Regrouping and Moving Forward: 1946-1959

In April, 1943, in the middle of the war, Missions Secretary Noel Perkin

convened a meeting of those missionaries at home at Central Bible Institute (later

college) in Springfield, Missouri, to discuss missionary strategy following the war. Many

missionaries were home at the time, some to escape the hostilities. Fifty-eight

missionaries from eighteen fields attended to pray and prepare for the future in a post war

world. The aftermath of the war and its consequent breakup of the colonial empires

forced missions organizations to re-evaluate their strategies.1

Apparently Perkin did not have a completely set agenda, which proved to be wise.

Missionaries were freely given the opportunity to give their input and special sessions

were also given for the leaders of the various fields to meet. In the end, the meeting

produced six major goals for the future.

1. The world was divided into four large regions with a field secretary overseeing

each region.

2. 500 new missionaries would be recruited who had received formal theological

training at a Bible Institutes and had had practical ministry experience.

3. An advisory committee comprised of ministers and missionaries would be

constituted to advise the Foreign Missions Department (FMD) leadership on activities in

the various regions.

4. Specific missionary training would be developed to better equip missionaries

for communicating the gospel cross-culturally, deal with linguistic issues, and prepare

missionaries for life in harsh climates.

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 5. A call was made for organizing regional conventions throughout the United

States for the promotion of the work.

6. A goal of five million dollars was set to be raised for restarting the missions

program once the war ended.2

This conference proved to be a watershed in Assemblies of God missions. Prior

to this meeting, very little if any direction was given to missionary labors, the

missionaries being free to move as they felt moved by the Holy Spirit.3 While the

guidance of the Holy Spirit would be no less sought than before, the new philosophy

suggests that they acknowledged that the Spirit could also work through leadership and

structure. Perhaps this is no more evident that in the first goal of appointing field

secretaries, who were responsible to correspond with the missionaries, oversee the

development of the work, give advice, and promote the work of the field to the home

constituency.4 The advantages of this new structure were that the men appointed would

be able to assist Perkin in administrating the growing department. Also, by each one

specializing in his own region, the needs of the missionaries could be better addressed as

the field secretaries would be expected to travel extensively both at home and abroad.

Multiplication of leadership in this matter would allow for the work to expand more

quickly than ever. While it wasn’t until much later that these positions would carry much

authority, the seed had been grown for a greater coordinated, cooperative effort among

missionaries. In moving into a greater leadership role, the department could also press

harder for the achievement of the ideal of the indigenous church.5

While not all of these goals were attained, the FMD did make great strides in this

direction. More missionaries were recruited, more funds were raised, missionary training

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began to be provided, and missions conventions were held.6 While all of these goals

would have an impact on the Philippines, the goals of recruiting more missionaries and

the new leadership structure were the two most obvious.

The National Church Regroups

After the war in the Philippines ended in March, 1945, the Filipinos lost little time

in getting on with the job of fulfilling the Great Commission in their country. The fourth

District Council was held in Camiling, Tarlac, about ??? miles north of Manila. No

missionary was there and, therefore, they had no district superintendent. The FMD gave

permission to elect an acting superintendent who would be ratified later by the FMD.

Rudy Esperanza was elected to this position as well as to his former post as district

secretary, and the Philippine District Council (PDC) of the Assemblies of God was back

in business.7 In a letter dated February 22, 1946, Noel Perkin confirmed Esperanza’s

appointment with a slight but important change. The word “acting” was removed, and he

was appointed as the District Superintendent with full power to act in that authority.8

Why this action was taken is not explained. It may be because there was no missionary

available. It is also very possible that, because of the pending independence of the

Philippines and the renewed emphasis on the indigenous church, they wanted to transfer

authority to Filipino leadership as quickly as possible. Also, the fact that the Philippines

was becoming an independent nation meant that American leadership was no longer

legally necessary. Most likely all of these reasons were part of the basis of the decision.

Whatever may have been the thinking, no American would ever again hold that post,

although they would hold other offices within the PDC and later General Council.

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 Those who attended the fourth district convention found the fellowship sweet. No

doubt some had not seen one another since before the war. The meetings were marked

with a sweet presence of the Holy Spirit, reminding the conferees that God had not

abandoned them as well as no doubt challenging them to get on with the task of reaching

the lost now that the restrictions of war were no longer present. One of the key issues to

getting the work back on track was to reopen BBI, this time in Esperanza’s home town in

Pangasinan.9 No reason is given for reopening there instead of Baguio, but it may be fair

to assume that Pangasinan may have been in better condition after the war as there were

no bombed out military installations in the vicinity. The road to Baguio, which did run

through Pangasinan, had also been heavily bombed and was hard to travel. It also may

simply have been a more preferred location because Esperanza was pastoring there and

could more easily oversee the school.

While there was no missionary in the Philippines in 1946, God was speaking to

people’s hearts and help was on the way. From here on, the work would continue to grow

and diversify. As such it becomes necessary to look at the work in its various parts and

locations and see how these parts relate to the overall picture. It is most convenient to

divide the work according to geographical lines as much as possible with the various

activities and strategies of the missionary and Filipino leadership providing the overall

framework. As the nation itself is rather easily divided into three major regions; Luzon,

the main island; Mindanao, the large island in the south; and the Visayas, a large group of

islands running from east to west that occupy the central part of the country, these

geographical distinctions will be used to outline the story.

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 Before turning to the individual regions, however, it is necessary to trace the

developments of the work at the national level. The PDC continued to hold annual

conventions were business was conducted, officers elected, and God’s will sought on

various issues facing the district. The ravages of the war continued to be felt as the

country as a whole struggled to recover from the carnage and destruction. All over the

world nationalism began to rise as the colonial powers, themselves devastated by the war,

were unable to maintain control of their colonies. One by one, these colonies began to

gain their independence, often by bloodshed. While the Filipinos had gained their

independence peacefully, they were not immune to these events. At the 1950 convention

there was some deal of discussion on the issue of nationalism. By this time there were

twenty American missionaries working in the country. It was noted that one of the

negative effects of nationalism was the tendency to be also spiritually independent with

the feeling that American missionaries had nothing spiritually to offer those from other

nations. Those attending the convention, admittedly with a strong missionary contingent

present, went on record as expressing great appreciation for the missionaries, and the

sacrifices they had made, and expressed the desire that more would be sent. While part

of this positive attitude may have come from the fact that the meeting took place on the

BBI campus and was held in conjunction with the dedication of some permanent facilities

which had been financed by those who supported the missionaries, the general feeling

was appreciation for the growing unity in spiritual things.10 Part of this must also be seen

in the national context where Americans were esteemed because American blood had

mixed freely with that of the Filipinos in the liberation from the Japanese.

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 The 1953 convention was historic as the PDC was recognized as a sovereign

General Council with the freedom to elect its own officers and govern its own affairs. In

all practicality it had been doing so since the end of the war, with a Filipino at the head of

the organization and the FMD maintaining only nominal official control. In doing so, the

PDC changed its name to the Philippine General Council of the Assemblies of God

(PGCAG. A constitution and by-laws was also approved. Rudy Esperanza was elected

as the general superintendent. Three districts were formed following geographical lines

with authorization to divide into more districts as the work expanded and the need was

warranted. They were the called the Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao districts. There were

103 credentialed ministers with 3,253 adult members spread out all over the country in

seventy-five organized and pioneering churches. The genius of forming these districts

was that it allowed closer oversight to the work, especially that of church planting among

the far flung islands of the archipelago.

In reflecting later about the founding convention, Esperanza expressed the

opinion that there had been some with personal ambitions that motivation them to vote

for forming the Council, something unfortunately all too common in the Body of Christ

worldwide. He also noted that the new constitution and by-laws provided for no national

departments since there was no felt need for them, although meetings of the Council in

subsequent years would add them. Consequently, Esperanza felt that there was no

specific program mandated for him to execute.11 The tone of his comments do not

necessarily suggest that he was complaining; it may be that he was only stating his view

point. On the other hand, the lack of a mandate gave him the opportunity to write his

own job description, which he appears to have done very well. Not forming a specific

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national program while at the same time forming district councils also reflected the

philosophy that the real work of the PGCAG would be at the district level, a philosophy

that remains firmly in place three generations later.

The relationship with the American Assemblies of God now became fraternal

rather than governing, at least in theory if not always in practice. The fact was that the

PGCAG was at that time dependent on massive foreign funding, especially for BBI and

some of the Bible schools that would follow, and for a number of national programs that

would come into being within the ensuing years. The reality is that missionaries have

sometimes fallen into the trap of the golden rule (not the one that’s in the Bible!) that he

who has the gold makes the rules, meaning that the ideal of a self-governing indigenous

body has not always been achieved.

Another detriment to self government was in land holdings. Because the PGCAG

had been a part of the Assemblies of God, USA, some of the properties that had been

purchased where done in the name of the American General Council. When the PGCAG

wanted to build a headquarters building on the BBI campus in Valenzuela in 1959,

permission had to be secured first from the FMD. While there may have been many

legitimate reasons for continuing to hold land in the name of the Assemblies of God,

USA, the result was that the PGCAG did not have total control of its own affairs. In this

case, permission was not granted, and the headquarters was established in Manila and

moved to Valenzuela only at a much later time.12

The missionaries also formed themselves into the Philippine Field Fellowship

(PFF), which incorporated with the Philippine government’s Security and Exchange

Commission in 1949. Although the details are far from clear, it appears that there was a

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field committee in place by 1951, although all missionaries were not apparently informed

of it—which may have caused a bit of consternation for some.13 As the earliest minutes

date back only to 1959, what issues may have been handled by the committee are not

known. What is clear is that the missionaries were actually divided into two smaller field

fellowships until 1959; the missionaries on Luzon were part of the northern fellowships,

and those in the Visayas comprised the southern fellowships (there were no missionaries

in Mindanao at the time). The whole field was administered by one committee with

representatives from each of the fellowships. Apparently the two smaller field

fellowships also met separately from time to time. As inter-island travel was hard in

those days and telephone communication harder yet, especially in the provincial areas,

perhaps this arrangement would allow those in a geographical area more governance over

their own affairs. When the two fellowships were amalgamated into one field in 1959,

the missionaries began meeting annually for business and election of officers. The

meetings were normally one day or a part of a day in length but would eventually expand

to as long as four to five days as worship services, ministry to children, and a retreat

format would also be included.

The missionaries were part of the PDC/PGCAG and served in various capacities

in official district and General Council positions. In that sense then, they came under the

leadership of the PDC/PGCAG. However, because the missionaries were under the

authority of the FMD, they also had their own leadership structure with the establishment

of the field committee and the new office of the field secretary. The first field secretary

for the Far East (later changed to Asia Pacific) was Howard C. Osgood. Osgood and his

wife, Edith had served for a number of years in China. He served as field secretary from

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check date 1949 until 1955 when he was succeed by Maynard Ketcham, who served

from 1955-1970. Ketcham had served as a missionary to India and was field secretary

for the Southern Asia region from 1951 until he succeeded Osgood. In line with the goals

established by the 1943 conference, Ketcham defined the office of field secretary as a

liaison between the missionaries and the national church bodies on the one hand and, on

the other hand, between the U.S. constituency and the FMD, as well as recruiting new

missionaries.14 While the influence of a person in this role was considerable, how much

actual authority they had at the time is open to question. The actual appointing of

missionaries was the responsibility of the FMD board, of which the field secretary was a

member.

From all appearances the relationship between the missionaries and the PGCAG

leadership was good, but, as with any human organization, there were sometimes tensions

between the two groups. In April 1958, Ketcham wrote an open letter to the missionaries

In order to get a clear understanding of his view of the way things were and the way he

felt they should be, the letter needs to be quoted at some length:

…I stated that there is more good will toward American missionaries in your land than I
have seen anywhere else in the world. And, I firmly believe this to be the true. However,
that feeling of good will, and the kindly nature of our beloved Philippino [sic] co-
workers, should not blind us to certain fundamental facts. True, we Americans have
drive, energy, vision, organizational ability. On the other hand, we are strangers in a
foreign land. And, the only real excuse for our presence in the Philippines is as invited
guests to counsel, advise encourage, [sic] stimulate, teach – but never to boss or to ‘carry
the ball.’
It appears that we have two parallel organizations in the Philippines – the
Missionary Fellowship (s) [sic] and the National church. Presumably all our missionaries
are members of the Assemblies of God of the Philippines. And yet, while I was in the
Philippines, I got the feeling that our Filipino brethren felt that the Fellowships were the
organizations of the missionaries and the A.G of the Philippines was the organization of
the Filipinos. Frequently, in conversation with the local brethren, I heard the words ‘they’
(the missionaries) and ‘us’ (the Filipinos). I can realize that no one person or group is
responsible for this situation. But, we must do all in our power to break it down.

