A little way off of U.S. Highway 54 in Nara Visa stands a little white church the local residents have treated like a second home.

“This church is very special to the residents of Nara Visa,” said Travis Nelson, a lifetime member of the church.

The 100th anniversary of the church will be held Sunday.

Nelson said she has been a member of the church since she was a young girl. Her entire family grew up in Nara Visa. Each of them a member of the church.

The first church services were held at a Rock Island Railroad Depot and later moved to a canvased building a block down from the present church, said Nara Visa resident Joan Hughs.

“I joined the congregation in early (19)50s,” Hughs said. “The church has stood and served as spiritual meeting place for three generations of Nara Visa’s residents.”

The church was established in 1908 when Rev. M.A. Hoag of Santa Rosa was appointed as the pastor  by the district superintendent of the New Mexico English Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, according to a history compiled by Hughs.

The 25-member congregation shared a community building with three other denominations until a church building was constructed on August 28, 1910.

Originally a wood building, the exterior of the church was stuccoed and the interior was dry walled in 1957, Hughs said. In the early 1990s a kitchen and bathroom was added.

“I am thankful that the church has been there all these years,” Hughs said. “My daughter Nancy Darmitzel was married at that church in 1975.”

There will be a service at 10 a.m. Sunday with special speaker, D. Max Whitfield, bishop of the New Mexico Conference of the United Methodist Church.