Elizabeth Sisson: Pioneer Pentecostal Missionary, Evangelist, Church Planter, Author

This Week in AG History — February 18, 1922

By Glenn W. Gohr
Originally published on AG-News, 17 February 2022

Elizabeth Sisson (1843-1934) was an early missionary, itinerant evangelist, church planter, and author. She was one of four daughters born to New England whaling captain, William Sisson, and his wife Elizabeth (Hempstead) Sisson. She was converted in 1863 in New London, Connecticut, and felt a calling to ministry. She reported that she saw a vision of Christ, who said to her: “I have ordained you.” She joined Second Congregational Church and later attended an Episcopal church.

In 1871 she left the U.S. to serve India as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) where she ministered among Hindus and Moslems. After she was stricken with severe illness, Sisson was forced to leave India for a period of recuperation in London. She reported that she was healed of an “incurable disease” at W. S. Boardman’s Bethshan Faith Home in London. In 1887 she returned to the U.S. and was a gospel worker in Chicago for a time.

She soon took up a teaching and writing ministry. During this period, she became associated with Carrie Judd Montgomery and became the associate editor of Triumphs of Faith in Buffalo, New York. The two women went to San Francisco in the fall of 1889, where Carrie met and married George Montgomery. During this time Sisson attended some tent meetings held by Maria Woodworth-Etter in Oakland. She later resigned her post with Triumphs of Faith and returned to New England, where she was baptized in the Holy Spirit at a camp meeting at Old Orchard, Maine.

For several years Sisson traveled as an evangelist, accompanied by her sister Charlotte. She held meetings in New England, Canada, and other places. In 1908 she made an evangelistic tour to the British Isles. She spent four months ministering with F. F. Bosworth in Dallas in 1915. That same year she also ministered in Detroit.

Sisson attended and actively participated in the 1917 General Council. She delivered the keynote address on the topic of “building of the body of Christ.” She became affiliated with the Assemblies of God soon afterwards on Dec. 18, 1917, at the age of 74. In her final years she made her home at 17 Jay Street, New London, Connecticut.

Sisson became a sought-after conference speaker and was a prolific writer. She contributed articles to Word and Work (Framingham, Massachusetts), Confidence (Sunderland, England), The Latter Rain Evangel (Chicago), the Pentecostal Evangel, and Triumphs of Faith (Oakland, California). She contributed more than 65 articles to the Pentecostal Evangel and well over 100 articles to other Pentecostal periodicals. In addition, she authored over 30 tracts and booklets. Many of these focused on the topic of prayer. She passed away at her home on Sept. 17, 1934, at the age of 91.

One of her articles on prayer, written 100 years ago, was called “The Last Lap of the Race.” It included a three-point message on 1) the prayer race, 2) how to pray, and 3) the victory.

She started out by saying, “On a racecourse everything depends, not on the beginning of the race … but when comes the last lap of the race, how every eye is fixed upon the runners.”

She stressed that as Pentecostals, we have come to that critical moment — the last lap of a race. And she said this 100 years ago. How much more relevant is this idea today. She quoted the powerful verse in Joel 2:28: “It shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit upon ALL flesh.”

She considered this outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all flesh as the last blaze of glory in the Gentile age. She wrote that “truly we are in the last lap of the prayer race. It is ours to apprehend the program of God and pray it in.”

She emphasized the vital importance of prayer with a single declaration: “Restrain prayer, retard God’s operations. Increase prayer in the Holy Ghost, and speed this plan of God.” Indeed, when in prayer we have given Him “good measure pressed down and running over,” He will answer back with “gospel measure,” said Sisson.

Sisson listed many examples of answered prayer. She recommended being “hidden in the name of Jesus, covered by the blood” when you pray. She also stressed that it is the power of Jesus’ Name that brings the “Victory of the Throne” when praying. Sisson gave several examples from the Old Testament regarding prayer and praise. She stressed that true victory comes through praising God.

Read Elizabeth Sisson’s article, “The Last Lap of the Race,” which was published on page 2 of the Feb. 4, 1922, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel and continued on page 2 of the Feb. 18, 1922, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “The Return of the Lord,” by Arthur W. Frodsham

• “Seven Reasons Why Sick Are Not Healed,” by Max Wood Moorhead

And many more!