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 …..Then we must explain to our national brethren that the Fellowships are only
concerned with the personal lives of missionaries. We must also explain to the Nationals
(by word and deed) that our ministry comes under the direction of the A. G. of the
Philippines. Then, I believe that missionaries will be elected to office in the National
organizational and the missionaries will be considered as [an] intregal part of the same.
May I suggest certain steps which I believe should be taken, to implement the
provisions of the Manual in regard to this matter:-
1- Be very certain that the Missionary Fellowships live up to their names and are only
‘Fellowships’ of missionaries dealing with matters which are of peculiar interest to
missionaries themselves.
2- Take all possible steps to explain this situation to the Nationals, so they will realize
that the missionaries, in their Fellowship meetings are not making decisions which affect
church members.
3- Take an active part as possible in all gatherings of the Assemblies of God of the
Philippines, and accept any office offered to missionaries.
4- Try to work things out, as rapidly and gracefully as possible, so that all Bible Schools
are on a plane of equality and come under the overall supervision of the national church.
(A very delicate matter, I know!!)
5- See that local congregations have at least some say in the choosing of pastors for all
churches.
6- See that the national organization has the privilege of stating if they approve the re-
appointment of a missionary, when he proceeds on furlough.
7- See that the national organization has at least some say in the allocation of
missionaries.15

He went on to say that if the missionaries would deal kindly with their Filipino

counterparts, the Filipinos would respond in kind and issues such as the re-appointment

of missionaries would not be a problem.

Ketcham’s comments must be understood in light of the times and the issues with

which he was dealing centered on personal relationships, which are a key to success in

any ministry and especially so in a missions situation. In noting the missionaries drive,

goal orientation, and efficiency to get things done, he recognized some legitimate cultural

differences between the missionaries and their Filipino counterparts. When this was

written in 1958, the PGCAG was only eighteen years old and was rapidly expanding.

Consequently, it had not yet had the time to develop all of the leaders necessary to fill all

of the positions that needed to be filled for the PGCAG to move forward. Therefore,

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missionaries were appointed or elected to fill these positions, hopefully according to their

gifts and callings. Being in these positions, then, demanded that they submit themselves

to the PGCAG leaders. The first generation of Assemblies of God missionaries, which

some of these were, were known for being independent spirits and most likely found

fitting into any organization a bit difficult. Yet Ketcham is correct in calling for them to

do so as it was essential to demonstrate respect of and support for the Filipino leadership.

To what extent the missionaries did or did not heed his advice will be looked at again in

the next chapter.

National Programs

One major national program put in place in the decade of the 50’s was a literature

program. The rapid growth and development of the PGCAG throughout the islands

resulted in a continuous and incessant call for literature to be used in evangelistic

outreaches and for discipleship materials. The fact that numerous cults in the country

were beginning to grow demanded the mass distribution of the true gospel through the

fastest available means. Resourceful missionaries had been able to secure donated tracts,

old Pentecostal Evangels, Sunday School quarterlies, and numerous other resources

through the kindness of supporters in the States who would pack them in barrels and ship

them to the field, paying the shipping expenses and customs duties as well. On the field,

the PFF formed a committee called the Philippine Literature Committee (PLE) to oversee

the printing of whatever resources might be found within the country. As valiant as these

efforts were, however, they were insufficient to meet the growing demand. In 1955,

missionaries Floyd and Louise Horst opened Evangel Press to meet this need. The Horsts

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had arrived in 1951 and served in various capacities at BBI for several years along with

directing the press. No doubt for convenience as well as the fact that space was available,

Evangel Press was placed on the BBI campus.

The original presses were second-hand and shipped from the United States,

having been purchased through the Assemblies of God USA’s young people’s missions

program known as Speed-the-Light (STL). This same program also provided vehicles

and sound systems for missionaries. Bible school students provided a source of

convenient, cheap labor. But there was a benefit for the students as well. Learning how

to print literature would prove to be a valuable skill to acquire. In time the press would

provide quite an array of literature from evangelism to Vacation Bible School materials,

and materials related to discipleship and Christian living. It also produced the

Pentecostal Voice, an attractive, well edited monthly magazine that featured news and

inspirational articles and served as the official publishing organ of the PGCAG. Paid

subscriptions for the Voice were intended to cover the costs of printing, but many of these

were not paid faithfully and eventually dropped off, causing much financial stress at

Press! Much of the funding apparently came from the Boys and Girls Missionary Crusade

(BGMC), the children’s missions program of the Assemblies of God, USA. The response

of the PGCAG to Horst’s leadership was very positive. In a letter to Maynard Ketcham,

General Superintendent Rudy Esperanza commended Horst’s leadership in this area,

stating that he felt that Horst was the only missionary on the field with the skills needed

for this kind of work.16

Overseeing the Press brought some challenges, however. The original PLE

committee was comprised entirely of missionaries, which did not set well with

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Esparanza. At the 1959 General Council, he called for an integration of the committee

with both missionaries and Filipinos serving.17 By April of 1960 this was corrected, with

the number of PGCAG representatives equaling that of the missionaries.

Another policy that did not set well was control over what would be published. It

was originally decided that all literature to be printed by the Assemblies of God be

approved by the PLE prior to publication, giving the committee an incredible level of

control over what was taught through the literature program. While control over what

was printed by Evangel Press is understandable, to dictate what could or could not be

printed in all cases appears dictatorial. Human nature being what it is, it wasn’t long

before some began to circumvent the committee and the control policy had to be

abandoned.

By 1959, Horst could report that there were eleven book rooms (stores) in the

country, four presses were available, and funds for the new, offset presses had been

deposited in the Horst’s account in Springfield.18 By 1963, the volume of the press would

grow to 90,000 volumes a month.19

With at least part of the scene at the national level now put in place for the time

period under consideration, the work of the missionaries can now be considered. As the

first missionaries to arrive were stationed on Luzon, their stories will be told first.

Luzon

The first to arrive after the war were Elva Vanderbout and Edwin and

Oneida Brengle, who arrived by ship on January 6, 1947. Vanderbout, a widow, did not

fit the portrait of the new kind of missionary envisioned at the 1943 missionary meeting

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in Springfield, suggesting that the new goals did not preclude exceptions. She had little

formal theological training and no pastoral experience, although she and her husband,

Eddie, had been faithful laypeople. One day, God revealed that she would be going to the

mission field—alone. Quite naturally she was aghast at the vision since her husband was

very much alive. Two months later, however, Eddie, who had been in excellent health,

suffered a stroke and died within days. While naturally shocked and grieved beyond

description, as anyone would be, she made preparations to obey what she knew God

wanted her to do.

Living in southern California near Leland and Helen Johnson, she had become

friends with them. On one visit to their home, she noted that the suffering they had

endured in the Japanese internment camps appeared to be easing and that, with the

improved diet, they were beginning to appear healthy again.20 During this visit, Johnson

testified as to his conviction that the Philippines was on the verge of great revival and

lamented that they wished they had the health to be able to return.21 His statement about

revival was prophetic. While she did not say anything to the Johnsons at the time, God

spoke to her that afternoon and gave her a burden for the mountain people of the

Philippines that the Johnsons had been compelled to leave behind. Burning with passion

for the lost, she received missions appointment and headed for the Philippines.

Traveling by boat, she was at the pier in Manila and given a warm welcome by

Rudy Esperanza, Rosendo Alcantara, and Juan Soriano. She immediately took note of

the wreckage of the war, which must have been shocking. Very little of the city had been

rebuilt, most of it still lying in ruins. For several days she toured the city as she waited

for some of her personal things to arrive. As she walked among the Filipinos, she felt

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like a giant among them although she was only 5’7”. It was here that she began to love

Filipinos.22 However, because of MacArthur’s fulfilled promise, sealed in American

blood, Americans were welcome as the Filipinos felt a great debt of gratitude. To a great

degree, sixty years later Americans would still be accorded the same respect.

Because of her burden for the north, Vanderbout did not remain in Manila long

before making the arduous trek to Baguio over bombed out roads and bridges that had not

yet been repaired. She originally made her home in Baguio, which had also been

heavily damaged by the war, and was warmly welcomed by the Filipino brethren.

Baguio was a strategic place to base a ministry as many of the mountain tribal groups

were easily accessible from there.23

From the beginning her ministry was marked with miracles as she preached the

Word of God. She reports that deaf mutes were healed “by the scores,” the blind saw,

paralytics walked, and those with many other kinds of sicknesses were healed in Jesus’

name. She rented a building and planted a church in order to conserve the fruit of what

God was doing. In time, American evangelist Ralph Byrd held meetings in Burnham

Park in the heart of downtown Baguio that resulted in many more being healed and

saved. The building was soon filled to overflowing as people responded to the full gospel

message.24

In time, however, she became aware of a need for the gospel to be preached in the

barangay of Tuding, about seven miles away.1 Tuding was notorious for crime and

poverty. Not even the Roman Catholic Church had a parish there. She was a courageous

and adventurous woman, but she was not foolish. She considered the warnings given by

Juan Soriano and Rosendo Alcantara that she should not go there. In the end, however,
1
A barangay is a small land unit of government that might be inside a town or in a rural area.

15
she was convinced that God wanted her in Tuding. Initially, she continued to live in

Baguio and commute to Tuding, sometimes on foot. In the end, she found it easier just to

move there.

Her first strategy was to gain entrance to the local public school to teach religion.

She succeeded, getting a letter from the principal to conduct religious classes three times

a week. To her great delight, almost all of the parents consented to their children

attending. Teaching at the school gave her status in the community and, in time, open

doors to the homes of her students to share the gospel. Most of the people to whom she

ministered in Tuding, like their counterparts all over the nation, were poor, and their

living conditions were often deplorable. The war had deprived many of their possessions

and job possibilities were rare. The poor generally lived in tightly knit communities

where privacy was not valued, and there were few secrets. So when Vanderbout was

welcomed into one of their homes, other doors also quickly opened, and she seized these

opportunities. As a consequence, it wasn’t long before she won the confidence of the

people and was able to hold open air gospel services.

Whether she was accomplished speaker is not known, but what is known about

these meetings is that the power of God was evident and many notable healings took

place. Filipino traditional religion is deeply animistic, meaning that the power of the

supernatural is very much a part of their religious experience. When healings began to

take place, Filipinos began to take notice and hundreds came to know Christ when they

saw his power at work in their lives and the lives of those around them.

Sunday nights were set aside for prayer meetings with the church packed out at

about 120 people, although not all prayer meetings were held in the church. Here, the

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power of God was also evident and many of the new believers were also filled with the

Spirit. Many of these prayer meetings were spontaneous with people praying over one

another to be filled. One of the great hallmarks of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit is no

respecter of persons, and he empowers who he wills. That Pentecostals also stress

vibrant, particularly public worship also meshes well with the Filipino culture.

As the work grew it became evident that a fulltime Filipino pastor was needed as

the new converts needed to be discipled. While she did what she could through

counseling and guiding, she correctly sensed that she was not the one for the task. One of

the reasons is that she did not speak Ilocano, the dominant language of the region. She

did not feel that learning the language was important and did not attempt to learn it,

although she did admit that she could reach the people more quickly if she had spoken the

language. This attitude appears to have been typical of missionaries down through the

years who felt that they could do just as well with English only, ignoring the fact the

Filipinos, their adeptness at English aside, value their languages very highly. She chose

Juan Soriano, who was still pasturing the church in Baguio, and prevailed upon him to

take up the work.

Not everybody was happy with the move of God being experienced in Tuding.

The Roman Catholics, who had ignored the place until then, did not take kindly to the

people affiliating with the Assemblies of God. They went from house to house telling

people that it was a sin to go to anything other than the Catholic church. They also told

them that Vanderbout was a devil who would have a terrible influence on their children,

and that any who listened to her, young or old, might go insane as a result. The

persecution had a pruning effect. It did draw some away, but those whose lives had been

17
truly transformed were unfazed and the work went forward with a new church firmly

planted. By 1948, more than 150 people had been baptized in water.25 In time, a

permanent church building was erected with funds provided by Vanderbout’s home

church in Los Angeles, giving the church a continuous visible presence in the community.

The work in Tuding would prove to be very fruitful over the long term. There

was a decrease in crime to the extent that even the civil authorities took notice, and the

outlook of the community began to change. The news of this revival spread throughout

the entire province and throughout the Cordilleras, the mountain range that dominates

that part of the Philippines, demonstrating the correctness of Leland Johnson’s prophetic

conviction that the Philippines was ripe for revival. A number of ministers came out of

this church, some pioneering new works and others pasturing existing ones. Some would

eventually become leaders in the Assemblies of God movement.

