By Rita McInerney

Hispanics living along the Buford Highway corridor, far away from native countries and families, now have a permanent church of their own.

The new Mision Catolica de Nuestra Senora de las Americas at 5918 New Peachtree Road, Doraville, is a house of God that welcomes them. Here also they find support for the needs basic to lonely, frightened and penniless newcomers.

A mission of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 2855 Briarcliff Road, the church in a warehouse formerly owned by an electrical contractor, will be dedicated by Archbishop James P. Lyke, OFM, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas.

During the Liturgy the archbishop will ordain Alvaro Avendaño as a transitional deacon. A seminarian from Medellin, Colombia, in Atlanta about 18 months, Avendaño is pastoral associate at the mission. Father Richard Kieran, pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary and the mission, said his congregation at the mission is a mixed group of Hispanics, mostly Mexican, along with people from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Columbia.

They are day laborers, workers on construction jobs, in factories and restaurants. Some among the mission members have been here longer and are already established, Father Kieran said.

“We can put 400 in the sanctuary,” the priest said. “We are getting close to filling it on the average Sunday.”

The renovation of the large warehouse was designed by Jerry Deckbar, an architect and member of IHM. The worship area is a high-ceilinged space 50 by 80 feet, in design more high tech than Gothic. Walls have been painted a soft blue with darker woodwork trim. White fabric panels soften the walls. The raised sanctuary on the long exterior wall is furnished with a light wood altar and chairs donated from other parishes’ surplus. The altar is carpeted in a warm beige and the concrete floors of the sanctuary are painted grey. A variety of benches and folding chairs, also contributed by metropolitan parishes, almost fill the large space.

The mission, while officially affiliated with IHM, has no geographic boundaries and serves all Hispanics in the Buford Highway area, the neighborhood seeing the most rapid growth of people from Mexico and Central America, according to Father Kieran. Three neighboring parishes, Our Lady of the Assumption, Holy Cross and All Saints, “have committed to help with the budget,” the priest said.

The people of the mission, “are generous according to their means.”

“The people who come here have a sense of it being their home,” the priest said. “Far from their native land, far from their family, it feels like a home away from home.”

Baptisms are frequent, First Communion has been celebrated and children are being prepared for Confirmation.

“We try and provide all the services” of a parish, Father Kieran said. This is being accomplished with an increasing number of volunteers from the congregation. There is a “functioning” pastoral council in process.

An active youth group led by Alvaro Avendaño for high school age and beyond, meets Wednesday evening. There is a social service outreach. “We do a lot of trying to assist,” the pastor said, with clothing, food and direction to available jobs and housing.

There is health care available three nights each month at the nearby Hispanic Services Clinic of St. Joseph’s Hospital; classes in English as a second language and instruction to help newcomers pass the Georgia driving test.

Grace Saldana, as administrative assistant, “keeps everything going,” Father Kieran said. Sister Micaela Chavez, a Franciscan sister from Mexico, teaches religious education. There is a “big dependency” on volunteers.

Mrs. Saldana fills the shelves of the food pantry with purchases from the Atlanta Food Bank and from donations. Most needed, she pointed out, are rice, beans, milk, meats, and over-the-counter medicines.

A big room right inside the church entrance to the mission holds donated clothes and furniture urgently needed by new members of the congregation. In-demand items here are baby clothes and cribs, according to Mrs. Saldana. Both the food pantry and the furniture and clothing room are open Tuesday and Thursday. For new arrivals in need of food and heavier clothing, it would be open on an emergency basis, she said.

Another service illustrates the completeness of the mission. There is soap and a shower in the men’s room for newly arrived who have to sleep in cars and lack facilities to freshen up before hunting work.

Plans for the near future include support group for abused women, counseling services, and an Alcoholics Anonymous group.

Mrs. Saldana worked part-time at Catholic Services, both in the immigration and legalization services and Hispanic office, to familiarize herself with the process required and help available for aliens.

“Everyone who comes in here and sees the necessities of another human being gets hooked and they want to help,” Mrs. Saldana said. One way of helping, she suggested, would be for people to donate a copier and computer to facilitate work for the mission office.

The Hispanic mission history goes back several years in the archdiocese.

“Father Jorge got it up and running,” Father Kieran said of Father Jorge Christancho’s role in starting the mission in the Chamblee storefront in the late 1980s. When Archbishop Eugene Marino, SSJ, came to celebrate Mass for an overflow community he decided a larger “church” was needed.

This turned out to be another large warehouse, unfortunately soon declared unsafe by Chamblee City authorities because of its being in the way of the takeoff and landing of planes from the DeKalb Peachtree Airport. Here for a time, Father Kieran said, Mass was celebrated in the parking lot.

Gonzalo Saldana, director of the archdiocesan Hispanic Apostolate, located the new building which was purchased and renovated at a cost of $500,000.

“This kind of initiative in the midst of where the people are” was among recommendations of the Third National Hispanic Pastoral Encuento in 1985, according to Father Kieran.

“The people of the archdiocese made it happen for some of the neediest, “ he said.