Click here and then here to read these issues now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Lillian Trasher: Serving the Widows and Orphans of Egypt

This Week in AG History — December 21, 1935

By Glenn W. Gohr
Originally published on AG-News, 23 December 2021

Assemblies of God missionary Lillian Trasher, in a 1935 Pentecostal Evangel article, celebrated the 25th anniversary of her arrival in Egypt. She testified of God’s provision for the Assiout Orphanage, which she founded in 1911: “He has never failed me all these years and we are being fed like the sparrows, who have no barns or storerooms. Seven hundred little ones. We are still looking to the Lord for our hourly needs. O! He is such a wonderful Saviour!”

Lillian Hunt Trasher (1887-1961) was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and grew up in Brunswick, Georgia. She accepted the Lord at a young age, and as a 9-year-old she prayed, “Lord, if ever I can do anything for you, just let me know and I will do it.” Little did she know at the time where that initial commitment would lead.

A few years later her family moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where she was invited by evangelist Mattie Perry to work in a nearby orphanage, which cared for about 100 children. Trasher’s love for children soon led her to accept this invitation. During her apprenticeship at the orphanage, she learned how to make clothes, care for infants, and teach children — all on a shoestring budget. This experience would prepare her for her life’s calling in Egypt.

She left the orphanage to study for one year at a Bible school in Cincinnati, Ohio, and then traveled for a time as an evangelist. In her travels, she met George S. Brelsford, a missionary working in Assiout, Egypt, and the door opened for her to sail to Egypt as a missionary in 1910. At that time she had no mission board to support her, but she received gifts from friends and offerings from churches.

Residing with other missionaries at Brelsford’s mission, she began to study the Arabic language and pondered the course of her ministry. A few months later, she was called to the bed of a dying woman who had a small baby that was left an orphan. Lillian took care of this baby, and this led to the establishment of what today is known as the Lillian Trasher Orphanage in Assiout, Egypt.

During the 50 years that Lillian operated the orphanage, thousands of Egyptian children and families received food, clothing, housing, spiritual nurture, and education. This won her the respect of the Egyptian government, as well as the international community. Since 1911, the Lillian Trasher Orphanage has provided hope and a loving home to more than 25,000 children. In 1919, Lillian Trasher affiliated with the Assemblies of God. She previously held credentials as an evangelist with the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee). Because of her tireless work with orphans in Egypt, she is fondly remembered as “Mama Lillian” or “Mother of the Nile.”

Read the entire article, “Assiout Orphanage: A Testimony of God’s Faithfulness,” on page 11 of the Dec. 21, 1935, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “The Coming of Immanuel,” by Ernest S. Williams

• “The Revival That Was Born in a Christmas Convention,” by Mary Martin

• “The Christmas Message,” by D. H. McDowell

• “Marvelous Miracles in France,” by Douglas R. Scott

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Edith Mae Pennington: The Beauty Queen Who Left Hollywood for a Pentecostal Pulpit

This Week in AG History —July 4, 1931

By Darrin J. Rodgers
Originally published on AG-News, 08 July 2021

Edith Mae Pennington (1902-1970) traded the glamour and fame of Hollywood for a Pentecostal pulpit. Her testimony, published in 1931 in the Pentecostal Evangel, shared her journey from small town America to Hollywood and back again.

Reared in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Edith accepted Christ at a young age in her family’s evangelical church. By high school, she had become a ravishing young woman and lost interest in spiritual things. She enjoyed popularity and, she wrote, “the love of the world gripped my heart.” She spent her time going to dances and engaging in the frivolities of the world. She did not intentionally reject God, but nonetheless drifted away from her faith.

After high school, Edith attended college. She intended to become a teacher but soon found herself on another path. She entered a beauty pageant in 1921 and beat out 7,000 other young women to capture the title, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the United States.”

Edith’s life would never be the same. Gifts and money were showered upon her, and she received numerous invitations to speak at luncheons and christen buildings and public works projects. “I was dined and feted, flattered, and honored,” she recalled. She wore expensive clothing, had a car and chauffeur, and regularly made guest appearances at theaters.

Even though Edith seemed to have everything, she felt empty on the inside. “It was very exciting, alluring, inviting — yet it did not satisfy,” she wrote. During her travels across America, she decided to try the screen rather than the stage. She settled in Hollywood, hoping for a change.

Edith’s mother was her constant companion, helping to protect her and line up events. But her mother’s most important work, perhaps, was accomplished in the prayer closet. Edith noted, “Mother would be behind the curtain praying for me at my request and her desire — for God to help me and not let me make any mistakes.”