As Vanderbout continued her work among the poor, she became increasingly

concerned about their plight. Many, perhaps most, had insufficient food, shelter, and

clothing. She did what she could for them from the very beginning, even giving some of

her own personal things away. She had taken in a boy when she lived in Baguio. The

boy finally went to live with the Soriano family, with Vanderbout paying his expenses out

of her own pocket. As time went on more requests came in, and she was faced with the

challenge of turning people away or going more heavily into this type of ministry. She

chose the latter. For some time, space was made available in the Tuding church, but the

rooms were damp and cold. In the end, a permanent arrangement was decided upon,

funds were raised—primarily from the USA, and a permanent orphanage was dedicated

in 1953, and became a definitive part of her work as well.

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 Over the years, burdened by the reality that many tribes in her region had not yet

heard the gospel, Vanderbout traveled extensively throughout the Cordilleras preaching

the gospel and planting churches, enduring many hardships and challenges along the way.

By 1959, eight churches were established with more than one hundred additional

preaching points scattered over the mountains.26 Hundreds of people had come to know

Christ. This was a challenge as often the roads were not good or non-existent which

meant hiking miles back into the mountains and living in very basic conditions in order to

preach the Word, normally with miracles attending. She was an intrepid lady, willing to

undergo any hardship for the cause of Christ. Physical danger was a reality as well, not

only from the natural conditions of traveling in the mountains but also from the people.

The mountain people, divided into a number of tribes, were fiercely proud of their

heritage. Roman Catholicism had not penetrated all of the areas, and most of the people

were pure animists. In many of the tribes headhunting, banned by law today, was part of

their religious rituals. That Assemblies of God churches dot the landscape today is

powerful testimony to the power of God to deliver the people from their bondage to false

religions. This message was not only proclaimed by Vanderbout, but by dozens of

Filipino pastors and evangelists who accompanied, or followed her into the mountains—

whose story needs to be told elsewhere.

While Vanderbout was laboring in the mountains, Edwin and Oneida Brengle took

up residence in the lowlands. Brengle had been a chaplain with the USAFFE in the

Philippines, and it was then that he felt a call from God to return as a missionary. They

and their children, Sam, 16, and Sally, 12, lived in Manila for a brief time before moving

north to Pangasinan to serve at BBI, where Brengle served as the principal for one year.

19
In Pangasinan the Brengles built a house trailer with materials brought from home. At

this time there was no electricity—which meant no refrigeration. Like the villagers

among whom they lived, they had to go to the market every day to buy perishable food.

Many of the kinds of food they were accustomed to at home were not available. They

also didn’t have the trailer entirely to themselves. As was true with other missionaries,

they shared the space with their ministry equipment. When considering that their son was

a teenager and their daughter soon would be, things must have been cramped. Having

counted the cost before they came, they counted it joy and learned to live with what they

had available.27 They taught, preached, and helped whenever they could. The feeling of

fulfilling their calling surely helped in enduring the trials and challenges required by life

in a developing nation that had just been through a holocaust.

The Brengles were not to stay long in Pangasinan, however. In 1948, BBI moved

to Valenzuela, which was much closer to Manila. At that time, Valenzuela was a fairly

rural area about ten miles north of the capital. Its relative proximity to Manila offered a

number of advantages. Being the only Assemblies of God Bible School in the country it

was the best location for students to come to who were from other parts of the country as

Manila was (and continues to be) the central transportation point in the country. But

there were other advantages as well. It was just a few miles from the brand new Far

Eastern Broadcasting Company (FEBC) radio station that was beginning to broadcast the

gospel far and wide throughout the Philippines and all over the Asia Pacific Rim.

Students would have the opportunity to sing and preach on the radio which would not

only serve to give them a place of ministry, but would also allow them to hone their

ministry skills. The new location would also give them the privilege of having guest

20
speakers at the campus that were passing through Manila, and would also provide easier

opportunities for purchasing needed supplies.28 In time, the creeping urban sprawl of

Manila would envelop Valenzuela as well as other nearby communities, making other

amenities more accessible.

Brengle played a major role in this move, helping to secure the property, put up

temporary buildings in what was then a rice field, and even putting in the road necessary

to link the campus to the town. The original buildings erected were native style which

could be blown over in a typhoon and were very susceptible to termites. A large surplus

army tent was also put to use. There was nothing else to be done, however, as there were

no funds at the time for more permanent structures, and the growing demand for pastors

called for classes to not be delayed.

The heat, humidity, and rain in the wet season, rain, made the missionaries’ lives

and work a real challenge. Being from the West they were not used to the Filipinos

rhythm of life that called for a rest during the hot part of the day, which may have added

to their physical problems. No mention is made of their personal living quarters in

Valenzuela, but one may assume that they moved the trailer down or lived in something

similar. The Brengles worked so hard that both Edwin and Sam had to undergo hernia

operations. Oneida mentions that there were no friends to stand by them from the

Assemblies of God.29 By this she must have meant missionaries, as Vanderbout was the

only other Assemblies of God missionary on the field at the time. There were Filipinos

serving on campus at the time that would have surely tried to befriend them. If this was

true, one wonders if she might not have felt much affinity for the Filipinos. But as they

were new to the field, it is likely that culture shock would have also played a role. The

21
degree to which they worked may also suggest that they may have lacked a proper

balance in life between work and recreation, a condition shared by many missionaries.

At the 1948 district convention there was some discussion as to whether the

missionaries would continue to handle BBI, or turn it over to the Filipinos.30 What

caused the discussion is not mentioned, but it does appear that there was an effort, or at

least a willingness, by the missionaries to turn the school over at a very early date in its

history. As the buildings on the new site were only temporary and much work was yet to

be done on the physical plant requiring massive foreign funding, the result of the

discussion was probably inevitable—the decision was unanimous that the missionaries

would continue to direct the effort with assistance from Filipinos.

Help arrived in 1948 in the form of the Paul Davidson family. Davidson served

as an instructor, supervised construction, had a radio program at FEBC, and served as a

denominational executive presbyter for the growing fellowship. By 1949, Ruth Melching

and Evelyn Hatchett, both single missionaries, and Arthur and Edna Ahlberg, who had

previously been stationed in Japan, also came to serve.

The Ahlbergs had been saved in a revival in Washington State in 1917 and came

into Pentecost and the Assemblies of God when Edna, suffering from an unspecified

disease, was raised from her death bed by God’s healing touch.31 When they transferred

to the Philippines they came directly from Japan by ship, which proved to be a harrowing

experience. Sailing on the S.S.Gordon, they were under orders to proceed first to

Shanghai, China, to try to deliver and pick up passengers even though the communists

were attacking the gates of the city. It became the last ship to pull out of Shanghai before

it fell to the communists and came close to being the first ship honored to enter that

22
country under the communist flag! Such were the challenges of travel in that part of the

world then.32

Melching joined the faculty, but the Ahlbergs had come to supervise the

construction of permanent buildings on campus. In 1949, the school graduated its first

class—a total of thirteen students received their diplomas. By 1950, Glenn and Pauline

Dunn, the missionaries who had toured Mindanao before the war, had returned and he

had replaced Brengle as the principal of BBI. In his report to the PDC convention, which

convened at BBI in April of that year, Dunn reported that Ahlberg and his crew of male

students had completed two buildings that could be used for dormitories and

classrooms.33 The buildings were dedicated at the convention. In reporting the same to

the folks back home he added that they still needed a tabernacle, washrooms, a kitchen

and dining room and, no doubt with a sense of urgency in his pen, he wrote that the old

army tent was on it’s last legs.34

He also reported to supporters at home that about fifteen of the male students

were actively seeking the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, suggesting that there was an

atmosphere of spiritual hunger among the brick and mortar.35 Like the schools after

which BBI was patterned after in the States, there was an active outstation program that

provided immediate, hands-on opportunity for ministry. In 1959, Dunn could report that

students were reaching from 1,000 to 1,700 people a week in these outreaches with

20,000 children being reached through Vacation Bible School programs also offered by

the school.36 Many of these outreaches would also become churches, conserving the fruit

of the evangelistic outreaches. In March 1950, a bus was added to the school’s

equipment inventory that would help get the students to these outreaches as well as other

23
events such as Youth for Christ rallies.37 By 1957 the enrollment had grown to nearly 120

students, more than the school leadership had ever dreamed.

As would prove to be true with every Bible school in the Philippines, most

missionaries involved in BBI fulfilled multiple roles in teaching, administration,

construction and maintenance, or outreach ministry. In looking at the list of missionaries

who headed up the school at this time, it is easy to notice their relatively short tenures of

those serving in top administrative positions. Most of this was due to furlough cycles as

one missionary couple would go home and another take their place. What impact this

may have had on the others serving there, especially the Filipino staff, either positive or

negative, cannot be measured here.

Missionary-evangelist Mayme Williams arrived in 1949. Flying in on a PanAm

jet, she may have been the first Assemblies of God missionary to arrive in the Philippines

by air. A close friend of Blanche Appleby and acquainted with the Brengles, she had

been saved as a teenager in a Pentecostal revival meeting through her brother’s

witnessing efforts. Already a veteran pastor and evangelist, she came to the field ready

for the challenge. One missionary kid recalled his first meeting Williams that “she was

one of those characters you never forget once you meet: she was a fiery evangelist; super

teacher of the Word and on top of all that she was a bundle of energy.”38

In the beginning she was involved in evangelistic work and Bible school teaching

at BBI.39 One of the missionaries with whom she teamed up was Elva Vanderbout. Like

Vanderbout, Williams was no stranger to private pain having suffered through a divorce

and the untimely death of her only child when he was hit by a car. They traveled together

for years during the summer months when school was not in session. Traveling through

24
the mountains was fraught with danger from man and nature. In one case, they could not

reach their destination in the day time and had to travel through the night to get to a safe

place. Williams prayed while Vanderbout drove, without slackening speed unless

absolutely necessary on the mountainous roads, which no doubt included many hairpin

turns.40 While they were willing to give their lives for the cause of Christ, they were not

about to take foolish chances.

In later years she would summarize her wide ministry in the Philippines by saying

that she could not possibly visit all of those that she had trained for ministry, as they were

too many and the territory too vast. Many of those whom she trained for ministry had

been saved in her evangelistic work.41

Clyde and Virginia Shields arrived in the Philippines in the late forties but only

stayed for a short time. While her work was mainly at home, he traveled throughout the

islands as an evangelist, conducting meetings himself or bringing other evangelists with

him. Healings were often reported in his meetings. In 1952, he hosted Canadian

Evangelist Mark Buntain, who would later return to the Philippines for a major crusade in

Manila in 1971 but would be best known for his work in Calcutta, India. Shields brought

him to northern Luzon. Large crowds attended the meetings and about twelve were

saved, including a drunk whose life was transformed by the gospel. The man went home

and threw out quite a bit of rice wine that was stashed under his house. The message took

root in his heart and bore fruit, as the man’s son later graduated from an Assemblies of

God Bible school.42

In 1948, after a harrowing evacuation from China, where they had been serving as

missionaries, on a U.S. warship, Paul and Violet Pipkin, children in tow, arrived in

25
Manila. All missionaries in China were slowly being evacuated as the communist armies

advanced and the FMD gave them the choice of going home or serving on another field.

The Pipkins accepted an invitation from Edwin Brengle to come to the Philippines.43

Like Brengle, Pipkin had served in the Pacific theatre during the war, and it was during

that time that he felt God dealing with him to become a missionary. Their first

assignment was at FEBC where they took over the ministry of Kenneth Short, an

Assemblies of God missionary who had served briefly in the country but had to return to

the United States unexpectedly because of illness.

At FEBC, Pipkin became involved with literature and discovered the power of the

printed page and used it very effectively with the programs he broadcast over the radio.44

In the early ‘50s he developed a program known as Sunday School of the Air, which

featured his wife and daughters doing skits. Testimonies of God’s work in the lives of

individuals were also aired. Many listeners wrote in asking for written materials such as

Bibles and tracks. With necessity being the mother of invention, the Pipkins developed

the Bread of Life Correspondence School to meet this need. The School comprised of

fifteen lessons that were Bible based with Pentecostal distinctives woven in, and was

underwritten by the Boys and Girls Missionary Crusade (BGMC) of the Assemblies of

God USA, a program that focuses on promoting missions to children and provides them

opportunities to give to missionaries. The expense must have been fairly considerable as

this involved writing and editing the lessons, printing them, and paying the costs of

postage. By 1959, with the program by then under the leadership of missionary Odell

Roberts, at least 1,800 people had enrolled in the course.45

26
 With a passion for youth, Pipkin was also seconded by the Missions Department

to Youth For Christ, serving as their Manila director. In this capacity, he would direct

three Saturday night youth rallies a month and each year would hold mammoth rallies in

Manila’s Rizal Stadium with 5,000 to 10,000 people attending. The meetings were

interdenominational and thousands came to know Christ through these outreaches.46

Not all of these rallies were in Manila. Once, Youth for Christ conducted a

smaller rally at a Methodist church in the province of Bataan in central Luzon, about

sixty-five miles northwest of Manila. At that time, Central Luzon was heavily infested

with social unrest, most of it being instigated by an armed terrorist group known as the

Hukbong Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon (National Army Fighting Against the Japanese),

more commonly known as simply the Huks. Led by a peasant named Luis Taruc who

was from the region, they had originally fought as guerrillas against the Japanese, as the

name suggests, but after the war had turned their sights on the large plantation owners for

which central Luzon was well known. The landlords had long been oppressive of those

who worked for them, and the Huks were fighting for reform. Pipkin noted in 1949 that

no one knew how many Huks there were, but that estimates ran as high as as 300,000,

and they were a constant menace to anyone in the area until the 1950’s.47

A few months before Pipkin and other staffers from FEBC arrived to conduct the

Youth for Christ rally, the Huks had attacked the area, attacking and burning eighty

homes, including the parsonage of the Methodist church were Pipkin was to preach.

