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[Above: Daniel Berg—and Gunnar Vingren Wikimedia. Public domain.] 

THE SHIP CLEMENT left New York City on 5 November 1910, bound for Brazil. Two weeks later, on this day 19 November 1910, two American Swedes disembarked from the Clement at Belém, Pará, Brazil. It was a significant moment for the vast Latin American country. 

The two men Daniel Berg, 26, and Adolf Vingren, 31 were Pentecostal missionaries. Seven years earlier, in 1903, Vingren had come to Michigan from Sweden. A Christian woman living in Menominee prophesied that he would be used to win souls after the Holy Spirit had come upon him. A group of Pentecostals confirmed his missionary call and said he was to go to Brazil. 

While in preparation, Vingren became a pastor in Chicago. There he met Daniel Berg, who worked at a market. The hearts of the two united with desire to preach the gospel overseas. Olof Uldin, a Spirit-filled man, prophesied that the two were to go to Pará. Neither knew where Pará was and went to a library to look it up. Convinced this was God’s leading, they set their hands to task. The amount they needed for the third-class fare came together.

When they arrived at Belém they had no contacts. A Baptist minister allowed them to live in the basement of his church for two dollars a night. They communicated as best they could while they began learning Portuguese. After they prayed for the healing of a Brazilian woman, she recovered from an incurable affliction and soon after spoke in tongues. Other Brazilians accepted the Pentecostal teaching. The Baptist minister accused them of heresy and excommunicated them. 

Numbering nineteen, they formed their own church. They named themselves Apostolic Faith Mission, but seven years later adopted the name Assembly of God, the first church to take that name. Later they affiliated loosely with the Assemblies of God that emerged in the United States.

Not only Baptists but Presbyterians and Catholics in Brazil resisted the Pentecostals. However, they offered hope to the poorest, sickest, and most neglected Brazilians, healing many in the name of Jesus. Consequently, Berg and Vingren saw steady church growth. And when they moved to the large cities and turned over control to indigenous leaders, the Pentecostal denomination took off. 

Today the Assemblies of God is the largest Protestant denomination in Brazil. The most conservative estimates agree that they have at least eight million members, but the church claims twenty million. Surely God honored the obedience of the two Swedes.

—Dan Graves

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For more on the Pentecostal movement, read Christian History #58, The Rise of Pentecostalism

For more on Pentecostalism in South America, read “¡Llegaron los pentecostales!” in Christian History #130, Latin American Christianity: Colorful, complex, conflicted

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