These prayers were soon answered, but not before witnessing the depravity of Hollywood. Edith appeared in several motion pictures, but became increasingly “shocked” at the “wicked world” surrounding her. “I was horrified at the immorality and the things I witnessed,” she wrote, noting that she had “several narrow escapes which frightened me.” She realized that her hopes for fame and fortune had been misplaced. “My air castles shattered at my feet,” she cried.

In her despair, Edith turned to God. She began attending church and heard the gospel preached by the power of the Holy Spirit. She felt conviction for her sins and “awakened to the startling realization that I was a sinner, lost and undone.” She began to read the Bible, which seemed to make everything “brighter” and her “soul lighter.” However, she hesitated to make the decision to become a true follower of Christ.

Edith knew that she would have to leave her lifestyle behind if she recommitted herself to Christ. She understood that there would need to be a parting of ways: “One way led to a career, fame, and fortune, but there was sin, the world, and a lost soul at the end. The other way revealed the Cross, and Jesus the Savior who had died for me that peace, joy, and forgiveness might be mine.”

Initially, Edith tried to have both God and the world. She went to church and also went to theaters and parties where sin abounded and where God was dishonored. She was miserable and ultimately recognized that she needed “deliverance from the bondage of the world.”

She visited churches that she described as “nominal,” and they were unable to help her find victory from her bondage to sin. She knew she wanted to live for the Lord, but she could not seem to separate herself from the destructive paths of the world. She experienced painful cognitive dissonance. She liked dressing like a Hollywood starlet, but deep inside she knew that she could not serve both God and flesh.

Finally, Edith decided to visit a Pentecostal church. She had heard that Pentecostal churches believed in the power of God. And Edith knew that she needed God’s power. She attended several Sunday evening services at a Pentecostal church in Los Angeles in October 1925. One evening, after a message in tongues seemed to be a direct rebuke from God, she ran to the altar and fully surrendered her life to God. She began to weep uncontrollably and then experienced unexplainable peace and quietness. She recalled, “I was happy, and felt so free, so light, so clean.”

The next night Edith returned to church. This time, she decided not to wear her characteristically gaudy jewelry. She received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and felt God call her to preach the gospel. Edith returned to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where, in 1930, she became the pastor of the Assemblies of God congregation.

Edith Mae Pennington spent the rest of her life in ministry as a pastor and noted evangelist. Throngs of people would come to hear “The Most Beautiful Girl in the United States” share how she left the lights of Hollywood for the light of the Cross. Edith’s decision to forsake the world and to follow Christ changed the course of not only her life, but thousands of others.

Read the article by Edith Mae Pennington, “From the Footlights to the Light of the Cross,” published serially in the July 4, 1931, and July 11, 1931, issues of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in the July 4, 1931, issue:

• “The Overflowing Stream,” by P. C. Nelson

• “Is Life Worth Living?” by Myer Pearlman

And many more!

Click these links to read the July 4th and July 11th issues now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Alice Belle Garrigus and Pentecostalism in Newfoundland

This Week in AG History — June 24, 1950

By Glenn W. Gohr
Originally published on AG News, 25 June 2020

Alice Belle Garrigus (1858-1949) was only five feet tall, unmarried, and 52 years of age when she sensed God call her in 1910 to help pioneer the Pentecostal movement in Newfoundland.

Born into an Episcopalian family in Rockville, Connecticut, Garrigus spent the first half of her life in various locations in New England.

At 15 she began teaching in rural schools. Desiring further schooling she returned to Normal School and then spent three years (1878-1881) at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College). Leaving the seminary a year before graduation, she resumed teaching. Through the influence of a colleague, Gertrude Wheeler, Garrigus accepted Christ as her Savior in 1888. Both women left on a 10-month excursion to Europe.

Returning to the United State, Garrigus again taught school, but she was spiritually restless. She wanted a deeper walk with God and began reading Hannah Whitall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. “This I read,” Alice wrote, “often on my knees — praying fervently: ‘Oh God, if there be such an experience, won’t you bring me into it?’”

Garrigus and Wheeler then joined the Congregational Church. Her friend Gertrude later went to Africa as a missionary and died there. About 1891, Garrigus gave up her teaching profession to work in a home for destitute children and women. Next she moved to Rumney, New Hampshire, where she came in contact with the First Fruit Harvesters Association, a small evangelical denomination focused on the evangelization of New England. Garrigus served as an itinerant preacher with the First Fruit Harvesters between 1897 and 1903.

During 1906, Garrigus reread the Bible and earnestly sought to understand what made Jesus’ disciples different following the Day of Pentecost. Around this same time, she heard about the revival taking place at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles.

