José Luis Pérez got up one morning several years ago while he and his family were living in Brewster, Wash. After breakfast and feeling very sleepy he took a short nap. While sleeping he had a dream in which a voice spoke to him. “José! José!” the voice said, “You must tell the people that I am coming very soon.”
In his dream he saw a bright city with a rainbow over it in the clouds. José said, “I want to stay here, I don’t want to go back.” The voice said, “It is not time yet. You must tell the people that I love them.”
About three years ago, José and his wife Miriam traveled to Mattawa, Wash., to interview for a management job at a mobile home park there. Located in an agricultural area on the Columbia River, Mattawa is unique, since about 98 percent of the residents are Hispanic.
They knocked on the door and before they could even say "hello," the owner said, “OK, you’ve got the job.” José feels that God was guiding them to Mattawa and has a purpose for them there.
While there, José drove around looking for an Adventist church. Not finding one, he vowed to start one. When they moved there they found two other Adventist families, Gabriel and María Muñoz and Laureano and Silvia Barajas. These couples are partners in a bakery and restaurant which everyone in the town knows is closed on Saturday.
From this small nucleus of active believers, support for a church in Mattawa was born. Bible studies soon followed, and an evangelistic series was held. They began meeting as a group in May 2003, and in February 2004, they were organized into a company. Today they have 45 members with more than 60 people attending each Sabbath.
The goal of this church is to extend the gospel to everyone in Mattawa. The problem they face now is finding a building in town where the townspeople can walk to church.
The lack of a baptistry in their rented church cannot stop a baptism. Calixto Ruiz, Mattawa pastor, baptizes Yanet Hernandez in a portable bapistry made out of plywood and lined with a plastic tarp.
Led by their first elder, Jose Luis Perez, and pastor, Calixto Ruiz, the Mattawa Spanish Company is an active and growing new church.