While the church was not burned, the Huks had riddled it with bullets. In the service that

night there was a sweet presence of the Lord, and an unusual spirit of conviction hung

27
over the meeting. About seventy-five responded to the altar call, weeping, repenting, and

surely finding peace with God.48

In 1949, the Pipkins had a burden to start an A/G church in Manila, there being

no church there at that time. At first the FMD was reluctant to agree to such a venture

because of the civil unrest that had impacted Manila as well but decided to conduct a one

year experiment. The church was called Glad Tidings Revival Center, later to be

renamed Bethel Temple, and it was initially located in Tondo a section of town notorious

for crime. About eighty received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and more than one

hundred followed the Lord in water baptism in the time he was there in what appears to

have been a marvelous moving of the Holy Spirit.49 He pastored it for more than a year

before turning it over to Manny Maningan, a Filipino pastor who stayed about two years.

Riley and Flossie Kaufman joined the Pipkins at FEBC in 1955. His assignment

was as a music producer and coach for Filipinos who demonstrated talent for singing as

well as handling some programs. Flossie also participated in some of the programs as

well as serving as serving as a secretary to the FEBC director and handling the station’s

financial records. Their outside ministry involved various speaking engagements and

working in the music program at Bethel Temple.

At FEBC, the Kaufmans maintained a grueling schedule. He became the program

director both for programs in the Philippines as well as those beamed outside the country.

It was not uncommon for them to work all day and several hours into the night just to

keep up with the workload. At one point, between the two of them, they were logging

thirty-seven hours a month on the air! Not only did they have to prepare their own

materials, but Flossie in particular wrote scripts for seventeen programs every week, as

28
well as overseeing their youngest daughter’s education through the Calvert

Correspondence Courses! As with any other departmental ministry, zillions of meetings

were also on the docket. They worked as hard as they did because they believed that the

radio was a great tool used by God to send the gospel to places where there were no

missionaries and where gospel literature might not be available. People could also listen

quietly in the privacy of their homes or while working in the fields. Another advantage is

that radio was and continues to be one of the cheaper forms of mass communication. In

spite of all of these reasons to do the work, however, has to wonder when they ever got

the time to breathe, let alone rest, or handle the music for a local church! But no matter

what the pressure of the work was and the challenges that came with such a ministry, they

knew that the Holy Spirit was anointing their task through the testimonies that poured

into the FEBC mail box.50

In 1952, Lester and Louise Sumrall arrived with their sons, Frank and Stephen to

assume the pastorate of the church. A third son, Peter, was born while they were in

Manila. Sumrall, already an evangelist of some renown, was born to a Pentecostal

mother and an unsaved father. Choosing to follow his father’s way early in life, he

contracted tuberculosis, a disease for which there was no cure at the time. He was

confronted by God in a dream to preach the gospel (and get saved in the process) or die.

Feeling that the life of a preacher, a class of people whom he despised, was preferable to

dying, he chose to preach, although, by his own admission, he had no compassion for the

lost.51 Leaving home at the age of seventeen, he hit the evangelistic trail and never

looked back. He met Louise while on a preaching tour of South America where she had

been serving as a missionary. His autobiography reveals a bold, powerful man of faith,

29
with a fiercely independent spirit who was used to having things his way, a characteristic

not unique to evangelists, and also not conducive to being a part of a team. When asked

on his missionary application if he would be willing to receive direction regarding his

proposed missionary work from his fellow missionaries, he responded that he was called

to one task, apparently meaning that he would not be amenable to counsel from others.52

That one task was to build great evangelistic centers in major cities all over the

world. This was an outstanding strategy, not common to this era when going to the

uttermost parts of the earth still often meant to looking for the most rural and forlorn

place one could find. Sumrall correctly saw that powerful churches in urban centers

could impact an entire nation where the lost could be found, nurtured, and released into

ministry.53

Manila was the first city on his list, in part because he had been to the city a

couple of years before on an evangelistic tour and had concluded that there were no

gospel preaching churches in the city. While there was no doubt a fair element of truth in

this statement, Protestant groups had been working in the city since 1898 and the Pipkins

had opened Glad Tidings in 1949, the year before he visited, meaning that Sumrall’s

statement was not true. Such statements are somewhat typical of visitors passing through

a mission field who have little, if any, true knowledge of the situation. It also appears to

have been true of Sumrall in specific as his autobiography contains more than one

exaggeration, although his writing lacks any sense of egotism or personal

aggrandizement.

His exaggeration non-withstanding, Sumrall set about to fulfill his vision. Taking

over the work begun by the Pipkins, God began to bless his ministry, although it began

30
rather inauspiciously. At that time, the church was meeting in an abandoned vegetable

market in Tondo. The church building was located next to an open sewer and had walls

made out of dried banana leaves which were woven together with chicken wire. To call it

ugly would have been a compliment. On the first day of services, the bloated bodies of

two dead pigs floated in the sewer.54 One is not left to wonder why one of his first major

goals was to relocate the church to a more suitable location. He proceeded to purchase a

lot in Ermita, not far from Manila Harbor and along one of Manila’s main thoroughfares.

No building existed on the lot, thanks to a bomb during the war.55 Plans for the building

began to be drawn. Pipkin raised the funds for the property while home itinerating in

1952.56 Sumrall also changed the name of the church to Bethel Temple, which also

became known as the “Christ is the Answer” church.

The church began to grow almost immediately as God began to move, and the

Sumralls began to work day and night. The Holy Spirit was also at work. American

evangelist A.C. Valdez came from the States for a crusade and hundreds of lives were

transformed by the power of God. Sumrall reported that 12,000 made decisions for

Christ in the meeting.57 In all 350 people were baptized as a result of the meetings and

about 300 were added to the church.58 While this was by all means a remarkable meeting,

Sumrall does not mention what happened to those who made decisions for Christ but

were not added to the church.

While they were rejoicing in what God had done, God was about to do something

else that was more spectacular. As often happens in the work of God, one incident can

lead to many open doors of ministry. In Sumrall’s case, a door God opened would bring

a powerful move of God that would, in fact, impact the city and the nation.

31
 Clarita Villanueva was a seventeen year old prostitute locked up in the infamous

Bilibid prison, the same place where the missionaries had been temporarily interned at

the close of the war. She had been arrested for prostitution, having offered herself to a

plainclothes policeman. Born to a prostitute who also dabbled in the occult, she had

become demon possessed. Not only was she demon-possessed, she was actually being

bitten by the demons, a fact too well documented to doubt. This attracted national press

coverage. Specialists came from all over the world to examine her and, not surprisingly,

were unable to help her. When Sumrall heard the story by radio, he immediately sought

to gain entrance to the prison and was granted permission. Fasting and praying over the

course of two days, Sumrall began rebuking the demons in the name of Jesus. A battle

ensued for Villanueva’s life and soul. The bite marks that had evidenced the demonic

possession and drawn the attention of the media continued for a time even after Sumrall

had arrived as he battled the forces of Hell on her behalf. In the end, in accordance with

Philippians 2:9-11, the demons were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus’

name and were evicted from her. Wonderfully delivered, Clarita accepted Christ and

began to follow him. The deliverance shocked the medical scholars and electrified the

nation. The story of Villanueva’s deliverance, with Sumrall’s name and picture in the

papers, traveled like wildfire all over the country, in spite of the fact that he did not talk to

the press himself. Sumrall began to be deluged with invitations to speak. He later

estimated that several million people came to Christ in one way or another as a result of

Villanueva’s testimony.59

There was another unanticipated benefit of this miracle. Sumrall had been

working hard to get a building permit, and his application was lost in the infernal

32
bureaucracy, graft, and corruption that is endemic to large cities. Bribery, which Sumrall

refused to do, was the order of the day. After Villanueva was delivered, Sumrall had such

favor with the mayor of Manila that the building permit for which he had been waiting

was instantly approved. He never had another problem with the city government, nor

was he ever forced to pay bribes. In fact, the final permit was given free of any charge,

saving the church a considerable sum of money.

In January 1954, American evangelist Clifton Erickson, whom Sumrall had

known from the States, came to Manila to hold special meetings for the church. Because

of the Villanueva miracle, the church was quite well known, and God had already been

blessing the work. Sumrall had received a visit from a Methodist pastor and leader

named Ruben Candelaria, who would eventually receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit

through the ministry of Evangelist Ralph Byrd, come into the Assemblies of God, and

join the pastoral staff of Bethel Temple. Candelaria invited him to speak in the Methodist

churches in the Manila area. He accepted the invitation with gusto, bringing with him a

film and projector sent by Oral Roberts and thousands of magazines sent by Gordon

Lindsay, a healing evangelist from Texas.

When Erickson arrived, Manila was ready.60 By all accounts the six week revival

meeting stirred the city of Manila. Virtually all available newsletters from missionaries

on the field at the time give testimony to what God was doing was doing, and claims that

this was the greatest revival meeting ever to hit the city of Manila were probably well

founded. While accounts of the numbers of how many attended the nightly meetings

varied at between thirty to sixty thousand a night, there is no debate that this was a

sovereign move of God. There were thousands of miracles of healing and deliverance.

33
An estimated 150,000 people came to Christ during this time, and Bethel Temple

mushroomed in size to at least 7,000, which more than packed out their building.61

Assessing the long term results of the meeting is a bit difficult more than fifty years after

the event, but it is accurate to say that the resultant growth propelled the church to greater

prominience and size within the PGCAG, and Bethel Temple became the flagship church

of the Assemblies of God for nearly two decades.

Another result of the revival meetings is that offerings taken during the meetings

were sufficient to build the new church, which appears to have been dedicated debt free.

The main part of the original building was a converted airplane hangar left over from the

war.

The Bethel Temple leadership did not forget the Tondo area that it left when the

church moved to Ermita. An outstation was formed in a private house, presumably for

church members that lived in the area, and it grew into a church and was known as Grace

or Faith Assembly of God? (verify name). At first the new church leased a piece of

land but when the owner did not renew the lease after a few years, a crisis ensued. Pipkin

became involved and raised $80,000.00 to help the church build its own building, with

the understanding that $10,000.00 would be paid back by the congregation as their

counterpart. Pipkin himself supervised the construction.

In 1957, the Sumralls felt led to leave Bethel Temple and reassume the pastorate

of the church that had left in South Bend, Indiana. Missionary Glenn Horst, a faculty

member at BBI, served as until the newly appointed missionary pastors, Ernie and

Deloryes Reb, could arrive. Reb was a friend of Sumrall’s and had accompanied him on

his initial trip to the Philippines several years previously. Whether the PGCAG General

34
Superintendent was even consulted about who should pastor the work is not known.

Insert Javier’s thoughts Reb was an aggressive evangelist who involved Bethel Temple

in church planting and construction at least as far away as Baguio. They also launched a

daughter church in Quezon City, which is part of the Metro Manila region, the first

Pentecostal church to be launched there. After renting a building and having an

evangelistic crusade to get things going, he turned the work over to one of the young

people.62 In time, property was purchased and a building was constructed with funds

raised through the mother church.Reb’s tenure was not long, and they left for the States.

They resigned their appointment with the FMD, but later returned with their own

organization which built many churches and maintained close ties with the Assemblies of

God.

In 1957, another Assemblies of God evangelist, Hal Herman, came to Bethel

Temple for a three week campaign. He was a former Army officer who had served on

MacArthur’s staff in the liberation of the Philippines. The power of God was evident as

thousands prayed to receive Christ as their Savior and many healings took place. Many

also received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Attendance became so large that they had to

move out of the church and into the park across the street, thus giving even greater

publicity to the meetings. Once again, God used the methodology of large crusade

evangelism to add to his Church.

By 1959, Alfred and Elizabeth Cawston, former missionaries to India who were

pastoring in Terre Haute, Indiana, were recruited by Ketcham to pastor the church.