In 1907, at a Christian and Missionary Alliance camp meeting at Old Orchard, Maine, she met Frank Bartleman, a veteran of the Azusa Street revival and an unofficial chronicler of the Pentecostal movement. Bartleman “stood for hours,” wrote Garrigus, “telling us of the deeper things of God.” After he left the camp meeting, Garrigus, Minnie Draper, and others met in an old barn to pray, and there Alice Belle Garrigus received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. She continued preaching at Rumney and Grafton, Massachusetts, and other places, but began feeling impressed to found a mission in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

One of her protégés at Bridgeport, Connecticut, was Charles Personeus, superintendent of the John Street Mission. Personeus wrote, “When Miss Garrigus was with me in the John Street Mission, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that changed the mission to First Pentecostal Mission.” In 1917, Charles Personeus and his wife, Florence, went to Juneau, Alaska, as missionaries for the Assemblies of God.

Together with the W. D. Fowlers, a missionary couple she had known since 1889, Alice Belle Garrigus traveled to Newfoundland, arriving in the capital city of St. John’s in December 1910. The three established Bethesda Mission in a rented building in the downtown area on New Gower Street, which opened on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1911. Garrigus’ preaching at Bethesda emphasized conversion, adult water baptism, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and the imminent return of Christ. Numerous lives were changed because of the ministry at Bethesda. After little more than a year, the building was purchased, and by the next year the building was enlarged to accommodate the increasing number of people attending the services. In 1912, the Fowlers had to leave Newfoundland for health reasons, and that left Garrigus in charge.

The Pentecostal movement in Newfoundland grew slowly during the next decade, since Garrigus’ ministry remained centered in the St. John’s area.

After a crusade in 1919 by evangelist Victoria Booth-Clibborn Demarest, interest in Pentecostalism grew. New converts started new missions, and one of these, Robert C. English, eventually became co-pastor with Garrigus at Bethesda Mission.

Alice Belle Garrigus’ work with Bethesda Mission eventually led to the founding of a Pentecostal organization in Newfoundland. On Dec. 8, 1925, the “Bethesda Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland” was chartered. The word “Bethesda” was dropped in 1930.

The first general superintendent of this organization was Robert C. English, followed by Eugene Vaters, A. Stanley Bursey (all three who worked closely with Garrigus), and others. In 1949 the people of Newfoundland voted to become Canada’s newest province, and this organization and the number of churches has continued to grow. The current name is The Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador (PAONL). It is a member of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship and has strong ties with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, the Assemblies of God, and other denominations within the Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA).

Alice Garrigus’ nearly 40 years in Newfoundland were very busy. She remained there for the rest of her life and continued to be a principal figure in the Pentecostal church, serving as an evangelist in charge of Bethesda Mission and also holding a number of executive positions in the PAONL. She passed away in August 1949 at Clarke’s Beach, Newfoundland, at the age of 91. Soon after her passing, a Pentecostal campground was established and called Camp Emmanuel. The Garrigus Memorial Tabernacle at the camp was named in her honor and dedicated in 1955.

A. Stanley Bursey, a former PAONL general superintendent, wrote: “We, who have had the opportunity to appraise her work and the result of same, can only conclude that when God calls, He makes no mistakes.”

Alice Belle Garrigus was a prolific writer. In 1950, the Pentecostal Evangel published an article by her, titled “Eating on the Heap,” which discusses Jacob and his father-in-law, Laban, making a covenant that was solidified with a mound of stones called “a heap.” Afterwards they ate together on the heap to show that past wrongs and hurts would be forgotten and that love would prevail.

Read “Eating on the Heap,” on page 3 of the June 24, 1950, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “I Sat Where They Sat,” by J. Narver Gortner

• “The Passing and the Permanent,” by Robert C. Cunningham

• “Missions — New and Old,” by H. C. Ball

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Canyon Day, Arizona: The Role of Native American Women in Assemblies of God Churches

WMC members at Canyon Day Assembly of God form a choir for an outdoor service, 1960.

This Week in AG History — April 24, 1960

By Glenn W. Gohr
Originally published on AG News, 19 March 2020

Native American women have played important roles in the development of Assemblies of God churches on reservations across America. The April 24, 1960, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel shared how women helped to establish a congregation on the Apache Reservation at Canyon Day, Arizona.

Mary and Leo Gilman were called to be missionaries to the Apaches at Canyon Day. When the Gilmans arrived, Mary reported that these women worked side by side with the men. First, they helped set up poles and build a shaded area for a brush arbor until a permanent structure could be built. Once the church was being built, they helped with the construction work and also hauled rocks and mixed cement for the parsonage, sidewalk, and church steps.

