Missionary Gospel Fellowship began in 1939 from the vision of Paul J. Pietsch, a former Federal Probation Officer, who found an unfilled need in bringing Jesus Christ to migrant farm laborers arriving in California from dust bowl states. Initially, Mr. Pietsch took Gospel teams from Calvary Church in Santa Ana, California, to a farm labor camp near Buttonwillow in Kern County, California. Later in 1939, he moved his family to Shafter in that same county to give the work his full time. The following year he moved his family again, this time to Turlock, to be more central to the expanding work of the mission then ranging from Indio to Marysville.
Recognizing that the work needed more structure, Mr. Pietsch and five Christian businessmen incorporated MGF on October 27, 1942, and adopted by-laws, which solidified a statement of faith and organized the work as an independent, non-denominational mission.
In the years since incorporation, as the ethnicity of migrant farm workers changed, MGF workers have reached many other people. The needs of neglected immigrant populations have changed the face and work of the Mission. MGF missionaries are bringing Christ to Hispanics, Asians, West Indians, plus Native Americans, isolated rural populations, cults and inner city ethnic groups.