Cawston was a well respected minister with a well rounded ministry in both pastoring

and education, having pioneered Southern Asia Bible College in Bangalore, India. In

35
February of that year, the Cawstons hosted a meeting known as the Great Commission

Congress with Evangelist Morris Cerillo as the main speaker. While the numbers were

not as large as the Erickson meetings in 1954, the meetings were impressive nevertheless.

Thousands attended and many miracles took place. Hundreds were also baptized in the

Holy Spirit. Cawston reported that at the end of the meetings, attendance had increased

substantially at Bethel Temple, it’s outstations throughout the city, and other Assemblies

of God churches in the area, with one thousand receiving water baptism in what was

believed to have been the largest baptismal service ever held in Manila.63

Over the next several years other missionaries followed Cawston, and the church

became of beacon of hope to the lost as it planted many daughter churches throughout the

Metro Manila region and elsewhere throughout the country. Surely no one could have

foreseen the trouble that would befall this mighty congregation.

Melvin Steward and his wife (name!) joined the missionary team in ??? get

date and spent the first year in the Visayas before coming to Manila to do the evangelistic

work to which they had originally felt called. Apparently he was a rather ambitious man,

and there is evidence to suggest that he wrote directly to Ralph M. Riggs, the General

Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, USA, to request to be appointed as pastor of

Bethel Temple, stating that God had called him there. At the time the church was still

under Sumrall’s leadership. Rigg’s reply was somewhat acerbic, though probably

accurate, stating the Steward’s claim that God calling him to a church that already had a

pastor was presumptuous. He counseled Steward that if God really had called him to that

church, God would work things out, and he needn’t worry. He also advised him to take a

36
bit more humble approach, leaving this issue in the Lord’s hands.64 What Steward’s

reaction was is not known, but he never became pastor of Bethel Temple.

By mid-1958, the Stewards were in Metro Manila, and he took up language study

in Tagalog. He was also asked by the churches in Quezon City, which borders Manila on

the north and east, to become their missionary advisor. He does not describe what this

entailed, but it may have been ambiguous enough to allow him to define his own

responsibilities. Add in “white letter” contents In a letter to D.G. Foote (assistant to

Noel Perkin?) he reveals a strong passion for evangelism in general and evangelism in

Manila in specific. He felt that two full time missionary-evangelists might be employed

throughout the whole field.65

While many missionaries were laboring away in Manila, Ernest and Jean Sjoberg

felt called to labor in central Luzon. They pioneered Angeles Christian Center in Angeles

City in the province Pampanga, where they ministered to U.S. servicemen and their

families from the nearby Clark Air Force Base as well as the Filipino population.

Following the pattern of other missionaries and Filipino pastors, their church developed

outstations in the surrounding communities. In at least one community they had a permit

to use the plaza owned by the Catholic Church to show the Oral Roberts film “Venture

into Faith,” which other missionaries had used. At least 2,500 people showed up and at

the last minute, the priests forced the cancellation of the permit, forcing them to move

into the market area where the meeting appears to have gone forward.66 Such persecution

was commonplace throughout the country.

Sunday school was a major part of their ministry, both at the mother church and

the outstations. By 1954, Sunday school attendance at the Angeles church had reached as

37
high as 140 with many more in the outstation Sunday schools.67 Also in 1954 they were

conducting services at the main church five nights a week. It must have been an

exhausting schedule although Sjoberg does not say if he participated in all of them. The

Friday night service was entirely in English and was targeted for the U.S. military

personnel. Filipinos with sufficient comprehension of English were also welcomed.

From March 17-22, 1955, evangelist Ralph Bird also held a salvation-healing

campaign in the city, and the Sjoberg’s church was heavily involved. For weeks prior to

the meeting, they prayed and prepared, advertising the meeting widely. The result was

that the church was strengthened, having hundreds of new contacts to follow-up. People

were also healed of numerous diseases including cancer and tuberculosis. The blind saw,

and the dumb spoke.68 There must have been rejoicing after the meetings were finished!

They also developed a burden for the aboriginal people of the area known as

Negritos who were totally unreached with the gospel. In contrast to the main Filipino

population, whose ancestors are believed to have immigrated from outside the Philippines

in the pre-literate past, the Negritos of central Luzon were known to be indigenous. They

are generally smaller in stature and tended to be spread out in the more rural areas.

Because they were so different from the average Filipinos, for the most part they lived in

communities isolated from the rest of society. Each community had a hereditary king as

the head of the group. The Negritos were very suspicious of outsiders, and the king’s

permission was needed to conduct meetings in the community.

Although their ministry schedule was already full, they felt led by the Holy Spirit

to minister to these as well. Adding this to their outreach program provided opportunities

for Christian servicemen from Clark Air Base to be involved, and so Saturdays were

38
dedicated to this outreach. By this time the Sjobergs had a car, without which this

ministry would have been impossible. But even with a car getting to these areas was no

picnic as their car, a Chevrolet sedan, was not suited to the off the road driving needed to

ford rivers, cross cornfields, and climb mountains, but with grace from God and a lot of

patience and hard work, they got the job done.69 What happened can only be described as

a sovereign move of a loving God among a neglected people group.

Evangelist Ralph Bird came to the area for meetings and some of the Negritos

were invited to attend. One of them, a man named Vicente, who was fluent in four

languages including English, was healed during the meetings and agreed to serve as the

interpreter when the Sjobergs visited his village.70 Being a Negrito, his endorsement of

the Sjoberg’s ministry to his own village was likely a key factor in opening the door to

them.

The Negritos were animists who believed in the power of the supernatural. In one

village after another they began to come to Christ as the gospel came with Pentecostal

power, sick bodies found healing and sin-sick souls found hope in Jesus Christ. The

news of God’s power to heal spread quickly throughout the Negritos’ villages, and more

kings invited Sjoberg and his team to visit. In one village, as many as 300 attended the

gospel rally and in other communities almost the entire village attended.71 As the gospel

took root, land was donated by the kings of the villages, and U.S. servicemen were

enlisted to put up church buildings to conserve the fruit of what God was doing. In one

village, the king cleared a piece of land for a church before the Sjobergs even came to his

village in the hopes that they would also come there!72

39
 The ministry to the Negritos went far beyond evangelism and church planting,

adding a social aspect as well. Somehow the Sjobergs were able to get grants from the

Philippine government and provided ten thousand dollars worth of water buffalos to be

used for plowing fields and many other chores in the villages. Through the help of other

government agencies they received fruit trees, clothing, wells, roads, plows, seeds, and

numerous other things that greatly benefited the Negrito people.73 Maynard Ketcham

commended them highly for this program, which also won commendation from the

Philippine government. In addition to bringing salvation to the people, the publicity

generated from their work enhanced the reputation of the PGCAG.74 At the end of two

years, Sjoberg could report that twenty full time workers, many of the converts through

the Angeles Christian Center, were engaged in ministry to the Negritos in four different

provinces. Six churches had been built using bamboo and other native materials and

another six were under construction. In 1957 alone 250 Negritos had been baptized in

water and others were preparing to do so.75

The Visayas

In September, 1949, Warren and Marjorie Denton, along with their two sons

Warren Jr. and James, arrived from China to serve in Panay, having heard of the need

there from Glenn and Pauline Dunn.76 When they sailed into Manila harbor from Hong

Kong, Jim recalled that they had be very careful as they had to sail around many ships

that were sunk during that war that had not yet been removed from the harbor.77 They

became the first missionaries to live on any island other than Luzon.

40
 The influence of the Dunns non-withstanding, the main reason they were assigned

to Panay may have been because Eugenio Suede, one of the original pioneers had written

the FMD and requested that a missionary be sent.78 When the Dentons arrived at his

church in Duenas, Iloilo, Suede was in the States. After settling in, they began preaching

in the church and doing evangelistic work in the villages. The work was hard as Duenas,

like much of the lowland provincial areas of the country, was a strong Catholic area.

Fortunately for history, Warren Denton’s mother, back in New York, saved all, or

at least most, of their letters home from the time of their arrival in 1949 almost up until

her death in 1963. The letters provide a great, unvarnished picture of what life was like

for them, with all of its thrills and disappointments, as well as providing a wealth of

information about the work there. More information is available on the Dentons than any

other missionary. As such they provide an example of what daily life was like for other

missionaries as well.

For example, in one letter home Denton explains that his deluxe bathroom

included a rain barrel set up in back of the church that was used to hold shower water

which had to be dipped out and poured over his body. Because of the lack of privacy he

had to wear his bathing suit!79 The lowland area of the Philippines was quite hot year

round, and Duenas was no exception. Living at the church also meant having other

people around most of the time with the attendant noise. This would be a challenge for

anyone who had grown up in rural or suburban America. Apparently there was also no

electricity there. The years in China did not much diminish the realities of living in a

cross cultural environment in a tropical climate.

41
 Because they had spent seven years in language study in China only to end up in

the Philippines, they did not have the heart to try to pick up Ilongo, also known as

Hiligaynon, the local language of that part of Panay.80 This would mean using an

interpreter everywhere they went, which occasionally turned out to be a real challenge.

While using an interpreter is certainly better than simply using English, there is no

substitute for learning the heart language of the people both for the convenience of not

needing an interpreter, and the reality that being able to communicate in the vernacular

sends a powerful, positive message to the Filipinos of one’s love for them. While the

Dentons did not succeed, Jim, the youngest who was only six years old when they

arrived, picked up Ilongo easily.

After a short time Suede returned home, and they began to work together,

strategizing ways of reaching out into the surrounding communities with the gospel

message. In the beginning they did not have their own public address system so they had

to rent, borrow, or go without one, making it hard to plan meetings well. Tract

distribution was a major component of their outreaches. In the beginning, it appears that

much of their literature was in English and was sent from the States. Many Filipinos read

English better than they speak it so the literature had some appeal. Travel was also a

challenge as it was some time before they were able to purchase a vehicle with funds

provided by Speed-the-Light, the missions program of the young people of the

Assemblies of God in the USA.

Sadly, the Dentons had only been there a couple of months when conflict began

to develop between them and Suede. While the Denton’s letters are filled with stories of

people being being saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, and healed, with the gifts of the

42
Spirit being in operation, they also expressed unhappiness with Suede’s leadership in the

church. While they felt that Suede was a very nice man and open to the moving of the

Spirit, they did not feel that he was providing sufficient Pentecostal style leadership to his

congregation that would cause them to want to press deeper into the things of God. They

felt that he was stuck in a rut.81 In time, they felt that God could not move in their present

situation, and they felt they had no control over what or, perhaps, what was not

happening there.82

Much of it appears to have stemmed from personality conflicts. In fairness to

Suede, the Denton’s communication with their families only tells their side of the story.

What Suede must have felt can only be conjectured. He may have felt challenged by

having another minister regularly preaching in his pulpit. Also, working with any

foreigner who did not know the language and was new to the culture would inevitably

lead to misunderstandings at some point no matter who was involved and how spiritual

they might have been. After about eight months, like Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:36-

41, they parted company with the Denton’s moving west to San Jose, the capital of the

neighboring province, Antique. As also with Barnabas and Paul, the separation proved to

be beneficial to the work of the Kingdom, as time would tell. It also appears that the

relationship was restored, at least to a degree, as later letters tell of Suede ministering

with them in Antique.

Prior to departure, Denton had gone to San Jose and picked out a house. The

house was made out of bamboo. While this allows for natural ventilation, it also

deteriorates rather rapidly. So it was in a rather dilapidated condition when they moved

in and Marjorie was somewhat less than thrilled with her husband’s choice.83 With good

43
carpenter skills and a lot of hard work, they soon made the house into a home, and

Marjorie began to feel more comfortable.

One of the greatest challenges for any missionary is the education of their

children. The Dentons had the choice of either having their children study

correspondence courses proctored by Marjorie, an early form of home schooling, or

putting them in the public school system. The challenge of the public school system is

that the curriculum may not mesh with that used in America, which would make it hard

for missionary kids (MKs) to reintegrate into the American system when they return for

furlough. The Dentons used both the Calvert Correspondence courses and the public

school system for their kids. In time, Jim would also study in Manila and Warren Jr.

would ultimately complete his high school education in America.

Family time was important to the Dentons and excursions to the nearby beach or

other kinds of outings were common. Sometimes they would go hunting for crabs in the

evening. They also enjoyed swimming. When they went to the beach they sometimes

went alone as a family while on others occasions they were joined by members of the

church. In their generation, American Pentecostals frowned upon men and women

swimming together as it was believed to induce inappropriate sexual desires and was,

therefore, considered sinful. Since the beach they went to with the church members to

was broad enough to separate the men and the women, they could swim without violating

their consciences.

