. Stolen.
``The devil, he's busy,'' the elder says. ``He's trying to fight God's people everywhere you turn.''
The devil was fighting them the first week of church, and he was fighting them two years ago, when the abandoned house contained a city dump-truck load of crack vials, beer cans and wine bottles.
The roof was covered with so many broken bottles - tossed up by drunken loiterers below - you couldn't tell what color it was.
That's when community activist Ren Heard, police and area homeowners like Wade banded together to join COPE, Community Oriented Police Effort, with the goal of driving out drug dealers and public drinkers.
``Before that, both citizens and police had given up,'' says Heard, a white developer who heads the West End Association. ``It was like, `It's nothing but poor black people, so why bother?' ''
Wade was instrumental in prompting other longtime residents, mostly black, to take action. ``He's so well-respected and well-known, he stepped forward when the other ministers wouldn't,'' Heard explains. ``Most were scared, afraid there would be [retaliations] against their congregations.''
Wade and Heard took photos of drug dealers and wrote down license-plate numbers for police. They got neighbors to sign complaints in advance so residents wouldn't have to confront the trespassers alone - anyone spotting them could simply call COPE, and police would come.
``He's a brave man,'' Heard says. ``He's very grass-roots, as opposed to a preacher of some uptown congregation driving a fancy Cadillac. Reverend Wade is trying to reach what society sees as the very bottom layer and say: `There are alternatives.'
``He's not afraid to get down on their level and minister. I see him walking the neighborhood every day talking to people.''
Born in Montvale, Wade lived in Bedford County until 1978, when he came to Roanoke to work at a foundry and, later, for Blue Ridge Stone. He's been pastor of Bedford's 30-member Pure Gospel Holiness Church of God in Christ for 30 years, as well as host of ``Witness for the Lord,'' a weekly radio show on Bedford's WBLT (1350, AM).
Now retired, he works part time as a mail courier for seven Lynchburg banks, in addition to preaching at both churches.
Ask him where he attended seminary and Wade replies: ``I've had no schooling, just the school of the Holy Ghost.''
Wade recalls the exact month and place where he gave up ``sinning, carousing and the tobacco habit.'' It was January 1954, and he and three friends were walking a country road near Bedford sharing a pint of Paul Jones whiskey.
``Every time I drank, my conscience got to me. The other men, they left me about that much to drink,'' he says, grasping the second joint of his right index finger. ``I didn't have no Frigidaire then; we were too poor. So I set it on top of the ice box and it set there from then on.
``In '58, God called me to start preaching, and I've never looked back.''
Chris Wade, the elder's 38-year-old son, refers to his father's preaching style as ``holy roller.'' The congregation prays out loud individually, simultaneously. Each member is expected to testify and give thanks. And singing - ``which comes from back there in slavery times when it was the only thing black folks could do,'' the elder says - accounts for more than half the service.
Prayer heals, Wade believes, citing as an example his own recovery from cancer 11 years ago, as well as a parishioner who rose from near-death after doctors had given up on him. He prefaces every comment about the future with, ``If the Lord delays his coming back, I'm gonna ... .''
``His mission is to save the neighborhood before it's too late,'' Chris Wade says. ``He doesn't care what you're doing now - as long as you come to church. It's come-as-you-are.''
Adds Linda Henderson: ``You can come even if you ain't got a suit. Because you can't save your suit, but you can save your soul.''
After just one week of church, after two Sunday services and five revival meetings, Wade talks about the impact the Good Shepherd Mission Church of God in Christ has had on the 1300 block of Rorer Avenue.
``I count these children here as being saved, as knowing something about the Lord,'' he says, pointing to four girls in dresses, their hair in braids and barrettes. ``And their mother, I count her,'' he adds, referring to Linda Henderson, Kia Carter's mom and the aunt of the others.
The four girls have been the most regular attendees, performing songs as a group, sharing tambourine duties, passing the plastic collection-plate basket Linda bought at Family Dollar, and counting up the change. (The average collection per nightly service: $8.)
They even learned to get beyond the initial embarrassment of standing up to testify - alone, in front of everyone.
``I thank the Lord for being here today,'' says Lisa Payne, 13, echoing her aunt.
``I thank the Lord for waking me up this morning,'' says Tonya Payne, 10.
``I thank the Lord for bringing me here today,'' says Kia Carter, 8.
``I thank the Lord for waking me up this morning,'' adds Whitney Payne, 7.
Each rises awkwardly, says her sentence as fast as she can, then sits down and looks for approval from Linda, who nods.
No one seems to notice the car stereos thumping by on Rorer Avenue - not even Joe Hairston, whose electric guitar clashes with the stereos' noise.
Joe Dotson, 53, steps out on the porch to talk about Elder Wade and the church.
``I helped with the Sheetrock on th-th-the ceiling,'' he says, stuttering. ``I'm hoping he-he-he'll make a change out of us all, you'll see.
``Yeah, I take a sip,'' he adds, referring to wine. ``But I quit last week. Elder Wade, he prayed for me. . . . I gotta go ba-ba-back in. That's my song.''
Inside, he takes the microphone and belts out flawless, bluesy music: My soul loves Jesus, bless his name. . . .
He doesn't stutter.
When he's finished, he tries to keep the mike so he can sing another song.