After the church opened for services, the Women’s Missionary Council (WMC) was officially organized. One of the Apache ladies became the WMC president. The group held weekly meetings, where the ladies spent time in Bible study and prayer as well as cleaning and caring for their church building. Each of the ladies sewed a quilt, and these colorful creations were hung on the church walls. Some people later visited the church just to see the beautiful quilts.

The ladies did weekly visitation from house to house and down back roads and trails to show care and concern for their neighbors and family members. They also visited the older ladies of the community and took them small tokens of friendship. They gave out quilts to some of the older people who were in need.

One time these ladies won 40 ribbons at the Apache Indian Tribal fair for their sewing, cooked foods, etc. The Assemblies of God booth even won first prize! Participating in this event gave them an opportunity to witness and pass out over 4,000 tracts in two days, with the assistance of the Christ’s Ambassadors (young people) of the church.

These Apache women definitely made an impact on their surroundings as they shared the love of Christ through their many activities.

Read “Apache Women at Work,” by Mary Gilman, on pages 16-17 of the April 24, 1960, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “New Awakening in Germany,” by Nicholas Nikoloff

• “Navajo Artist Builds a Church For His People,” by Ruth Lyon

• “Busy Mother Ministers to the Blind,” by Maxine Strobridge

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Carrie Judd Montgomery: A Passion for Healing and Fullness of the Spirit

This Week in AG History — February 12, 1938

By Ruthie Edgerly Oberg
Originally published on AG News, 13 February 2020

Carrie Judd Montgomery (1858-1946) experienced a physical healing in 1879 that led her on a journey to ever-deepening fullness of life in the Holy Spirit. A prolific author and sought-after speaker, she also established healing homes and was involved in humanitarian work. Montgomery became an important voice for spreading the message of faith in God’s power in both the Holiness and Pentecostal movements.

In the Feb. 12, 1938, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel, Montgomery wrote an article on the steps of faith taken by the Jewish patriarch, Abraham. The following quote from that article encapsulates much of her teaching on the life of faith: “When you really hear God speak through His Word it is as easy to believe as it is to take your next breath. If you have ever had an experience of this kind, the memory of it will always encourage you to trust Him yet again.”

As a youth, Montgomery attended an Episcopal church in New York. She was encouraged by her bishop to “swiftly obey the voice of the Spirit.” As a teenager, she started a Sunday School for neighborhood children and sought to be used of God. However, the idea of surrendering herself to God’s will frightened her. She knew she must abandon sin, but she was afraid that surrendering herself to God would require her to abandon her gifts and talents, as well. She feared that in doing so God would not allow her to fulfill her life dream — to be a writer.

In 1876, when she was 17 years old, she fell in an awkward position on the icy ground. She was confined to bed with “hyperesthesia of the spine, hips, knees, and ankles.” For almost three years her outlook was grim, as her weight dwindled down to 85 pounds. In 1879, her father read about an African-American woman, Sarah Ann Freeman Mix, who had experienced a healing of tuberculosis and had a ministry of praying for the sick. Montgomery asked her sister to send a letter to Mix requesting prayer.

The family received a quick reply asking them to trust wholly to the care of Almighty God and to believe the promise of James 5:15, “and the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” Mix asked them to pray at a certain time on Feb. 26, 1879, and she and her prayer group would also prayer and believe God for healing.

On that day, the Judd family prayed in faith. Carrie struggled to overcome the doubts in her mind but, finally, turned over in her bed and raised herself up alone for the first time in over two years. By April, she was able to walk outside and in July she returned to lead her Sunday School class.

Montgomery received so many inquiries about her experience that she published her story, The Prayer of Faith, in 1880. This book became one of the first theological writings on divine healing as provided in the atonement of Jesus Christ. In 1881, she began the publication of a periodical, Triumphs of Faith, which she continued to publish for the next 65 years. God fulfilled her desire to be a writer.

Believing that the life of faith was essential for the spiritual life that God intended for His people, she began teaching on the subject in conferences. She was soon known for her national ministry on the faith-filled life of holiness. In 1890, she moved with her new husband, George Montgomery, to Oakland, California. There, she opened Home of Peace, a healing home where she taught guests how to pray for and receive healing.