Warren Jr, whom they called Junie, and Jim were typical kids. They were

involved in school activities, had pets living under the house, and followed Major League

Baseball—as best they could from the other side of the world. Jim even joined the Cub

44
Scouts. Their toys were simple and some were home made.84 But like other MK’s, they

had their share of challenges. The difference between the Denton children and kids in

America is that they only got to see their cousins, grandparents, and other relatives every

four years, they only dreamt of a white Christmas, and they missed a hundred and one

other things that kids in American took for granted. But there was a payoff as well. They

got to travel more than the average American, and they were able to live in a different

part of the world with a vastly different culture. This afforded them the opportunity to

see the world through somebody else’s eyes, which can be a very enriching (although

occasionally frustrating). It gave them a wider worldview than the average American of

their age.

Like missionaries before and since, the Dentons experienced a family crisis that

was to put their calling to a real test. By 1956 Warren Jr had finished high school and

was attending Central Bible Institute in Springfield, MO, which is about 9,000 miles

away from San Jose, Antique, when he became quite ill. When Marjorie heard this she

became extremely distressed and couldn’t sleep at night. Her anxiety increased when

they sought permission for her to return to the States to be with him, and the response

from the Missions Department was unexplainably delayed. Finally she could endure it no

more and she and Jim flew to the States without approval and knowing that she would not

soon return to San Jose. They knew that this might cost them their missions appointment,

but they felt that family was more important.85 Even though tardy, approval did finally

come.

Although they felt strongly that Marjorie and Jim needed to be with Warren Jr.,

they also had a strong sense of responsibility to their work so Warren Sr. remained

45
behind. In a day before email and with long distance calling being extremely difficult,

letters were virtually their only communication. Only Warren’s letters to Marjorie

survive, and they reflect much loneliness and sorrow at being separated from his family.

They anticipated a separation of about two years, although why they expected it to be this

long is not clear. On the other hand, there is also a sense of resoluteness about carrying

on with the task. They reckoned that enduring trials and hardships were just part of

following Jesus. Fortunately, however, Denton was able to join them for furlough after a

little more than a year. Their love and commitment to one another never waned.

When they first moved to San Jose in 1950, they only had electricity four hours a

day, from six to ten in the evening, meaning that any work needing electricity had to be

done during this time. In time, Marjorie was able to get a clothes washing machine,

which made her workload easier, even if it had to be done at night. She had a real

challenge teaching the laundry lady how to deal with this new fangled contraption that

she had not likely even seen before.86 Apparently it was the only one in the whole

community since the public school, with Marjorie’s permission, organized a tour for the

whole student body to come in groups to the Denton’s home for a demonstration. While

this was certainly wearing on them, it also provided a wonderful opportunity for building

good relationships in the community.

Since the work that Cris Garsalao had pioneered in 1928 was nearby, the Dentons

soon made friends with two of his sisters who had carried on the work. Apparently there

were some other workers also already there in or near San Jose so they started a new

church with a core group of about eight. In the beginning they used their living room for

services. Within a couple of years they were able to build a church on the same property

46
made with native materials. In time they were able to put up a church building and a

house made of more permanent materials. .

In their church, they regularly preached on salvation and the Baptism in the Holy

Spirit, taught what it meant to be baptized in the Spirit, and modeled the gifts of the Spirit

for their constituents. For all of the years that they would serve in San Jose, they always

had a Filipino pastor serving with them.

One of their strategies in San Jose was an annual Daily Vacation Bible School

during the summer months of March to May, which was apparently done several times in

succession each year with a different group of students each time. In 1955, they reported

having ministered to around 900 children and could have done more were it not for the

fact that Marjorie and her helpers were understandably exhausted!87 Young people also

became a target of their ministry, and they organized a strong Christ’s Ambassadors youth

group. Sunday school also gave strong impetus to the church. In 1956, Denton reported

that attendance at the church had reached as high as 683, with another 3,058 attending at

their outstations.88

The Dentons were thoroughly Pentecostal. Their correspondence regularly

reports that they prayed for people to be filled with the Holy Spirit and for sick bodies to

be healed. The church they started in San Jose and the churches they planted in the

surrounding villages were planted with the power of God moving in signs and wonders.

Evangelists also came their way. Ralph Byrd and his wife, whom the Dentons described

as lovely people, came for a salvation-healing crusade and hundreds were saved and

healed.

47
 While overseeing the work in San Jose, the Dentons did not neglect the towns

nearby. In many of these towns, one day of the week is designated as market day, and

people come from all around to do their shopping. The Denton’s strategy involved going

to these towns on market day, getting a permit to hold a meeting, setting up their sound

equipment in the market area, preaching the gospel, giving an altar call, and passing out

literature, including the Pentecostal Evangel, the official organ of the Assemblies of God,

USA. Whenever the boys weren’t in school they would accompany Denton to these

meetings. Thus the whole family got involved in the ministry. While there was

persecution from time to time as priests would encourage people not to attend, this did

not deter the evangelistic team. Many people responded and came to Christ at these

meetings; there was a genuine hunger for God, although there were also many occasions

where they did not see the fruit of their labors immediately. Follow up on those living

outside of that particular barrio would have been a challenge. In time, however, churches

were planted in many of those places. By 1959 there were nine churches and nine

outstations in Antique, with a total attendance between seven and eight hundred.89

Traveling in the rural areas was no picnic. Roads, if they were paved at all, were

full of potholes. Bridges were often washed out by rain and often streams and rivers that

had to be crossed had to be forded. They had to know how deep the water was to make

sure that their jeep would make it through the water without getting water in the engine.

Evangelistic trips back into the mountains required parking the jeep at the foot of the

mountains and hiking in, carrying water, food, literature, the sound system, and anything

else needed for evangelistic meetings. Good health and a good pair of walking shoes

were an absolute necessity.

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 Not only did the terrain present challenges, so did bandits. The endemic poverty

of the Philippines is a breeding ground for social unrest which gives rise to terrorist

groups, sometimes backed by communists. None of the groups have been strong enough

to overthrow the government, nor even control the urban areas, but they have been strong

at times in the rural areas. Such was the case in Panay in the 1950’s, and the Dentons had

to continually be wary of them when traveling in the rural areas. Although it does not

appear that they were ever robbed by them or harmed in any way, their very presence was

a cause of concern and stress to Denton and his evangelistic team.

The Dentons found that literature distribution had an advantage. When people

took it home, others who had not attended the meeting could also read it. Thus literature

can easily go into people’s homes. The Dentons worked hard at securing literature

wherever they could, with much of it, at least in the early years, being sent from the

States. At one point a Sunday School class led by former missionary Blanche Appleby

sent thirty five boxes of literature!90 The disadvantage in doing this is literature from the

States was in English and reflected a Western worldview, thus making it not as effective

as literature developed indigenously. However, they did the best they could with what

they could get. The Dentons effectively combined the use of the spoken and the written

word and carried this pattern throughout their ministry.

Financing their ministry was always a challenge. The promises of God that he

will provide for his children do not mean that there will be no sacrifice. In one letter

home they commented that their money “melted like snowballs.”91 Their support check

from the Missions Department came only once a month meaning that by the end of the

month they really had to pinch their pennies! There were many months that the check

49
was late as the mail system was not always dependable, and this really caused some

stress. On more than one occasion they had to borrow money from a friend to keep food

on the table. Yet they didn’t complain, and their pictures suggest that they didn’t starve!

From the very beginning, the Dentons invested in young people who felt the call

of God to enter the ministry by sponsoring them to study at BBI in Valenzuela. Paying

for their travel, tuition, and room and board involved quite a sacrifice, and the Dentons

looked for sponsors in the States to help. The understanding, written or not, was that

those students would return to Antique to help in the work there when they graduated.

While this appears to have happened most of the time, a particular case where it didn’t

happen caused the Dentons a lot of pain. They sent a young man named Louie to BBI.

While there one of the missionaries at BBI, without consulting the Dentons first, offered

Louie a position at the school with a good salary if he would stay, and he took the

position. To the Dentons, this was a serious violation of ministerial courtesy made

especially painful by the fact that they considered the other missionary their best friend.

Adding to their frustration was the loss of a valuable worker, which were always in short

supply.92 Since they continued to send students to BBI until a school could be established

in the Visayas, however, one can assume that they were able to work through the issue

with Louie and the other missionary.

By 1954, when the Dentons had moved into a larger house, Marjorie had opened

up an orphanage of sorts by opening the downstairs of their home to some girls. By this

time Warren Jr. was studying in the States and apparently not happy about the

arrangement. Marjorie assured him that they took care of themselves very nicely, looked

after the clothing she had given them, and were a great help around the house.93

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 Since the Filipinos that were working with the Dentons were not quite ready to

take over when the Dentons went home on furlough, the FMD found some one who could

fill in for them. Gunder and Doris Olsen were itinerating in preparation for missionary

service in Indonesia when the Missions Department asked them to fill in for the Dentons

when they returned to the States for itineration in 1953. Olsen had been a power shovel

operator for a company in the Pacific Northwest when God began to deal with him and

Doris about becoming missionaries. He had sensed that a missionary call might be in the

offing when he was filled with the Holy Spirit, which resulted in a great prayer burden

for revival, but the actual call did not come until sometime later.94 Writing many years

later, Jim Denton described Olsen as:

…a cowboy preacher and a go-getter from the beginning. He hit the ground
running when he reached the Philippines. The home where we had lived was built
of nipa grass and bamboo. I am sure this was as much of an adjustment for the
Olsen family as it had been for us. There was a rather poor water supply so Gunder
and several helpers proceeded to dig a well. They attached a bucket to a rope and
the Speed-the-Light vehicle. It was driven back and forth while Gunder and the
helpers dug the well. Gunder was muscular and had been a boxer in his earlier
days. He had the ability to ride a bicycle sitting backwards. These things just
amazed the Filipinos. He also sang and played the guitar. Doris played the
accordion. There were many things about Gunder that endeared him to the Filipino
people. He had a real passion for the lost, was a tremendous preacher, and was
used to doing things in an efficient way.95

In God’s providence, they would stay much longer than a year. While ministering in

Antique, they became burdened by the fact that there was no Assemblies of God work in

Iloilo City, the great port city on the southeastern coast of Panay about three hours drive

by car from San Jose. Shortly before the Dentons returned in early 1954 and became

lifelong friends with them, the Olsens moved to Iloilo, believing that God was calling

them to put aside their dreams to go to Indonesia and plant a church there.

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 Fired with vision and enthusiasm but with no nucleus of people with which to

start, the Olsens and some BBI graduates, who had returned home to Panay, rented a

building to begin the church. One of the graduates, Fausto Virgo, eventually became the

pastor. Reports conflict as to what kind of a building this was. Ketcham reported it as

dilapidated and in a poor section of town. Denton wrote that it was in the best possible

location, near local colleges and along the bus routes!96 Whatever the truth may have

been, the building did need some work. All people available, including the Olsen’s two

sons, Merle and Marvin, were put to work. When the building was ready, they prepared

to begin services. Banners were put up, handbills were printed, and meetings were

begun. Olsen’s anointed preaching with signs and wonders following produced

immediate results, and Bethel Temple of Iloilo City was born.97 Within a few short years

attendance reached 500 and a larger facility was secured.

While solid Sunday school and youth programs were put in place and served as a

great asset in the discipling process of new believers, the explosive growth of the church

was fueled by the power of Pentecost. Again, as in other places, God saw fit to use Ralph

Byrd in a powerful way. The Byrds came in 1955 and, in conjunction with their meetings

in Antique, held a meeting for the Olsens in Iloilo. In the evening rallies, hundreds were

saved and healed. In two morning meetings, forty believers received the Baptism in the

Holy Spirit. But no move of God goes unchallenged by the enemy. Byrd told the

Dentons, who also attended the meetings, they sensed greater demonic opposition in

Iloilo than anywhere else they had been in the Philippines.98 Three months after the

meeting, however, Olsen could report that church was aglow with the power of the Holy

Spirit, with another twenty people having been filled with the Spirit after the Byrds had

52
left town.99 This meeting, along with a DVBS that was held that year, brought growth to

the church. Some time later Hal Herman came for a three week meeting with much the

same results.

Like most of the other churches, the Olsens were not content to serve at their

location only and began to plant other churches through outstation ministries. By 1956,

Sunday school at the main church, Bethel Temple, had grown to over 700 with as many

as 3,000 more in the outstation Sunday schools.100 What is interesting to note about these

outstations is that they were mainly staffed by young people from the church’s Christ’s

Ambassadors group that had received some training and were challenged to take up this

ministry.

All of this activity led to a very busy life. The Olsens generally counseled, wrote

letters, made phone calls, and let Bible studies on Mondays and Tuesdays. Wednesdays

were used for outstation ministry. On Thursdays they made hospital calls and had a night

service. Friday was choir practice. On Saturdays, they gave much time to training

Sunday school teachers by answering questions about the next day’s lesson.101

Obviously, Sunday was the day for which they all lived! One wonders when Gunder

found time to pray and study, let alone spend time with his family.

