A sanctuary all their own for Easter

After all, Smith and her fellow parishioners at Woodinville's Blessed Teresa of Calcutta have worshipped in a junior high school under posters of Ichiro and Shrek and in a barn amid the whinnying of nearby horses.

The important thing to Smith is that this relatively new Roman Catholic congregation will finally celebrate Easter together in a space of its own — even if it is at a truck-driving school.

Today, millions of Christians worldwide celebrate Easter, the day they believe Jesus rose from the dead. It's a time of renewal and hope.

For the 330 families at Blessed Teresa, this Easter will indeed be a celebration of renewal. After years of having to set up and take down their worship space each weekend in various places, they have transformed the driving school's unused warehouse into a beautiful sanctuary that's theirs full-time.

They're also coming to terms with a somewhat new identity. Their founding pastor was reassigned to another parish in July, and their Hispanic members — about a third of the congregation — relocated to a larger church in Bothell.

"I think it was tough to go through these transitions," Smith said.

For years, Woodinville had no Catholic church, so local Catholics worshipped at churches in Bothell, Duvall and Redmond.

But between 2000-06, the population in the greater Woodinville area grew about 13 percent, and the Catholic population grew at about the same rate, according to Mary Beth Celio, director of research for the Seattle Archdiocese.

About 15 percent of Catholics there are Hispanic.

In 2004, the archdiocese appointed the Very Rev. K. Scott Connolly to start a parish in Woodinville. Connolly went to other churches in the area to see who was interested in joining.

The newly formed group's first Mass that November — which attracted 800 people — was held in a barn on about 10 acres the archdiocese had purchased from a former riding school.

For much of the first several years, the congregation's offices were located in the barn, and weekend Masses were held first at a nearby Lutheran church and then in the cafeteria of a junior high school.

But last July, the school district informed the parish it could no longer meet there. A parishioner remembered he knew the owner of Check Ride truck-driving school. At first, people had doubts. The building was an industrial warehouse. It wasn't warm or church-like.

Then they began to see possibilities: What if they tore down some walls, painted others and insulated the ceiling?

The archdiocese stepped in with a loan for the half-million-dollar renovation, waiving part of the interest.

Parishioners bought or borrowed furnishings and artwork from around the archdiocese and other places.

The pews came from out of storage at St. Bernadette Church in Burien. The Stations of the Cross plaques had survived a 1992 fire at Seattle's St. James Cathedral; the three stations that didn't make it were replaced at Blessed Teresa by framed photos of parishioners doing service work.

Statues of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and Jesus came from Kaufer's Religious Supplies store in Seattle and a similar store in Wisconsin.

A parishioner built the maple altar, pulpit and large cross hanging in front.

To Smith, who also serves as parish administrator, the mismatched pieces are meaningful.

"You can fill a space with all brand-new things," she said. But "when you bring in something that is old or that belongs to others in the archdiocese, it really draws in the connection that we are all part of one big family."

Parishioner Kathy Grabicki remembers standing in the back of the renovated sanctuary, watching her husband help raise the cross.

"We could not believe the transition," she said. "You can really feel God here, you know?"

Facing challenges

The congregation has overcome other challenges.

In July, members grieved when the archdiocese assigned the bilingual Connolly to Church of the Assumption in Bellingham, where there was great need for a Spanish-speaking priest to serve a growing Hispanic population.

The Rev. Frank Schuster, who is learning Spanish but isn't yet bilingual, came from Assumption to become pastor of Blessed Teresa.

They also lost about a third of their congregation when most of their Spanish-speaking members moved to St. Brendan Church in Bothell, where there are more bilingual staff and Spanish-language resources.

But what they haven't lost, they say, is their sense of what's important to their community: living the example of their patron, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Parishioners have served meals at a tent-city encampment. They helped clean up and rebuild after the December floods in Southwest Washington, and they did the same before in post-Katrina Mississippi. They've raised money for mosquito nets and to support orphans in Kenya.

Now they're looking forward, getting to know and appreciate their new pastor, working toward getting 1,000 families at Blessed Teresa within the next few years and developing plans to build a permanent church.

"We're an Easter people," Schuster said. "We're people focused on the hope of the resurrection, on a future full of hope."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com