When a revival began in Los Angeles at the Azusa Street Mission, Montgomery began to publish reports of its services in her paper. Pentecostal services began to be held in Oakland, and Carrie attended a meeting. She later wrote, “I had myself received marvelous anointings of the Holy Spirit in the past, but I felt if there were more for me I surely wanted it.” She received her own personal Pentecostal experience in 1908.

In 1914, Montgomery became a charter member of the Assemblies of God. She was able to remain a part of the Assemblies of God without cutting her ties to her broader network of evangelical and Holiness believers. Upon her death, her ministry was carried on by her daughter and son-in-law, Faith and Merrill Berry.

The list of early Pentecostal ministers influenced by Montgomery’s ministry read like a “Who’s Who” of the Holiness/Pentecostal movement — A.B. Simpson, William Booth, Pandita Ramabai, Maria Woodworth-Etter, William Seymour, John. G. Lake, A.J. Tomlinson, Alexander Boddy, Smith Wigglesworth, Elizabeth Sisson, Aimee Semple McPherson, A.H. Argue, Juan Lugo, Chonita Morgan Howard, and many others.

Montgomery’s hunger for the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the life of faith was an earmark of her ministry. While she traveled in international missionary work and established camp meetings, orphanages, training schools, and a home for elderly minorities, she never strayed from the core message of her ministry — God calls his people to holiness and to healing.

Read Carrie Judd Montgomery’s article, “The Faith of Abraham,” on page 2 of the Feb. 12, 1938, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “The Challenge of the Opening and Closing Doors” by Noel Perkin

• “Depravity” by E.S. Williams

• “Ye Shall Be Witnesses Unto Me”

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

See also: “Carrie Judd Montgomery: A Passion for Healing and the Fullness of the Spirit,” by Jennifer A. Miskov, published in the 2012 edition of Assemblies of God Heritage.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: iFPHC.org

Elva Stump: The Nurse Who Became an Assemblies of God Church Planter in West Virginia

Elva K. Stump, age 98

This Week in AG History — January 18, 1936

By Darrin J. Rodgers
Originally published on AG News, 2 January 2019

Elva K. Stump (1885-1985) was a trained nurse and a pioneer Assemblies of God minister. Most of her ministry was in Ohio, but she also spent time in the 1930s ministering in rural West Virginia, where she helped pioneer both white and African-American congregations.

Stump had a very full life. A nurse by profession, she graduated from the Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia. At age 29, she married a widower (Thomas), who had one child from his previous marriage. Thomas and Elva had four more children. In about 1926, she began serving as Sunday School superintendent of the Maple Avenue Mission (Church of the Brethren) in Canton, Ohio.

Elva Stump’s life changed dramatically in 1928, when she was 43 years old. She developed a spinal infection, which doctors told her would result in paralysis and death. Her suffering was intense, and the doctors gave her up to die.

However, Stump and her fellow Christians held a round-the-clock prayer vigil at her bedside. Stump came to believe that her illness was God’s way to teach her to submit to His will. The Lord reminded her of John 15:2, “Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” This realization changed her attitude and gave her peace. She changed the way she prayed, “I am not asking You to heal me for my friends, my family, or the mission, but only for Your glory and honor.” After she prayed in this way, she experienced a supernatural touch and was healed. She wrote about her healing in the June 21, 1930, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

She recalled, “I raised my head, took my left hand and ran it down my spine — no pain! I threw back the covers with my left hand and foot, and moved every toe on that foot — something I had not done for months. I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, walking heavily to see if sensation was really in my feet again.” Her nurse, hearing the commotion, thought that Stump was having a convulsion and dying. But the nurse came into her room and found Stump “walking and shouting and praising the Lord.”

Through this experience, Stump learned to submit to God’s will, whether it be easy or difficult. When she felt God calling her to leave Ohio to go minister to the unchurched of rural West Virginia, she heeded the call.

Stump became a credentialed minister with the Assemblies of God in 1932, at age 47. The Jan. 18, 1936, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel reported on Stump’s evangelistic endeavors. She was a 50-year-old female Pentecostal pastor, before it was acceptable in the broader society to be a female pastor, much less a Pentecostal.

Stump arrived in the community of Mud Lick, West Virginia, where she began holding gospel services in a building worthy of the town’s name — “an old forsaken schoolhouse.” The article recounted her humble accommodations: “Here she lived in a cabin set up on stilts, slept on the floor, and sat very still when she read so the wasps would not sting.” It was uncomfortable, but Stump learned to submit to God’s will. The results? The article reported, “The Lord owned this meeting, and men and women and some children found Him.”