For a number of years after the war, those from the Visayas who wanted to go to

Bible school had to go to BBI in Manila, which involved considerable expense as well as

being quite a distance. Travel by boat in those days was a challenge as one would have to

take a bus to a large port to catch an overnight boat, which might be overcrowded. Also,

in time, space limitations at BBI led to a limiting of the available seats for those from the

Visayas. Another challenge was that as the churches in this region multiplied, so did the

53
need to provide pastors for these churches and for the churches that would be planted in

the future. The obvious answer was to set up a Bible school in that region, something

easier said than done.

In 1951, Edwin and Oneida Brengle responded to this call. Brengle had received

an invitation from a pastor in Sogod, Southern Leyte, who had become a Pentecostal and

had an independent Bible school that apparently met in his church. He was willing to

bring the school into the Assemblies of God. Leaving his family in Valenzuela he went to

the island of Leyte to open Immanuel Bible Institute (IBI) (later college). Once again,

Brengle found himself constructing buildings and, as in Pangasinan, their tenure would

not be long in that location. Along with construction and classes, students spent the

weekend in outstation ministry, which served a two fold purpose of reaching the lost and

giving the student invaluable hands-on experience in ministry.

Joining her husband in Sogod at a later point, Oneida once again was faced with

difficult living conditions in a house of only four rooms which they shared with a Filipino

family. Apparently she was not able to boil their drinking water and both of them became

quite sick. Brengle almost died from the bad water, and an early furlough was required to

regain their health.102 But their sacrifice resulted in a Bible school committed to training

pastors in way that honored was Christ through the exposition of the Scriptures.103

While they were recovering in the States, a typhoon damaged the campus as well

as the Brengle’s home. In view of this and in view of the fact that the churches

throughout the Visayas and Mindanao were beginning to recognize the new school, many

felt that it needed to be moved to a more central location to serve the region well.104

When the Brengles returned from furlough in 1953, Edwin began to look for a suitable

54
site, once again leaving his family behind, this time in Sogod, as Oneida was needed at

IBI. In addition to construction and running the school, both of them taught there. This

time, however, as the distance was not so great as when he had left his family in

Valenzuela to move to Sogod, Leyte, in 1951, so he was able to commute between Sogod

and Cebu island. How far is it from Sogod to Cebu? He located an excellent piece of

property for an affordable price in Cebu City and the campus relocated there where it has

remained to the present day. While the new location did not make it immune to typhoons

as later missionaries would attest, it’s location in the largest city in the Visayas, with easy

connections by boat to other islands, made it an ideal location for students coming from

other parts of the region.

Life in Cebu also had its challenges. While they had received two sizable

offerings from the U.S. to help with the relocation, it was not sufficient to meet all of

their needs, and they were forced to borrow money at 9 1/2% interest. They also rented

dormitory space, and the Brengles found the price of renting a place to live well beyond

their budget.105 One of the original buildings was only 12 by 16 feet and appeared to

serve as a chapel, kitchen, and dining hall for twenty students. It may have also been

used as a classroom.106 One wonders how well they all got along with one another over

the long haul in such cramped conditions. By October of 1955, they would have

adequate dormitory space for forty men and thirty two women, with one house that could

be used by teachers.107 By the grace of God and a lot of prayer, sheer grit, and complete

dedication, however, they succeeded in establishing IBI in a location that would prove to

be a great blessing to the churches in the region.

55
 The Brengles, however, were not content to construct buildings and instruct

students. As they did in Sogod, on weekends they held outreaches and established

outstations, using students as workers and touching many lives as people turned to the

Lord.

The Brengle’s work in Cebu extended far beyond these ministries, intensive as

they were. When the Visayas region became a district when the PGCAG was organized

into a sovereign Council in 1953, Brengle became the first district superintendent, which

required him to travel throughout the region to visit pastors and churches. Oneida

Brengle edited the district publication, The Voice, and was also active in developing

materials for and conducting Vacation Bible Schools.108

By 1956, however, the strain of the years had caught up with them and the years

of toil had broken Edwin’s health. They also were bothered that two new missionary

couples who had been sent to the Visayas, Calvin and Olive Zeissler, and J. Edward and

Frances Blount were not available to help at the school.109 This is a little hard to

understand as Zeissler did teach and lead the outstation ministry at IBI for ten months,

meaning one full school year, after arriving in 1953, before moving to the island of

Negros to plant a church. Perhaps what bothered them is that the Zeisslers did not stay

long term. It also seems that there were other concerns. Warren Denton, the chairman of

the board, wrote to his wife, Marjorie, who was in the States at the time, that there was a

major problem with relationships between missionaries, faculty, and students.110 He

doesn’t elaborate on the problem, but it involved the Brengles and was not resolved

immediately. Whatever the details may have been, Oneida Brengle urgently appealed to

Maynard Ketcham that they be given a furlough immediately. The letter gives one the

56
impression that they were stressed beyond reasonable measure as she repeatedly

mentioned how tired they were.111 The furlough was granted, and they returned to the

States in May, 1956. Because of Edwin’s health, they were never able to return.

Get the end of the story from Cal Zeissler

In 1956 Mayme Williams assumed the presidency of the school and served until

1957 when the Ahlbergs came for a two year stint. Both Williams and the Ahlbergs

would have to struggle with financial issues, which is a constant problem for Bible

schools. They looked to God and their supporters for help. Whether they tried to raise

funds within the Philippines is not mentioned. At the close of her brief tenure, however,

Williams could report that there had been many blessings from God, both spiritual and

material, and that many of the students had been given a vision by God of what it meant

to work for him. Much work on the campus was also done during this time, including

working toward finishing the girl’s dorm.112

The Blounts did give some time to IBC. They must have rejoiced when Mayme

Williams arrived as they were from the same home church. Williams, who appears to

have been a woman who normally got her way, promptly appointed Blount as the

business manager. The school had no money, meaning that the business manager’s job

couldn’t have been too time consuming as there was no money to administer! In a

wonderful spirit of sacrifice, both the Blounts and Williams dug into their own pockets to

provide for the needs of the school.113

While the misunderstanding with Brengles may have marked the beginning of the

ministry of the Blounts when they arrived in Cebu City in September, 1956, it doesn’t

seem to have bothered them for long. The Blounts understood that language learning and

57
church planting would be their main focus and set out to do just that.114 To what extent

they learned the language is not known, but they did set about to plant a church in the

heart of Cebu City.

When evangelist Hal Herman came for meetings in March, 1957, the small

congregation which the Blounts were pioneering, called Cebu Revival Center, was

meeting in an upstairs hall. The crusade went for eighteen days. Over two thousand

prayed to receive Christ and hundreds were healed during this time. Many healings were

both instant and visible as the blind went home seeing, paralytics went home walking,

cancerous goiters disappeared, and demons were cast out.115 In the end the church had to

go to two services to handle the growth that resulted!

In January, 1959, the Blounts experienced a serious personal crisis. Frances was

due to give birth to their third child (name?), but the pregnancy was complicated because

she had a rare blood condition. They feared that the build up of anti-bodies in her blood

would endanger the life of the child. She was to undergo tests with the possibility of

delivering the baby by caesarean section about three weeks before the it was due to be

born. Fortunately, there were American doctors in Manila that could deal with this

situation, and blood donors were also available since transfusions would be needed.116

Try to find the end of the story!

Construction appears to have been the major reason why Ahlbergs were chosen to

succeed Mayme Williams since the campus wasn’t finished yet. By the end of two years

they served there, they were able to increase their accommodations for students up to

100.117

58
 Following ten months in Cebu, Calvin and Olive Zeissler moved to Bacolod City

on the island of Negros, to the west of Cebu, in 1954, and became the first A/G

missionaries to that island. Their goal was to plant a church in Bacolod City, which had a

population at the time of around 85,000 people.118

Zeissler, like several others, received his call to missions as a result of his

experience in the military. Landing on the island of Mactan, near Cebu, during the war,

he saw that missionaries were needed there, and began to intercede for Filipinos. Later,

while attending Glad Tidings Bible Institute in San Francisco, God reminded him that he

had prayed for missionaries to be sent to the Philippines, and that God wanted him to be

the one to go. While anxious to honor God’s call, Zeissler wasn’t married at the time and

apparently felt that this might be a hindrance to getting to the field. The Lord saw fit to

bring Olive into his life soon after, and they made preparations to honor God’s call.119

Sunday School was a major focus of the Zeissler’s church planting strategy in

Bacolod. They rented a building and on the first Sunday, they had sixty-five children. As

they quickly outgrew their facilities, outstation Sunday schools were formed to expand

their outreach. Because of their Catholic background, the people were naturally cautious

about entering a Protestant church. The Zeisslers led with love and kept patiently

revealing the truth of God’s word to people. Some were won over while others were not.

But the church did grow. Within a couple of years they had a main congregation of over

200 adults with as many as 2,000 in all of the Sunday schools. While they did all of the

work themselves in the beginning, they were able to turn it over to a Filipino pastor

name? within three years, although they continued to serve as mentors and advisors. In

reflecting on the growth of the church nearly fifty years later, Zeissler is quick to point

59
out that it was orchestrated by the power of the Holy Spirit, specifically through healing

and the baptism in the Holy Spirit.120

Mindanao

In the 1950’s the island of Mindanao was undergoing great development. The

Philippine government was trying to relocate people to Mindanao from other islands by

offering them free tracts of land. Verify this. Was this what caused problems with the

Muslims? Research this a bit.

The Assemblies of God had opened work in Mindanao with the arrival of Pedro

Collado in the 1930’s and the work had continued to grow and expand. In 1940, Glenn

and Pauline Dunn had made a tour of Mindanao to investigate the possibility of

missionary work there and came back with a very positive report. But by the 1956, no

missionary had as yet been stationed anywhere on this vast island. When the PDC

became a General Council in 1953, the country was divided into three districts, Luzon,

Visayas, and Mindanao. Sometime later, (when?) however, the district lines were

redrawn and the north coast of Mindanao was switched to the Visayas District because

getting to the churches in that region was easier by boat from Cebu than over land from

various other parts of Mindanao. Since Brengle was the district superintendent of the

Visayas District at the time, he traveled through the area and no doubt offered whatever

assistance he could, but as yet there was no resident missionary. Other missionaries,

including field secretary Howard Osgood, had also visited there. According to Osgood

the only reason missionaries had not yet been stationed in Mindanao is that none were

available.121

60
 By 1957, however, it looked like things were beginning to change. In an

informative letter to Leslie and Mildred Bedell, newly appointed missionaries targeted for

Mindanao, J. Edward Blount described Mindanao as wide open and that a missionary

could simply pick a place to serve. Why Blount, a new missionary himself, was writing

to Bedell and how he acquired his information is unknown, but it does appear to have

been accurate. In Blount’s opinion, the fact that a missionary could possibly locate

anywhere made it a bit difficult to pinpoint the best location for a missionary to serve,

although he felt that there was a desperate need for missionaries in the southern part of

the island.122

Not only was the government offering free land to settlers, it was also offering

free lots to church groups. Blount also mentioned to Bedell that the Filipino pastors had

a number of pieces of property where a church building could be erected and speculated

that many more such places might be found, perhaps intending that a missionary could be

used to help fund such projects. The records regarding the Bedells ministry are rather

scant, so it is not clear if they ever actually lived in Mindanao, but by 1959 he was on the

field and serving as the superintendent for the Visayas-Northern Mindanao region, which

allowed him to spend much time in northern Mindanao.

In February of 1959, the Ahlbergs and Mollie Baird, a veteran missionary who

came to the Philippines after serving in a number of other fields, made a special trip to

the island of Jolo to follow up on a Filipino soldier who had come to Christ and been

filled with the Holy Spirit through an outreach of IBI on Mindanao. After he had been

saved, he was transferred Jolo by the military. Jolo, located in the Sulu Sea south of

Mindanao, is one of the southernmost islands in the Philippines and is not far from

61
Borneo. It is a Muslim stronghold that was known as the time to be a haven of pirates

and smugglers—not a safe place for white faces. They are believed to have been the first

Pentecostal missionaries to have ever set foot on the island and few, if any other

Assemblies of God missionaries have ever been there in any era.

The young man whom they came to visit met them at their ship. Along with him

were twenty others that he had led to the Lord! In a single two hour service, these people

drank in every word that the missionaries had to say, and the presence of the Holy Spirit

was very real. They also honored a request to go to the home of a sick woman and pray

for her, and apparently God touched her as later she was reported to be up and walking

around after they had left. How long they stayed is not mentioned, but it could not have

been more than a day. They returned to Cebu with their hearts stirred by the experience

and challenged the IBI students with what they had seen. Two students responded to the

challenge and went to Jolo to continue the work.123

Summary

In assessing the period of 1946-1959, several things stand out. First, with the

conclusion of the war, a great door of ministry opened to the Assemblies of God and both

the FMD in Springfield and the PGCAG were eager to walk through it. By the end of the

decade xxxx number of missionaries were serving in the country in many capacities. In

contrast to the early period, they had begun to spread out. While Manila had the greatest

congregation of missionaries, they had also moved to other parts of the island and a fine

complement of missionaries lived in the Visayas.

