Bishop Wayne Powell: The Man Behind the "Amigo" Award

by Harold Wolfson

(October 31, 2007) In recent years, the Strait Gate Church and its leader, Bishop Wayne Powell, attracted little attention in the Mamaroneck/Larchmont area.

But that came to an abrupt halt in June when Bishop Powell brushed off anonymity and announced that his church would provide a home to the area’s displaced day laborers, some 17 months after the traditional site in Columbus Park was shut down by the Village of Mamaroneck.

In recognition of this, Bishop Powell will be honored by the Hispanic Resource Center (HRC) with its “Amigo Award” at its annual gala, held this year at the Hampshire Country Club. (See: "Amigo" Award Will Go To Bishop Powell at HRC Gala Nov 8.) But there's a lot more to Bishop Powell's history than even his recent community contributions hint at.

Fun & Mischief at Mamaroneck High

For a minister who believes his primary mission is to help others, Bishop Powell had a somewhat unusual adolescence. Contrary to what one would expect from the son and grandson of ministers, he calls his teen years in Mamaroneck “a period of lots of fun and laughs and some mischief too.”

“We didn’t do anything so awful,” he said. “But we sure had a lot of fun.”

Bishop Powell remembers Mamaroneck High School athletics fondly and with some pride. He was a star point guard on the varsity basketball team, which in his senior year, 1970, had a record of 14 wins and 2 losses under Coach Jim Codispoti. He also was on the wrestling team and achieved what appears to be a school record in pinning an opponent in 20 seconds.

“I was a pretty average student and might not have gone on to college despite my parents’ wishes,” he said. “But our principal, Lilian Caprice, and my history teacher, Joseph Biscoglio, thought I was basically smart and took me under their wing and got me to do some studying.”

He went on to Wabash College in Indiana and later to the College of New Rochelle.

Stepping into His Father's Role

Life took a serious turn when his father died in 1984 after contracting a parasitic disease while doing missionary work in Africa.

The Strait Gait congregation asked him to take on his father’s role as its spiritual leader, and he agreed. “It wasn’t easy,” Bishop Powell remembers. “They were always comparing me to my father and the way my dad did things. It took ten years until I could consider the congregation mine.”

He said he received a lot of help from the community. In particular, he remembers learning managerial and financial techniques from Maury Medwick, an architect associated with the Larchmont Temple, and Richard Manchon, the owner of the Pure Foods Company. Manny Lerman owned the church’s parking lot property and allowed the congregation to continue using it, ultimately selling it to the church under favorable terms.

“The church has had a lot of community help from the very beginning,” he said. “Washingtonville was always a very warm and close neighborhood. Everyone knew everyone else. Italian workers helped my grandfather, Elder John Brown, build the very first church structure.”

Giving Back to the Community

The congregation is no newcomer to good works. In the 1970s it established one of the first homeless shelters in the area, controversial at the time. It has housed within its walls a Spanish Church, a Brazilian Church and a messianic Jewish congregation. It established a school for underserved children in the Dominican Republic. Last year Bishop Powell traveled with Bishop T.D. Jakes and a party of physicians and ministers to parched Kenya, Africa to help dig wells and provide medical care for the nomadic Masai tribe. And for the past 15 years Bishop Powell has served as chaplain to the Mamaroneck Village Police and Fire Departments.

Services at the church reflect Bishop Powell’s concern for his individual parishioners. “What good does it do to follow religious dogma if we don’t love our fellow man,” he said. His largely African-American congregation of 1300 families includes many who suffer from open and subtle discrimination and putdowns. “In some ways it’s better than it used to be, but in some ways worse,” said Bishop Powell.

People come to services wounded, he said. “My job is to structure a service that edifies, comforts and encourages. People come here worn down and depleted. We want them to leave refreshed and encouraged. We have thoughtful, energizing sermons and good gospel music. We believe in people holding hands and sharing lots of hugs.”

The Church attracts congregants from all over Westchester County and as far away as New Haven, Connecticut. and Irvington, New Jersey. Bishop Powell is quite well known in national evangelical circles as a powerful and inspiring speaker and has been a popular guest preacher in churches across the country and abroad.

Spring Floods and Other Problems

Spring floods descended on the church a month before it began working with HRC to open the day laborer center. “We were badly hurt,” Bishop Powell said. Damage is estimated at close to $300,000. The lower level, which houses classrooms, stored musical instruments and other articles, was completely flooded. Water ran throughout the main floor, ruining carpeting, some walls, and an elaborate sound system.

“We’re in a period of transition,” said Bishop Powell. “Our normal services, classes and programs are near a standstill. It will be a while till we’re back to normal.” He said it was reassuring at this time, however, to see the new “ Worker Center” beginning to catch on despite the periodic presence of protesters. On the day of this interview, twenty Hispanic and African-American workers showed up at the Center and ten got jobs. Concurrently, a group of ten immigrant women participated in an English class under the direction of HRC’s site manager Marissa Senteno. No protesters showed up this day.

Bishop Powell was asked why, in the face of substantial criticism, he was willing to sponsor a day laborer center. He answered, “How could we set up a school for kids in Santa Domingo and not help their brothers and sisters living across the street?”

Bishop Powell acknowledged that he grew up with and is friendly with some of the community leaders who caused the shutdown of the Columbus Park site. He was asked whether setting up the new center caused a chill in those relations. “Not really,” he said. “We all know each other pretty well. They know we just don’t agree on this at this time. We’re still neighbors. Maybe, subconsciously, some of them are beginning to think as Martin Luther King Jr. often did, on a more universal level, ‘If we don’t learn to live together as brothers, we’ll perish as foes.’”

Harold Wolfson is a member of the board of directors for the Hispanic Resource Center.

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