There’s yearning in Fannie Dean’s voice as she walks the halls of her unfinished church and talks about her mission to complete it.

“I’ve been walking this building for so long,” Dean said last week.

Started in 2009, the church is littered with sawdust, construction equipment and unsecured flooring tiles.

And while it’s complete in the sense that it has doors, windows and walls, the church has a long way to go before it can hold a congregation.

After 40 years in the Oak Harbor community, Dean said she has faith that this year, 2015, is the year they will finally finish their church.

Dean also celebrated her 60th birthday Monday.

“You’ll see, it’s gonna be a celebration when we get in here,” said Dean, pastor of Mission Ministry Outreach, standing in the church’s vaulted meeting room.

Known primarily for organizing the annual Martin Luther King Jr., celebration at the mission’s Goldie Road location, Dean has spent her life in Oak Harbor building a religious community and trying to further the cause of racial equality.

The church, along with the city’s race relations, both can use some work, according to Dean.

“It’s still a project,” Dean said. “I know we can get it done.

“People keep telling me, ‘Pastor Dean, don’t give up.’ ”

The finished church will not only be an important landmark for the Oak Harbor community, but also a culmination of Dean’s life’s work.

In honor of Black History Month, Dean received an award Sunday from the Minority Business Alliance for her work on the MLK Day celebration. She was awarded alongside longtime friend Joyce Fox, one of the first black teachers and assistant principals at Oak Harbor schools.

A resident of Oak Harbor since 1966, Fox said she was likely one of the first people that Dean met when she arrived in 1974.

Even back then, Fox said, “I knew she was a go-getter.”

Today, Dean’s church needs approximately $80,000 to complete construction, including the parking lot, fire alarm and other features needed to begin using it for worship.

Fox said that anyone who knows Dean can see that she won’t stop until its complete.

“It’s going to show that determination and hard work can pay off,” Fox said. “I want to see it done, and I think it’s needed.”

“People who have tried to discourage her will see that her spirit of determination will prevail.”

Dean is a fan of audible worship as simple as a loud “amen” to a call-and-repeat gospel song.

This brand of worship can be a raucous, foot-stomping, song-filled service that allows attendees to “let the spirit of the Lord lead them.”

While some might liken Dean’s style to Southern Baptist religious services, she says “its similar but totally different.”

Dean said her primarily black congregation is also primarily military personnel and their families hailing from all over the country. Some come because they are seeking the same gospel-style worship they were accustomed to back home. Others are seeking something different.

“You get people who never get excited about church,” Dean said. “They say, ‘I feel something taking place in my life.’ Some have gone on to do greater work (in the faith community). It’s just amazing when I see that.”

This type of worship is not for everyone, Dean said.

“People don’t understand that when we sing, we just gotta keep rolling,” Dean said, a practice that can include shouting and speaking in tongues. “We do it up. We let it go.”

“If people from home saw me now, they would think I was crazy,” Dean said.

The church community has greatly expanded since Dean’s first arrival to include a variety of faiths and as many as five black pastors.

Dean’s voice seems to fill a needed niche in the Oak Harbor faith community.

Dean said she thought she would be back in Georgia by now.

Instead, she created a place that is one of five worship spaces for Oak Harbor’s black community.

When she first moved here in 1974, there were no black pastors, she said.

But, over 40 years, Dean’s efforts have contributed to the local racial landscape.

“She’s definitely been monumental for the African- American community,” said friend and congregant Amanda Refuge.

“The organizing she has done for the MLK celebration, she’s making sure we keep the history alive.”

After a black pastor finally started a gospel-style congregation in the 1980s, Dean was emboldened to be ordained in 1989 and started Mission Ministry Outreach in 1990.

“Everyone was excited to be able to get some noise,” Dean said. “We were finally able to sing like we like to sing … to let loose.”

Dean started her church in the strip mall where the movie theater resides and later landed in the current location on Goldie Road in 2004. Through donations, the church was able to purchase the land, build their current fellowship hall and begin construction on the spacious, unfinished church next door.

Her path has not been without its obstacles.

Sitting empty, the building is periodically burglarized and vandalized, Dean said.

Delayed construction and permitting issues with the City of Oak Harbor has also made completion difficult.

Among her non-religious contributions is being one of the longest-standing black business women in the city, owning her own thrift store on Goldie Road for 25 years.

When police raided a methamphetamine lab in a nearby office, she was forced to close the thrift store.

“That was one of my biggest heart-breakers,” Dean said.

She started Whidbey Taxi in 2001, a business she still operates.

“She has worked with all types of people and crossed all economic borders,” said Jim Slowik, a former Oak Harbor mayor whose children attended school with Dean’s kids.

“She has the love of God in her heart, and she wants to give that to all people. That’s what everyone sees in her.”

While many strides have been made, Dean said that in some ways it seems like racial relations have gotten worse on a national level and there is definitely work still to do.

She hopes that her annual MLK service, her religious community and eventually her completed church will be a way to continue to bridge gaps and bring people together locally.

In efforts to finish their church, Mission Ministry Outreach will be selling name plaques to be included in the final stonework of the church. Cash or check donations can also be made.

For more information or to make donations, visit www.fanniedean.com