Second, the period is marked with evidence that God mightily used visiting

evangelists from the States such as A.C. Valdez, Clifton Erickson, Ralph Byrd, Hal

62
Herman, and others to bring great growth to the fledgling movement. To the extent that

the fruit of their labors was preserved, it was because they chose to work with local

pastors and missionaries rather than independently of them.

Third, their newsletters and reports to their supporters indicated a great desire on

behalf of the missionaries to see the gospel come with power, and they were not

disappointed. Pentecostal both in theology and practice, the missionaries preached that

Jesus saves, heals, and delivers from demons. This same message was also drilled into

those whom they trained in the Bible schools.

Fourth, the efforts, struggles, and challenges to see an indigenous church develop

begin to come into sharper focus. By 1959, the worldwide missions movement of the

Assemblies of God was forty-five years old. In assessing this time, Gary McGee notes

that the Assemblies of God had adapted the principles of the indigenous church.

Although actual implementation lagged behind the ideal, the Assemblies of God had in

fact established indigenous churches in many parts of the world.124 In assessing the

situation in the Philippines, the same could be said. Indigenous churches, by the

traditional definition of being self-propagating, self-supporting, and self-governing were

established. Space does not allow for telling the PGCAG’s side of the story, but from the

beginning the Filipinos led the way in propagating the faith with strong support from the

missionaries and their endeavors. While the evidence is not entirely clear, it does seem

that self-support of pastors in their churches did come mainly from local sources.

However, the various national programs such as radio and literature, as well as the Bible

schools that served to support the growth and development of the Assemblies of God

were massively supported from the U.S. At this point in the development of the PGCAG,

63
it probably could not have been otherwise. In terms of self-government, the FMD had

supported the move for the PDC to dissolve into the PGCAG, giving great momentum to

their becoming self-governing, but also failed to turn over vital properties to the Filipino

brethren. At the end of the decade one missionary did express the opinion that the

PGCAG was almost completely self-supporting, although he did note a dearth in

leadership.125 While gainsaying the opinion of a participant and eyewitness can be

hazardous, this does appear to be overly optimistic given the massive funding needed to

underwrite the programs of the PGCAG, and the number of missionaries that served in

various district and national offices.

In 1959, a major transition took place in the FMD in Springfield. After thirty-two

years of fruitful and faithful service, Noel Perkin, the executive director, retired. His

replacement was a young man of energy and vision named J. Philip Hogan. The Hogan

era, which would prove to be a time of stupendous growth for the Assemblies of God

around the world, would be inaugurated be with a new global missions thrust known as

Global Conquest. How this new program would function in the Philippines is part of the

next section of the unfolding story.

64
1
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 157 (try to document this from the original source instead
2
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 166-168
3
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 99
4
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 179
5
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 99.
6
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 168.
7
Philippine General Council of the Assemblies of God, Fourtieth Foundation Year: 1940-1980.
8
Letter from Noel Perkin to whom it may concern, February 22, 1946.
9
Rudy Esperanza, “Pentecostal Convention in the Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, March 23, 1946.
10
Minutes of the 8th District Convention of the Philippine District Council of the Assemblies of God, April 24-30, 1950.
11
General Superintendent’s Report in the Minutes of the 2nd PGCAG General Council, April 4-17, 1956
12
General Superintendent’s Report to the Third General Council, April 7-10, 1959.
13
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
14
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1, p. 173 (see if there is an original source)
15
Letter from Maynard Ketcham to the missionaries of the PFF, April 14, 1958.
16
Letter from Rudy Esparanza to Maynard Ketcham, February 14, 1959.
17
Minutes of the Third General Council, April 7-10, 1959.
18
Minutes of the first annual conference and convention of the Philippines Missionary Field Fellowship, February 19, 1959,
pp. 1-8.
19
Curtis M. Butler, “The Philippines Assemblies of God: It’s Growth and Development,” a term paper, Assemblies of God
Graduate School, August, 1974, p. 13.
20
Inez Sturgeon, Give Me This Mountain, Oakland, CA: Hunter Advertising Co., 1960, p. 53.
21
Sturgeon, p. 56.
22
Sturgeon, p. 57
23
Julie C. Ma ??? Ph.d dissertation, Fuller Theoloical Seminary, 1996, p. 87.
24
Elva Vanderbout, “Salvation Healing Revival in Baguio,” Pentecostal Evangel, June 19, 1955, p. 58.
25
Juan Soriano, “Pentecost in the Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, August 7, 1948, n.p.
26
Julie C. Ma, p. 95.
27
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
28
Oneida Brengle, “Filipino Students Go Forth,” Pentecostal Evangel April 3, 1948.
29
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
30
Minintes of the 6th Annual Convention of the Philippine District Council of the Assemblies of God.
31
Arthur and Edna Ahlberg, Questionnaire for news story, 1959.
32
Arthur and Edna Ahlberg, “A Hazardous Voyage,” Pentecostal Evangel??, September 3, 1949.
33
Minutes of the Eighth District Convention of the Philippine District Council, April 24-30, 1950.
34
Glenn Dunn, “Bethel Bible Institute,” Northwest District Records, May 6, 1950, n.p.
35
Glenn Dunn, “Bethel Bible Institute,” Northwest District Records, May 6, 1950, n.p.
36
Glenn and Pauline Dunn, Annual Questionnaire to the Missions Department, July, 1959.
37
Arthur Ahlberg, “In the Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, April 1, 1950.
38
Jim Denton, p. 108
39
Mayme Williams, p. 124.
40
Williams, Memories, p. 178.
41
Mayme Williams, Memories of My Heart. Durant, FL: By the author, n.d., p. 41.
42
Mr and Mrs Clyde Shields, “Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, July 6, 1952.
43
Paul and Violet Pipkin, “Reaching Asians With the Gospel,” Heritage, Vol. 21 No. 3, Fall, 2001, n.p.
44
Paul Pipkin, “ICI is Feeding the Lambs,” The Pentecostal Evangel, January 31, 1992
45
Odell Roberts, Sunday School of the Air report to the General Council, General Council Minutes, p.8.
46
Paul and Violet Pipkin, “Reaching Asians With the Gospel,” Heritage, Vol. 21 No. 3, Fall 2001, n.p.
47
Paul Pipkin, “Unrest in the Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, December 17, 1949, n.p.
48
Paul Pipkin, “Unrest in the Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, December 17, 1949, n.p.
49
Paul Pipkin, “History of the Manila Church,” Unpublished Manuscript, 1990, n.p.
50
Flossie and Riley Kaufman, “Activities Report,” n.d.
51
Lester Sumrall, Life Story, p. 35.
52
Lester Sumrall, Application for Missionary Appointment, January 14, 1952
53
Sumrall, Life Story, p. 138.
54
Sumrall, Life Story, p. 151.
55
Sumrall, Life Story, p. 152.
56
Paul Pipkin, “History of the Manila Church,” Unpublished manuscript, 1990, n.p.
57
Lester Sumrall, “The Thing…The Revival,” The Pentecostal Voice, July, 1957, p. 15.
58
Floyd Hurst, “Hundreds Saved in Manila,” The Pentecostal Evangel, February 15, 1953, n.p.
59
Lester Sumrall, The Life Story of Lester Sumrall, p. 176.
60
Lester Sumrall, The Life Story of Lester Sumrall, ??????, p. 175.
61
Lester Sumrall, “Philippine Islands,” Pentecostal Evangel, June 6, 1954.
62
Deloryes Reb, “Christ’s Ambassadors in the Philippines,” The Pentecostal Evangel, April 15, 1956, p. 65.
63
Alfred Cawston, “Pentecost in the Philippines,” Pentecostal Evangel, August 30, 1959, p. 82.
64
Letter from Ralph M. Riggs to Reverend Melvin W. Steward, November 17, 1955.
65
Letter from Melvin Steward to D.G. Foote, February 15, 1959.
66
Ernest and Jean Sjoberg, Bulletion No. 8, July, 1954.
67
Ernest and Jean Sjoberg, Bulletin No. 8, July, 1954.
68
Ernest and Jean Sjoberg, Bulletin No. 11, April, 1955.
69
Ernie Sjoberg, “Evangelizing the Negritos of Luzon,” The Pentecostal Evangel, n.d., p. 59.
70
Ernest and Jean Sjoberg, Bulletin No. 11, April, 1955.
71
Ernest and Jean Sjoberg, Bulletin No. 12, June, 1955.
72
Ernest and Jean Sjoberg, Bulletin No. 13, September, 1955.
73
Ernie Sjoberg, “Pagans Get the Gospel,” Missionary Challenge. October, 1957, n.p.
74
Maynard Ketcham, Sjoberg, Rev. and Mrs. Ernest. Unpublished document? April, 1957.
75
Ernie Sjoberg, “Pagans Get the Gospel,” Missionary Challenge, October, 1957.
76
Trinidad Esperanza, p. 42.
77
Jim Denton, Foreign Devil Boy or Older Brother, Springfield, MO: by the author, 2003, p. 108.
78
Jim Denton, p. 113.
79
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs. B.J. Denton, November 15, 1949.
80
Jim Denton, p. 112.
81
Letter from Warren Denton to Mr. and Mrs. B.J. Denton, November 15, 1949.
82
Letter from Warren Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, March 27, 1950.
83
Letter from Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, June 14, 1950.
84
Jim Denton, p. 120.
85
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, February 27, 1956.
86
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, February 9, 1952.
87
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, May 25, 1955.
88
Warren Denton, ??? The Pentecostal Voice, Vol. 1, No. 4, October-November, 1956, p. 9.
89
Warren Denton, Beginning the Work, publication unknown, April, 1959.
90
Letter from Warren Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, October 12, 1955.
91
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, December 5, 1950.
92
Letter from Marjorie Denton to Mr and Mrs B.J. Denton, September 27, 1950.
93
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Warren Denton Jr., ca. 1954.
94
“Rev. and Mrs. Gunder Olsen,” The Pentecostal Voice, Volume 1, Number 5, December, 1956, p.3.
95
Jim Denton, p. 129.
96
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Charles W. Denton, February 5, 1954 and Maynard L. Ketcham, “New
Church Dedicated in Iloilo, Philippines,” The Pentecostal Evangel, May 25, 1962, n.d.
97
Maynard L. Ketcham, “New Church Dedicated in Iloilo, Philippines,” The Pentecostal Evangel, May 25, 1962, n.p.
98
Letter from Warren and Marjorie Denton to Mr. and Mrs. B.J. Denton, February 27, 1955.
99
Gunder Olsen, “Fruitful in the Philippines,” World Challenge, May, 1955, n.p.
100
Doris Olsen, “Iloilo Assembly of God,” The Pentecostal Voice, volume 1, number 5, December, 1956, p. 12.
101
“Our Missionaries: Mr and Mrs Gunder Olsen,” Memos, n.d., p. 59.
102
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956
103
Grace Artuza, IBC Through the Years, unpublished manuscript, n.d.
104
Artuza.
105
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956
106
“Building for God in the Philippine Islands,” Missionary Challenge, May, 1955, n.p.
107
Edwin and Oneida Brengle, “Immanuel Bible Institute Property Dedicated,” World Challenge May, 1956, n.p.
108
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
109
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
110
Letter from Warren Denton to Marjorie, Warren Jr., and Jim Denton, March 9, 1956.
111
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
112
Mayme Williams, ??? The Pentecostal Voice, vol. 1, no. 7, February, 1957, p. 9.
113
Mayme Williams, Memories, p. 151.
114
Letter from Oneida Brengle to Maynard Ketcham, March 20, 1956.
115
J. Edward Blount, “God’s Visitation (Day to Cebu City=) Philippine Islands,” Newsletter, July, 1957.
116
J. Edward Blount, “Bethel Temple, Iloilo City, Philippines,” January 29, 1959.
117
Arthur and Edna Ahlberg, “Ye are the Light of the World,” World Challenge, November, 1958, p. 75.
118
Calvin R. Zeissler, “Questionnaire for News Story,” 1958.
119
Calvin R. Zeissler interview with Rose Engcoy, April 5, 2001.
120
Calvin R. Zeissler, “Questionnaire for News Story,” 1958.
121
Letter from Howard B. Osgood to Mrs Claude Straw, 1954 (try to get exact date)
122
Letter from J. Edward Blount to Leslie Bedell, August 23, 1957.
123
Ahlberg Newsletter, May, 1959.
124
McGee, This Gospel, vol. 1., p. 211
125
Floyd Horst, “Personal Profile,” June 8, 1959.