Frida Vingren

Frida Maria Strandberg was born on June 9, 1891, in Sweden. She grew up in a modest home, and she was drawn to the Pentecostal movement in her youth. She trained as a nurse and was a person of energy and independence. In 1917, at the age of twenty-six, she sailed to Brazil as a missionary, with the intention of joining the work that had been begun by Swedish Pentecostals. She arrived in Belém, in the north of the country, where the Assembly of God had been started a few years earlier by Gunnar Vingren and Daniel Berg.

She soon became a part of the work. She was a gifted speaker, and she took part in services and in the visitation of the poor. She taught the women of the church and trained them in the Scriptures. In 1924 she married Gunnar Vingren, the leader of the Brazilian Assemblies of God, and the two worked closely together. They moved to Rio de Janeiro, where Gunnar became the head of the work and where the church grew rapidly. They had several children.

She took on a number of tasks. She edited a magazine, Boa Semente, which was one of the first publications of the Brazilian Assemblies of God, and she wrote articles on Scripture and on the Christian life. She also wrote hymns and poems. She was also active as an evangelist and a preacher, and she held meetings for women and for those in need. At a time when the church was becoming more organized, she was among the few women who held a public role.

The mission leaders in Sweden and some of the Brazilian pastors grew uneasy about her influence. They objected to a woman who preached and wrote and exercised authority. She was criticized for her independence and for her views, and her husband's position was affected. She was pressed to cease her public activity and to submit to the male leaders. The conflict was hard on her. Gunnar's health was failing, and he was often sick. They went back to Sweden in 1932, where Gunnar died the following year.

After her husband's death, she fell into a deep depression and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She spent the rest of her life in care and died in 1940, at the age of forty-nine. It is a sad story, and it should be told with care. The causes of her illness are not fully known, though many see in it the effect of loneliness, grief and the long strain of the conflict over her role. She left behind her children and her writings.

In recent years, historians in Brazil and Sweden have taken a new interest in her life. They have drawn attention to her work and to the way she was treated. She is now being recognized as a pioneer of the women's ministry in the Brazilian church. Her life shows the cost paid by those who step beyond the roles set for them, and it is a reminder to the church to honor the gifts of all its members.