Alice Wood (1870–1961), the first Pentecostal missionary to Argentina, served more than 60 years on the mission field — the last 50 without a furlough.

Upon her retirement at age 90, Wood left behind a thriving church pastored by Argentinians who had come to Christ through her ministry.

As a single, 44-year-old Canadian Pentecostal missionary in Gualeguaychú, Argentina, Wood became an Assemblies of God missionary just months after the Fellowship’s founding in 1914. She had already been a missionary for 16 years.

Raised in a devout Christian home, Wood’s upbringing helped shape her theology. Her father was a Methodist minister, and her mother had a Friends (Quaker) background.

Wood attended Holiness camp meetings and conventions that were a feature of Methodism during her childhood. Through Friends, she learned that all have a place in the Church’s work, including women.

When Wood was 14, her father died. Just two years later, her mother died. At 16, Wood went to live with another family who encouraged her religious involvement and provided her with quality reading material.

Wood briefly attended the Friends Training School in Pickering, Ontario, before leaving Canada to begin a brief pastorate in Beloit, Ohio.

Around this time, Wood began attending a Christian Missionary Alliance (CMA) Bible study. She was baptized in water during an Alliance meeting in 1894.

Wood soon felt an intense longing “to go where Christ had never been preached.” In 1898, the CMA commissioned her to work with other missionaries in Venezuela.

After experiencing health problems on the mission field, however, Wood returned to the U.S. during 1900. She later spent a brief time in Puerto Rico, but infirmity again plagued Wood and prompted her return.

Wood prayed for strength and healing so she could serve long-term and not continue to break up her work with returns for convalescence.

Hearing of a great revival in Wales and another at a small mission on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, Wood also asked God for a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit’s work in her life.

Wood received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues during a camp meeting in Alliance, Ohio. She immediately sensed the Lord directing her return to South America.

Upon receiving the news of Wood’s Pentecostal experience, the Christian and Missionary Alliance broke ties with her and withdrew its sponsorship.

In 1910, Wood sailed for Argentina as the first Pentecostal missionary to that nation. With no organizational backing or tangible support, she simply trusted God to provide. Amid crop failures and devastating floods, Wood ministered to the needy out of her own poverty. She felt a renewed sense of dependence on Christ alone.

A few years after returning to Argentina, Wood’s health issues resurfaced. This time, she relied on the power of the Holy Spirit to help her persevere.

Wood later wrote, “I learned to take Christ as my life. Jesus healed me of cancer, nervousness, and many other ailments. Let His name be praised.”

During those years, the Roman Catholic church wielded considerable influence in Argentina’s government. Consequently, Spanish-speaking Protestant services were outlawed.

“I learned to take
Christ as my life.
Jesus healed me of
cancer, nervousness,
and many other
ailments. Let His
name be praised.”
— Alice Wood

Wood worked around this restriction by offering English classes. Using the Bible for lessons, she led many to Christ.

Despite the language barrier, Wood understood poverty and loneliness. She provided meals for children, helped abused women, and offered friendship to the marginalized. Wood gave people opportunities not only to receive assistance but also to give back by participating in her ministry.

As her Bible studies grew to become churches, Wood trained local workers to lead those congregations. She provided ongoing mentorship and supervision, particularly around her home base of Veinticinco de Mayo.

Along with the churches, Wood opened a day school that provided education for more than 75 children.

When Wood joined the newly formed Assemblies of God, the veteran missionary’s experience lent credibility and stability to the organization. She wrote many articles for the Pentecostal Evangel and kept up a lively correspondence with those interested in her work.

Wood was instrumental in the 1917 foundation of the Argentinian Assemblies of God, La Unión de las Asambleas de Dios.

However, Wood never attended a district or General Council meeting, nor did she travel to raise support and share her needs. From the time she arrived in Argentina in 1910 until her retirement in 1960 at age 90, Wood never took a furlough.

Explaining this decision, Wood said she understood her ministry in Argentina as a lifetime calling. As a single woman with no family to visit, she wanted to use available funds helping the Argentinian people she had come to love rather than traveling to the U.S.

In Wood’s later years, a national worker became concerned about her physical strain and told AG Field Secretary Melvin Hodges a washing machine would help. Wood was still using a washboard to do laundry for the entire missions compound.

Since Wood’s missionary assignment predated the founding of district councils, she had no home district. As a result, her needs were often overlooked.

At age 89, Wood became the proud owner of a 1958 washing machine, provided by the newly formed Etta Calhoun Fund of the Women’s Missionary Council.

Writing to express her gratitude, Wood said, “You have greatly lightened the work. … I have never seen anything like it. It is ornamental as well as useful.”

Wood went on to explain that the reduced workload gave her time to undertake a 10-day evangelistic tour.

“I preached six times in and around Buenos Aires,” Wood reported. “Many were at the altars seeking God. My last days, it seems, are my best!”

Wood finally returned to the U.S. in 1960, a year before her death at age 91. She left her ministry in the capable hands of people she had led to Christ years earlier.

Her travel companion, Lillian Stokes, wrote of Wood’s departure from Argentina, saying, “As I saw her few little ragged belongings I thought, ‘the earthly treasures of a missionary,’ but the Word of God says, ‘great is her reward in heaven.’”

Wood spent her last year at the Assemblies of God retirement home in Lakeland, Florida. The home’s superintendent wrote in her file, “Miss Wood is a lively little soul. ... She seems to be of the kind that can eventually adapt herself to any situation. We thank God for her.”

This single, female missionary laid the groundwork for a flourishing Pentecostal movement that continues in Argentina to this day.

In 1912, Wood wrote, “Ours is largely foundation work … but we believe our Father is preparing to do a mighty work and pour out the ‘latter rain’ upon the Argentine in copious showers before Jesus comes.”

The sweeping revival in that nation under evangelists Carlos Annacondia and Claudio Freidzon during the 1980s and ’90s traced its beginnings to Wood.

Pentecostals and Charismatics now make up the largest Protestant group in Argentina.

This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Influence magazine.