Holiness and Pentecostal Missions in El Salvador: The Example of Frederick Ernest Mebius

Abstract

ABSTRACT Frederick Mebius is credited as the first Pentecostal missionary to El Salvador, but his story is more complicated. As a missionary for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Bolivia, Mebius was a part of the Holiness Movement. Tracing his history reveals a gap of information from 1903 to 1908, from Los Angeles, California, to El Paso, Texas. In the interim, oral history places Mebius as founding churches around 1904 in El Salvador. This history creates space to explore Holiness missions that emerged from Los Angeles and speculate about how Mebius might have arrived in El Salvador first as a Holiness evangelist before his return as a Pentecostal.