New Fatima Center opens
Father Daniel Dufner smiles as he cuts the ribbon to the new Fatima Center, located at 210 N. Dale Road, Moses Lake.
REBECCA PETTINGILL/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
The layout of the new center is similar to the layout of the building it replaced and offers spaces for the congregation to meet such as a great room.
The open house featured booths highlighting various ministry groups within the parish including choir, a soup kitchen and rosary makers – among others.
Father Daniel Dufner spoke with attendees of the open house.
MOSES LAKE — Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for its new Fatima Center on Sunday at 210 N. Dale Road in Moses Lake.
“We kept the same footprint as the old one, pretty close, this is a little bit longer, but other than that everything is the same,” said Jerry Moncada Sr.
Moncada said the project started about two and a half years ago, right before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were going to remodel but we found as we were tearing it down that it would be impossible to remodel it,” Moncada said.
The new 18,200-square-foot building sports nine classrooms, a commercial-grade kitchen, bathrooms with showers and a great room.
“This is kind of the payoff for the collective leap of faith we had to take,” said Father Daniel Dufner, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Parish.
He explained that they were at a crucial point in their projects when the pandemic started.
“So we took the leap of faith, once we realized it was more affordable to do a demolition and new build, to do that not knowing how long things were going to be shut down or slowed down with covid,” he said. “So, in terms of getting things going as a parish, as a big community, there's a more intense slow down and longer slow down for us on account of we didn't have a very important facility that we used to have.”
Dufner said he appreciates the faith, patience and creativity of his parish and the community while the building was completed.
The new facility will allow the parish and community to continue programs, ministries and events at the building like they had before the demolition and open them up for more with the new additions to the facility, church members said.
Organizers of the soup kitchen said they are waiting on the health department to approve their application before they are able to resume serving food. They expect it to be done by February or March.
The open house had booths for some of those groups to do outreach and bring awareness of their availability to attendees. Some of those programs that had booths include adult choir, children of Fatima preschool, soup kitchen, funeral luncheon, altar services, rosary makers, prayer group and book study.
“We’re going to be able to do the sorts of things that we did before, not just religious instruction, but the retreats, the receptions, the soup kitchen,” said Dufner.
Rebecca Pettingill may be reached at rpettingill@columbiabasinherald.com.
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church
Web: olf.church
200 N. Dale Road
Moses Lake
509-765-6729
Regularly scheduled masses:
English:
Monday: 8 a.m. Communion service
Tuesday – Thursday: 8 a.m.
Friday: 7 a.m.
Weekdays in Lent 7 a.m.
Spanish:
Thursday: 7:00 p.m. (Winter 6 p.m.)
Saturday Vigil:
English: 5:30 p.m. Spanish 7:30 p.m.
Sunday:
English 8:30 a.m. Spanish 11:30 a.m.
1st Friday
6 p.m. Spanish
1st Saturday
Rosary 7:30 a.m., Holy Mass 8 a.m. followed by 15 minutes meditation
Reconciliation:
Tuesdays: 6–7:50 p.m.
Saturday: 4–5 p.m. or by appointment
Adoration:
Tuesday: 4–8 p.m.
Thursday: 12–4 p.m.
