The Wagon Shed vs. The Cathedral: How a 1928 Experiment Saved a Church

History is often written by the victors, but in the case of the Philippine Restoration Movement, it was written by the survivors.

In 1928, an American missionary named George Benson landed in Mindoro with $400 in his pocket. He didn’t build a cathedral. He didn’t put preachers on a payroll. He baptized 79 people and told them to build “wagon sheds”—simple, self-funded chapels.

Decades later, in the 1950s, a new wave of missionaries arrived with a different philosophy: “Big Religion.” They built campuses, paid salaries, and imported American institutions. It looked like success.

But in 1975, four of those missionary leaders signed a document that shocked the brotherhood. In the “Proposed Plan for Philippine Self-Support,” they admitted that the money had become a poison. They called for a total cut-off of foreign subsidies.

Why? Because when World War II hit, and the Americans were imprisoned in Los Baños, the “wagon shed” churches of Benson and his successor Henry Cassell didn’t die. They baked communion bread on charcoal irons and boiled hibiscus for wine. They survived because they owned their faith.

This is the story of the Unbroken Chain—from the rice paddies of Mindoro to the internment camps of Los Baños, Laguna. It is a lesson for modern missions: True faith cannot be bought; it must be built, sometimes in a wagon shed.

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