Church finds a mission in front yard:
Brunswick congregation adapts emphasis
toward helping poor residents
of former industrial area

Last modified Sun., February 22, 2004 - 01:23 AM
Originally created Sunday, February 22, 2004

By TERRY DICKSON
The Times-Union

BRUNSWICK -- Many churches send missionaries to Africa and Central America to feed the poor and spread the Gospel.

The Rev. Dee Shaffer can look out the front door of Arco United Methodist Church and see the mission field.

The once-thriving church sits in the middle of what was a factory community for the old Arco refinery. The cypress and heart pine houses to the west housed the managers. The concrete block homes to the east sheltered workers' families.

But Arco is long gone, replaced in order by a paint company and two chemical companies. The most recent workers left two years ago wearing white paper suits to protect them from the mercury, PCBs and other contaminants as they cleaned up a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site.

A week ago, Shaffer drove her 1993 Buick Roadmaster station wagon past faded houses with empty windows and then a trailer park.

"These people aren't represented. They're transients,'' she said of the few people who live in the old houses.

They don't vote, they don't own businesses and, to some, they don't matter.

But they matter to Shaffer and her congregation. In fact, her Roadmaster was loaded with spaghetti lunches. They weren't for the residents but were instead sold to workers at the nearby Georgia-Pacific pulp mill to raise funds to benefit the church's neighbors and the homeless.

The church is changing its emphasis to become a missionary church and convert some of its unused Sunday school rooms to headquarters for the Sparrow's Nest and Family Promise. Sparrow's Nest is a consortium of churches that provides food and other needs for the homeless. Once Family Promise is operating, homeless children will come to Arco Methodist for day care while their parents go off to work. Those families will sleep in area churches until they establish homes of their own.

Arco Methodist also has plans for a Sunday morning feeding program for people in the community.

The need is there, Shaffer said of the community named after the oil company.

"Anytime we have a wedding or a funeral, they come over, even if they don't know anybody, just to get some food,'' she said.

Few of the church's 85 members live nearby but they once did.

"The people who come here now grew up in the neighborhood, but they were pushed out. They come here to church and they go home,'' Shaffer said.

Arco members are changing their mind-sets from seeking members to providing a center for some pretty intense service, Shaffer said.

Annette Bell, who was eating a spaghetti lunch with her family in the fellowship hall, agreed it's the right course for the church.

"I think it's the best thing we could do because that's what God wants us to do, get out and serve other people,'' she said.

With only 85 members and a need for 80 volunteers, the numbers appear to run against success, but Schaffer said other churches of all denominations are helping. A restaurant owner will help train volunteers to cook and serve the Sunday morning meals and building contractors visited the church Wednesday to provide estimates on repairs and renovations.

"We've got more volunteers than we have needy,'' she said.

Most of those cooking the spaghetti and meat sauce and preparing the plates were retirees from other churches. Her members were at their jobs and would be there for the evening meal, she said.

The change in the church's mind-set is far less a leap of faith than Shaffer's.

"I moved here from New York,'' Shaffer said as she steered her station wagon through Arco. "I was a writer/director of TV commercials, documentaries and training films. I was doing all right.''

She did Dial soap, Cheerios and other commercials, including some that didn't make it past the focus group, she said.

Her husband, Mike, is still in advertising. They and their children, 14-year-old Patrick and 11-year-old Kate, live in a former parsonage at the Epworth-by-the-Sea Methodist center on St. Simons Island.

The call to the ministry came in 1993, but she didn't heed it until 1999.

"I couldn't imagine why God wanted me. I thought when I told anybody, they'd burst out laughing. Nobody did,'' she said.

And she is taken seriously now as she and Arco Methodist reach out to help.

The church's reach goes beyond food and shelter. Arco Methodist has hosted community meetings with nearby residents and property owners worried about contamination from LCP Chemicals, the last occupant of the former Arco refinery, which dumped mercury, PCBs and other contaminants.

"She's supportive of our efforts to involve the community in the decision-making process,'' said Daniel Parshley, project manager for the coalition. "We're working with Dee to explore ways of restoring the old Arco neighborhood.''

Shaffer is working with residents to secure loans to repair their homes, but banks don't want to touch the property, said Frank Lea, president of the coalition.

"That Arco areas is tough. They just don't want to deal with that area,'' because of the possibility the land itself could be worthless because of contamination, Lea said.

For her part, Shaffer can't understand why the yards just across the company fence line weren't tested for contamination. The EPA has agreed it should have been done earlier and will take samples and provide results for a public health assessment.

Many people have simply written off Arco and seem content to let it continue to decline, but Shaffer wants to save it, Lea said.

Although the government moves slowly, Shaffer does not, especially when it comes to the church itself. She arranged a meeting Wednesday with Joe Newton, director of the Sparrow's Nest, Walter Barton, who is on the board of directors of Sparrow's Nest and Family Promise, and contractors Tommy Dixon and Buddy Thomas.

Dixon will work on the heating and air conditioning to establish a Sparrow's Nest office and a day center for Family Promise. Thomas, who has plenty of commercial and residential projects under way, will donate his time to finish the job.

They toured the now unused portions of a once-bustling education wing and talked about adding showers, doors and replacing ceilings.

"I still haven't found anyone who will be generous with plumbing work,'' she said.

The important thing is that Arco Methodist will provide an opportunity for its own members and those of other churches to really work, Shaffer said.

Writing a check is wonderful, Schaffer said, but "It's such a great feeling when you actually hand them the food.''

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