Stump next held six weeks of meetings in the community of Sand Fork, where she was given a parsonage and an abandoned church. She left the believers after she secured a “very spiritual pastor” to shepherd the flock. Next, she helped establish a church and a “faith home” at Bealls Mills and an African-American congregation in Butcher Fork. She then went to the coal fields and held tent meetings in Gilmer, Pittsburg-Franklin, and MacKay. The tireless evangelist proceeded to St. Mary’s, where she held meetings at a community church. The January 1936 article noted that Stump planned to return to St. Mary’s and also start a work in Glenville.

Stump and her energetic ministry colleagues planted or rejuvenated these West Virginia churches, from Mud Lick to Glenville, in the course of one year. Her colleague, Minnie Allensworth, remarked, “This is the result of one year’s absolute surrender to the Lord.”

Pentecostal pioneers such as Elva Stump often did so much with so little. What could happen in one year if Pentecostals learned to surrender all to the Lord, just as Stump did?

Read the entire article, “New Work in West Virginia,” by Minnie Allensworth, on page 12 of the Jan. 18, 1936, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “Some Things a Pastor Cannot Do” by Ernest S. Williams

• “Our Daily Bread” by Lilian Yeomans

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Elva Stump’s testimony of her healing, published on page 9 of the June 21, 1930, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel, is accessible by clicking here.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: iFPHC.org

“Mother” Alice Reynolds Flower: An Example of Consecrated Ministry and Motherhood

This Week in AG History — May 11, 1952

By Glenn W. Gohr
Originally published on AG News, 9 May 2019

Alice Reynolds Flower (1890-1991), the wife of AG pioneer J. Roswell Flower, is a shining example of motherhood. Affectionately known as “Mother Flower,” she preached, taught Sunday School, led prayer meetings, wrote articles, penned poetry, authored books, and lived a godly example in front of her six children and everyone she came in contact with.

As Mother’s Day approaches, it is good to consider an article that Mother Flower wrote for the Pentecostal Evangel in May 1952. It was also made available in tract form through the Gospel Publishing House and was widely distributed.

In “The Business of Coat-Making,” Mother Flower talked about Hannah, the mother of Samuel in the Old Testament. Samuel’s mother prayed diligently to have a son, and when her first-born son arrived, she dedicated him to God’s service. As a young boy, he went to live with Eli the high priest. The Bible record says, “Moreover his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice” (1 Samuel 2:19).

This verse held deep significance for Mother Flower. She liked to ponder how Samuel’s mother found a way to minister to her son, even though he was consecrated to service in the house of God. She imagined the joy Hannah had in every stitch of the garment she made each year. Mother Flower said, “To Hannah, making that coat was no ordinary bit of sewing; it was her one chance to express yearly in practical manner the love of her heart.” She continued, “And she did it faithfully, delivering each tiny garment personally to her Samuel there in the house of God.”

Mother Flower suggested that God never intended the business of coat-making to end with Hannah. She gave an example of her own mother, who provided spiritual “coats” for each of her daughters. First, she gave each of them a “coat of prayer.” Mother Flower shared her own testimony of her mother praying for her during her teen years, when she was struggling with a number of conflicts. Partly due to her mother’s prayers she surrendered her life to Christ and later was baptized in the Holy Spirit on Easter Sunday of 1907 at the age of 16.

Her mother also fashioned “coats of consistent living” for each of her children. She testified, “Her every walk before us stirred our hearts to follow God similarly.” Mother Flower said that fervor in the church is good, and laboring for others is commendable, but “making the coat of consistent living” is the most important task of a mother.

Another aspect of coat-making is the Word of God. Mother Flower gave a testimony that after her mother was miraculously raised from a deathbed experience and filled with the Holy Spirit, she started the family altar. Each morning the family gathered together to read God’s Word and pray, and her mother also helped the children to memorize Scripture. She compared her mother’s influence through the Word of God to Timothy in the New Testament whose faith was molded by his mother and grandmother.

The “coat of discipline” is also essential. She shared that, “No home is beautiful or happy without obedience, respect, honesty and cooperation.” “The standard of righteous living as taught by the Word of God must be faithfully, constantly, consistently raised as a part of the family existence,” said Flower, “not a passing suggestion, but an essential detail of the family living, as is the eating, drinking and sleeping.” Training up obedient, honest, respectful, and God-fearing children is vitally important.

One more coat that is essential is “Understanding Love.” She felt it imperative that a mother have occasional “heart-charts” and “seasons together before God” with each of her children. She said, a “mother must keep ever wisely stitching on this ‘coat of understanding’ if she would successfully fulfill her highest ministry in the home.”

