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» HAS Newsroom
Houston Airport System
March 28, 2007
Go. Find. Seek. And do.
At 78 year of age, Alma Houston has lived a lifetime spreading the “Lord’s good word.” Calm and collected, she is among the most respected elders at her church – the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Southeast Houston.
When she speaks, with that old-fashioned flare and authority, people just have a tendency to want sit down and listen. Most of the time her words are about the scripture, but every now and again they shift and tell the tale of a religious society deeply embedded in the heart of Houston.
The former lead chair of the Macedonia missionary society is, after all, one of the founding members of the church.
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© Houston Airport System
From top. The church based at Ellington Air Force Base. Houston (second from left on top row). The church divided into six pieces. Daniels remembering old times.
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Along the entrance of this place of worship, a younger, more energetic Houston, stands greeting all who step foot inside.
Her picture is the one next to the church building split into six different pieces.
“They had to cut the church into six parts to bring it across the Houston Ship Channel,” she says matter-of-factly when asked about the bizarre-looking image.
The fact is before moving to its new location, near the Port of Houston in 1954, the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church was a place of worship for military personnel based out of Ellington Field.
Sunday service and holy sacraments were a part of life at what was then only known as Ellington Air Force Base. A far cry from the Ellington Field of today, the air force base then was home to hundreds of active duty personnel who flew in and out of the Houston area during World War II.
Prior to 1940, the military base had been closed for a decade after it was razed by fire in 1930. During those 10 years the air field was little more than a grazing site for cattle – but the urgency of a Second World War brought the fourth revival of this strategic military asset.
Ellington Field had already been closed and revived three different times before it reopened as a full-scale training base for aviators and bombardiers in 1940. Deacon Hubert Daniels remembers those times well. He was a tool dispatcher and parachute outfitter at the military base during the 1940s, as well as a member of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church.
“It was a really active (air force base) at one time,” he recalls. “During the 40’s – ‘41, ‘42 and ‘45 – they had barracks, housing and all that stuff.”
They also had religious sanctuaries; up to three different ones at one point, according to historical records of the 90-year-old airport.
Daniels, who is still now a member of the Macedonia Church, says he remembers prepping up to 250 parachutes at a time during busy weekends at the air force base. |
The building that he helped purchase for his congregation at that point could seat up to 273 members of the armed forces for Sunday service. Built in 1943, the chapel was put up for sale in 1954 after restructuring changes took effect at the air force base.
“We were in the market for a new building to the replace the old one we had been using,” Daniels, now 80, explains. “We already had the property here. We just needed the building. The church we had been using was no longer big enough for the members we had.”
Unable to move the 3,737 square-foot building themselves, the congregation hired a contractor to do the job.
“This was a black contractor and this was the biggest job he had ever encountered,” Daniels laughs. “He couldn’t get it over the Houston Ship Channel in one piece so he brought it over one piece at a time.”
It would be six months before the newly-renovated Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church would offer its first mass inside the new building. Since then, it has truly become a part of the neighborhood.
“The church has really been good to this community,” Daniels notes. “We are like a big family here.”
Houston says the membership has increased by more than 50 percent since the new building was put back together. Today, 500 active members of the church fill the still-original-pews each week for Sunday mass.
For Houston, this growth is a testament of the power of faith.
“The church is about saving souls. That is our main goal – getting people to know the Lord,” she says. “Go, find, seek and do – that is what we do.”
Copyright © 2007 - Houston Airport System
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