Two new Oregon church families joined the Hispanic Adventist community in December and January.
Monitor Spanish became a company on Dec. 8, 2007, with Ivan Cruz as their pastor. Woodburn Spanish sent about 15 members to Monitor in February 2007 to start a church reaching out to Hispanic residents in the farming community. About 10 people have been baptized since then. Complete with a bell tower, the Monitor church building is one of the oldest in the conference.
On Jan. 5 more than 130 people attended the opening service for the new Beaverton Spanish church plant. Don Livesay, conference president, and Al Reimche, vice president for administration, encouraged members to persevere. Roger Hernandez, conference Hispanic coordinator and interim pastor, gave a captivating sermon, followed by a call. More than 25 non-Adventists came forward.
Beaverton Spanish meets at the Aloha United Methodist Church. The plant has more than 20 members from Portland Spanish and about 70 from Hillsboro Spanish. Hillsboro Spanish was holding two church services each Sabbath, and parking was becoming hard to find. Many members were traveling from Beaverton to attend so it made sense to plant a church in the Beaverton area.
The Beaverton Spanish group started a month-long evangelistic series, one of five series they plan on doing in the next seven months. Their goal is to bring in 70 new members.