Mother Flower’s admonition is for more mothers to pray diligently for their children on a daily basis, live a consistent Christian life, study the Word of God, offer guidance and training, and hem all of this in love and understanding.

Read more in “The Business of Coat-Making” on pages 3-4, 22 of the May 11, 1952, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “Visions in the Night,” by Frank M. Boyd

• “Healed Through Mother’s Prayers,” by Allen Bowman

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: http://www.iFPHC.org

Panel Discussion: Women Assemblies of God Ministers in Greene County, 1907-1980

The Greene County Historical Society and the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center are co-sponsoring a panel discussion, “Women Assemblies of God Ministers in Greene County, 1907-1980.”

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be of interest to people of various backgrounds.

Where : Maranatha Village Community Center,
304 W. Bethany Dr., Springfield, MO 65803

When : Saturday, April 27
12:00-1:00 pm / GCHS annual meeting and lunch (optional)

• Bring your own lunch (free);
• or RSVP by Apr 15 for a catered lunch from Bambino’s ($15, which may be paid online at Eventbrite)

1:00-3:00 pm / Panel discussion

For more information or to RSVP email: grcomohs@yahoo.com

Women ministers have played important roles in Pentecostal churches in Greene County since 1907, when Central Assembly of God was founded by Lillie Corum. When the Assemblies of God located its national office and publishing house in Springfield in 1918, the town became an international hub for the denomination. Women have served as Assemblies of God pastors, educators, evangelists, and missionaries. However, many had to overcome bias against female clergy in both the church and the broader society in order to fulfill their calling.

Panel Participants:
Thelma Cook – Missionary to India
Joyce Wells Booze – Author
David Ringer – Professor of History
Ruthie Oberg – Moderator

Pandita Ramabai: Prominent Female Social Reformer and Pentecostal Pioneer in India

This Week in AG History — April 1, 1916

By Darrin J. Rodgers
Originally published on PE-News, 4 April 2019

Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922), widely regarded as one of India’s most prominent female social reformers and educators, played a significant role in pioneering the Pentecostal movement in India. Ramabai came from a privileged family, and she used her education and resources to help the underprivileged of her society.

Despite a cultural proscription on educating girls, Ramabai’s father, an educator and social reformer, taught her to read and write Sanskrit. By the age of 12, she memorized 18,000 verses of the Puranas, which were important Hindu religious texts. She became a noted Hindu scholar and was fluent in seven languages.

At a young age, Ramabai devoted her life to helping widows and orphans, who were often despised and mistreated in her society. Ramabai attended college in England, where she joined the Church of England. While traveling in the slums of London, she learned to distinguish between the institutional church and what she termed the “religion of Jesus Christ.” She returned to India and established homes for dispossessed widows and children. She also fought for social reform, including provision for quality healthcare and education.

Despite being marginalized by other social reformers who argued that her agenda was too radical, Ramabai continued to promote her social vision for India, which was consistent with her Christian testimony. She weathered criticism and even became bolder in her efforts, founding additional orphanages and a home for prostitutes. Importantly, Ramabai’s social ministries cared for both the body and the soul. They sheltered, educated, and fed women and children, and they also taught Christian doctrine and nurtured a generation of new Christians.

Ramabai realized that some things only change through prayer, and she used her significant influence to encourage women to pray for spiritual and social change in India. In January 1905, she issued a call to prayer, and 550 women began meeting twice daily for intercessory prayer. That summer, Ramabai sent 30 young women out into the villages to preach the gospel. These young female preachers were successful, and they reported an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on June 29, 1905, which included several being “slain in the Spirit” and experiencing a burning sensation. This Indian revival continued for several years. By 1906, participants also began receiving the gift of speaking in tongues.

According to Ramabai, the girls at the orphanage in Mukti prayed each day for more than 29,000 individuals by name. They prayed, among other things, for them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and to become true and faithful Christian witnesses.

Pandita Ramabai and the revival at the Mukti mission played an important role in the story of the Pentecostal movement’s origin in India. Alfred G. Garr, the first missionary sent by the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, recounted his interactions with Ramabai in a serialized history of the Pentecostal movement published in the April 1, 1916, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Read the article, “The Work Spreads to India,” by A. G. Garr on pages 4 and 5 of the April 1, 1916, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “Face to Face,” by D. W. Kerr

• “Letter from a Brother Minister,” by W. Jethro Walthall

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org