After Lewis Finster graduated from Union College, he and his wife felt called to serve overseas. They served in different nations before they ended up in the Philippines. When they arrived, there were no Filipino Adventists.
Lewis and Ella Finster arrived as pioneer missionaries in the Philippines on December 17, 1908. Three years later they started a group of believers that would become the first Filipino Adventist church in the country.
Originally from the United States, Lewis attended Union College. After graduation he worked in the US, but it wasn’t long before Lewis and his wife, Ella, felt called to serve overseas. They served in Western Australia and, for a short time, Tasmania before they were called to the Philippines.
When Lewis and Ella arrived in Manila, there were no Filipino Adventists. The few missionaries before them had worked in Spanish and English, primarily with the foreign community, although J. L. McElhany had started preparing literature for Filipinos.
Lewis realized that only five percent of the population spoke Spanish, so he began learning Tagalog with a translator for the American Bible Society. The translator learned about the Sabbath from one of the tracts and was among the first group of baptisms in 1911. Lewis planted the first church in Santa Ana, a suburb of Manila. He encouraged his young converts to join in the mission, and he soon had a group of colporteurs and -evangelists.
The work grew rapidly, and while in the Philippines, the Finsters saw four conferences and one union conference established.
Today there are more than 1.2 million Seventh-day Adventists in the Philippines and more than 7,000 churches and companies. There is one Seventh-day Adventist for every 86 people.
To these pioneering missionaries we say, Salamat.
