MOSES LAKE — The former church building at Third Avenue and Elm Street is once again a house of worship, as the Moses Lake Islamic Center.
“In Central Washington state there (were) only three mosques, in Yakima, Tri-Cities and Spokane,” said Abdelnasir Elmalik, one of the regular congregants at the Islamic Center. “But now we have two (more), in Wenatchee and Moses Lake.”
The building was originally a Mennonite church in Ritzville, said Gail Adair, who owns the building with her husband Steve. It was moved around 1950 to its present location. It belonged at one time to the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ, and served as a community theater for a few years. The Adairs bought it in about 2017.
“We drove by it one day and I don’t know, we just kind of fell in love with it, I guess,” she said.
Originally she wanted to turn the building into an antique store, but city regulations made that difficult, so the Adairs rented it out when they could as a wedding and event venue.
“Then one day, it was 7:30 at night, and (a real estate agent) called me and he said that he had this group that would like to rent long-term, and I said ‘We’re not interested,’” she said.
She gave the agent a minimum figure that would have to be met before she would even consider renting, she said, and to her surprise, he came back and said that they were willing to meet it.
The congregation is mostly made up of Boeing employees working at the Port of Moses Lake, Elmalik said. They have a meditation room at work where they can say their daily prayers five times a day, but they wanted a larger space to gather for Friday prayers, called Jum’ah. The daily prayers can be done in a group or individually, he explained, but Jum’ah must be done in a mosque.