Elder Wade tells him it's someone else's turn. ``I pray that God will take the alcohol from his body,'' he tells the congregation of nine. ``A lot of people think drinking and carrying on make you feel good, but that only lasts a season. When God saves you, you feel good for an eternity.''
When it's Dotson's turn to testify, he says, ``I ho-ho-hope the good Lord will look out for me.'' Then he tries to take the microphone back from Hairston to sing.
Again, Elder Wade intervenes.
``I told Joe to come just as he was,'' he tells the group. ``I told him, whatever he'd had, to come on.''
Finally Dotson sits down just as Hairston begins to sing. Free at last. . . Thank God I'm free at last.
Dotson sways back and forth on the folding chair, humming in harmony.
A few weeks ago, Wade ran into a potential convert: a young black man who'd recently accepted his first job.
``This young fellow, he was complaining because it only paid $5 an hour,'' Wade recalls. ``Well, I told him I got my first job on the railroad paying 45 cents an hour. . . .
``In the last 20 years the black man has gotten to the place where all he wants is fast money, all he wants is big money. That crack money, that's what he wants, and it's messing him up.''
While Wade's ultimate goal is to reach the young blacks in his neighborhood, the fact that the 1300 block of Rorer Avenue is one of the most racially diverse in Roanoke's city limits hasn't escaped his attention, either. ``I aim to deal with them, the whites in the neighborhood, the Asians. We had two whites here Thursday night.
``See, most churches here are still segregated. The biggest segregation you'll find here in Roanoke is on Sunday morning. And it ought to be torn down, just like that wall over there in Berlin.''
Wade knows he's headed down a blind alley. He knows he might get stuck with the $5,000 loan he took out to buy the house at 1306 Rorer when it came up for sale last year, plus the $2,000 he borrowed for initial repairs.
He doesn't envision anything fancy, but the church could use a coat of white paint and some glass to replace the boarded-up windows upstairs. Used-clothing donations could come in handy for the mission's plan to help clothe the needy.
``A small, used piano for Chris to play, that would be good,'' he says, wiping the dust off his trifocals. ``And maybe some more carpets.''
A few days later, after his second Sunday School service, he mentions that half of his folding chairs are gone. ``We borrowed them from the funeral home down in Bedford, and they needed them back. . . . So maybe we could use some folding chairs, too.''
As the elder leaves to drive to Bedford to preach, the four girls decide to draw pictures - to tape over the cracks in the walls - and clean the upstairs to surprise Elder Wade.
Kia Carter, the 8-year-old, writes down two slogans on her piece of drawing paper.
``Say No to Drugs,'' she pencils in wobbly cursive letters. And then below it:
``Sex is YUK.''
Where others see four walls full of cracks and holes, Elder Wade sees a Sunday School classroom full of kids learning Scripture and singing hymns.
Where others see a neighborhood full of old alcoholics and young crack dealers, Elder Wade sees the potential of the human spirit.
``People are laughing at me, I know it, but the Lord put this on my heart,'' he says. ``He's pressed me to do this.
``And I know it's gonna take time. Because like I say, people are set in their ways. They think things they're doing are all right. But it's just like fishing: You gotta try all different kind of baits.
``Jesus told Peter - from now on, you gonna be the fisher of men. And me, I'm the same way, I guess. I try to be a fisher of men.''
Before a recent Thursday night service, though, Wade looks weary. With just the four girls there for service, he seems defeated by the low turnout. He talks about the struggles of the past week:
Joe Dotson came recently without a hint of wine on his breath. ``I believe we're helping old Joe,'' Wade says. ``We just need to get his soul saved so in eternity he can finally have some peace.''
He talks about a man who'd helped him with initial renovations. Church member Freddie Fralin gave the man some clothes to wear to church, but so far he hasn't shown for service.
He talks about a wheelchair-bound man who'd come the week before so Wade could pray for him to walk. ``We're trying to build up his faith and exorcise the devil out of him,'' Wade says. ``We haven't got his faith up yet, but he's coming along.''
He talks about the people who no longer sit on the front porch of the church and drink wine. ``I guess they're respecting it some, but I still keep an eye out.''
A half-hour after the 7:30 scheduled starting time, he steps up to the pulpit in his black pants, T-shirt and tennis shoes. The four girls are there, Bibles and tambourine in hand. As they begin to sing a cappella, Linda Henderson arrives, along with the elder's son, Chris, who accompanies the girls on electronic keyboard.
Just six people show up for the twelfth service of the Good Shepherd Mission Church of God in Christ. Elder Samuel A. Wade doesn't seem to notice the empty folding chairs.
Standing tall beneath the bare light bulb, Wade shifts his weight with each sentence. The floor creaks in rhythm with him as he preaches in his loud, commanding voice.
``I want you to move up and down this avenue tonight, Lord, in the name of Jesus.
``Look over Rorer Avenue tonight, Lord, in the name of Jesus.
``These people are down in the streets, Lord, bring them to me, I say, in the name of Jesus.
``Bring them to me tonight, Lord, in the name of Jesus. . . .''
The Good Shepherd Mission Church of God in Christ, 1306 Rorer Ave., S.W., meets Sundays at 10 a.m. for Sunday School, 11:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. for services. Tuesday and Thursday prayer meetings are held at 7:30 p.m. Call 344-5642 for more information.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB