Filipino evangelical Christians of Winnipeg 1972-1994

by Levy Abad

	Broadway First Baptist Church at 790 Honeyman Avenue in the Wolseley neighbourhood
	Filipino Evangelical Church on the corner of Spruce St. and Ellice Avenue

I chanced upon some articles in the Manitoba Archives about the early beginnings of the Winnipeg Filipino evangelical Christians. I was surprised to learn that Reverends Noel and Rosina Lapatha arrived in Winnipeg as early as 1972. The article written by Linda Natividad Cantiveros for the Filipino Journal in 1993 describes Pastor Lapatha as an ordained minister in the Philippines. He led the formation of the Filipino Christian Fellowship in 1973. In an earlier article by a certain Mang Ambo published in the April 1980 issue of Silangan, the group that was led by Pastor Lapatha was referred to as the Filipino Christian Group (FCG). The activities of FCG were mostly held at Broadway First Baptist Church at Honeyman and Walnut Streets from 1973 to 1983.

The early 80s featured the gradual growth of the Filipino evangelical community. At a gathering at Burrows Avenue, the community resolved to form a congregation of 16 people, which came to be known as the Filipino Evangelical Church, with an address at Ellice Avenue and Spruce Street. This church was led by Pastor Noël Lapatha, who started part-time until he became a full-time Pastor in 1992.

Pastor Alfredo Velasco shared that “the current association of the Filipino churches in Winnipeg is now called Fil Inter-Church Fellowship of Winnipeg (FICFW). Reverends Lapatha, retired pastors of FEC, were the pioneer leaders before it even became the FICFW today.”

As the Filipino community in Winnipeg grew, the evangelical community expanded. On June 8, 1986, the Filipino United Community Church was formed with its first worship held in Crescent Park. According to the article of L. N. Cantiveros, the North Dakota Conference of Evangelical Churches sent Pastor Erasto Arenas from California to officiate the founding event. One of the pioneer pastors of this church was Pastor David Alvarez. According to Jean Alvarez-Padrinao, the daughter of Pastor Alvarez, the name of the church that his father tended to was Fil UCC. She added that her father arrived in Winnipeg on February 5, 1987, to be the interim pastor of Fil UCC until 1988. This was reaffirmed by Ley Navarro, who shared that Rev. Alvarez’s stint was only two years and that Pastor Socrates “Soc” Herrera stayed for a longer period as a regular pastor from 1988-1994. Ley, who chaired the Manitoba Filipino Street Festival, was a pioneer music ministry volunteer together with his wife, Azel, in the 80s and 90s.

Another pioneer pastor arrived in Winnipeg in April 1991 in the person of Rev. Alfredo Velasco, an ordained Pastor of the Church of the Nazarene. He spearheaded the planting of a Filipino Nazarene congregation in Winnipeg. In November 1991, he started a Nazarene Filipino Church service, which was renamed Winnipeg Filipino Community Church of the Nazarene (WFCCN). Today, this congregation is called River of Life Church of the Nazarene, located in St. Vital.

In a phone conversation, Pastor Rolly Vinluan who arrived in Winnipeg in 1967 and studied Masters of Divinity at University of Winnipeg School of Theology, told me that in the 80s to 90s, he used to conduct regular Methodist Bible studies at different homes Eventually, this led to the formation of the First Winnipeg Methodist Church (Filipino) in 1994 with the help of Pastor Dave Alvarez. This church was transformed into the Pacific Community Methodist Church in 1998.

Lastly, Pastor Fred Sebastian and his wife Alice immigrated to Thunder Bay, ON, in 1988, and then moved to Winnipeg in 1990. Pastor Sebastian immediately engaged in church planting that gave birth to the Church of the Living Hope, which in 2003 moved to B’nay Abraham Synagogue on Enniskillen Avenue in West Kildonan. The Church of Living Hope is a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Canada. This church would become one of the biggest evangelical communities from which other churches branched out (Cheryl Girard, ‘Gathering place for all people,’ Winnipeg Free Press, Nov. 6, 2010).

The pastors included in this article are mostly pioneers who stayed in Winnipeg. I wrote this article to update the articles I found in the Silangan and Filipino Journal newspapers, and to commend the evangelical Christian pioneers who loved God, gathered and cared for our community in the early years. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.