Giuseppe 'Joseph' Giusti

Giuseppe Giusti was born in Catania, Sicily 15 August 1895.

He was educated to 5th grade standard in Italy, before migrating to the USA from the port of Genoa, arriving on the SS Silvia at the port of Baltimore on 5 September 1917.

On 1 July 1919 Joseph married Sarah nee Ginetti (b. 13 March 1903, Caserta) in Baltimore, Maryland. Together they would have five children, Rita (b. 28 March 1920, Simmons, West Virginia); Samuel (b. 20 June 1923, Baltimore, MD- 23 Apr 1998, Wilmington, DE); Rebecca (b. 8 May 1928, Wilmington, DE) and Elizabeth (26 May 1932, Wilmington, DE), and one other.

In 1923, Giusti was living at 309 South Eden Street, and working as a painter. The previous year, he received the witness from people associated the Assemblea Cristiana in Chicago, and was converted. A potential source for his conversion and work is a connection with Giuseppe Petrelli, who was connected to the emergence of many such small house churches up and down the east coast of the USA. His ministerial obituary in the Pentecostal Evangel suggests that he established a small work in Baltimore, MD under the auspices of the Assemblea Cristiana in Chicago. He was ordained on 14 November 1933 by Pietro Menconi.

By 1926, Giusti had moved to Wilmington, DE, where he organized an Italian speaking congregation in Wilmington, Holding services for a short period in room at 7th and Scott Sts., the congregation then moved to the First Italian Presbyterian Church at 619 N. duPont St. (entry 515), meeting there until 1929. In that year, they moved to a building at 1800 W. 5th St., which was used until 1931

In that year (1931) the church building at 1720 Chestnut St. was dedicated, under the name the Italian Christian Assembly of the Apostolic Faith. It was a one story cement block structure. The next year (14 March 1932) Joseph and Sarah purchased the land on which the Church was built [acknowledging the various spellings of his name, including Justi, Juste, and Gusti, by non-Italian speaking bureaucrats] for $1000 from Rose and Domenico Cicatelli. In 1933, he took formal ordination in the AGUSA, at which time they were listed as living at 206 N. Lincoln St., Wilmington.

In 1948, Giusti was a founding signatory to the roll of Italian ministers who joined the Italian 'Branch' (or District) when it was formed at a Conference held 14-16 January in Joseph R. Flower's Grace Tabernacle, Syracuse. "The purposes for the call were expressed in a letter which had been mailed to about 250 of the Italian Pentecostal brethren in the U.S.A., and included cooperative help for the Pentecostal work in Italy, and the possibility of forming a Branch of the Assemblies of God in America in keeping with the organizing of the Assemblies of God in Italy, which occurred in the summer of 1947." [PE 14.2.1948, 13] Giusti's name (along with numbers of other Italian-American ministers) were added to the AGUSA's roll.

On 15 January 1948, Giuseppe and Sara's daughter Rita married Robert Thomas Allen, accountant, of Wilmington (b. 9 Sept 1920) - it was his second marriage, and her first. Their other daughter Rebecca married Paul Francis Terranova (whose family were from Ferla, Siracusa) in the same year.

In 1949, Giusti was living at 1704 Tulip St., Wilmington, Delaware, and ministering at the Christian Assembly of the Apostolic Faith at 1720 Chestnut St., Wilmington. He was still making his living, according to the 1950 census, as a Painter. His real passion, however, was church planting and evangelism, particularly in Italy. In November 1950, as the Italian Branch turned its' attention to assisting the growth of Pentecostalism in Italy, Giusti left New York for Naples, Italy on the SS Conte Biancamano, with the stated intention of staying in Italy for 5 months. Anthony Foti remembers that the Wilmington congregation was small, and Giusti spent a lot of time preaching in Sicily, even acting as pastor of the Catania church at one stage. It was not a smooth path - the increasingly well-organized ADI churches received news that there had been accusations of misconduct, and closed doors to his ministry. His wife Sarah protested (via an intermediary) to the AGUSA, who referred her to the Italian Branch. She determined to go to Sicily to support her husband. (FPHC-DMF). There is a travel record for Sarah and Elizabeth leaving New York on the SS LaGuardia, bound for Palermo, on 22 October 1951, and a reentry record for Giusti in May 1952, arriving in New York aboard the SS Constitution. This indicates that Sarah joined her husband while he was preaching and church planting through Sicily, possibly including his time as senior pastor of the large ADI church in the city of his birth, Catania.

In 1958, the Field Secretary of the AGUSA in Italy, Anthony Piraino, visited Australia, and reported enthusiastically on the prospects for mission in Australia among what he (with some exaggeration) declared were the "One Million Italian Migrants" in that country. Following Piraino's enthusiasm, and but also his essential failure in moving the AGUSA to fund a well-structured missions campaign in Australia, Giusti raised enough money to support himself for some time on a mission to Australia, and began work among Italian communities from Sydney north through Newcastle and Brisbane, and up into the cane fields of the north.

He found that, while the immigrants were retaining many of their native customs and all of their colorful language, they were happy over their new citizenship in a land that offered them greater opportunities than they formerly had enjoyed. However, they knew very little about that eternal citizenship which can be enjoyed in the kingdom of God through the atoning grace of His Son. and many were ready to accept this wonderful gospel. [PE 23 Sept 1962, pp. 28-29]

Small groups were started Queensland, Leichhardt, Hoxton Park (an old Union Church which he personally largely rebuilt) near Liverpool, with contacts in Newcastle, Robinvale and other places. His style was direct - and he occasionally found himself in trouble with the police for strapping a loudspeaker to the top of his car, preaching in Italian as he drove up the main streets of small country towns. Those who remembered him in following years described him as a dour, but committed and intense figure, always well-dressed and cautious to never bring disrepute on the Gospel. (Hutchinson 1998)

In 1959, he was asked by Piraino to go to Melbourne, where a group of Italians had gathered around the AGA churches of Richmond Temple and Moonee Ponds, but (with the death of Paolo Nocera's wife) were currently without a leader. (Giovinazzo 2006) He worked in Australia for three years, handing the field over to a young couple then pastoring in Shelton, Connecticut, Anthony and Jean Foti. (Hutchinson 1998)

In June 1966, while preparing to return to Australia and on his way to assist with the construction of a prayer room at Pinegrove Camp, Giusti died of injuries sustained in a car accident. He was buried at Gracelawn Memorial Park. His church had always been small, but now declined steadily. At the time of writing it has become a centre for African Spirituality trading under the name of the 'Maat Temple'.

Samuel married Margaret: they had a daughter Elaine (married name Miller). 'Sammy' was enlisted during WWII for two years, and worked as a painter for much of his life (as his father had done in his early years).

Rebecca "Becky" (d. 20 September, 2003, Dover) was predeceased by her husband Paul Terranova (d. 24 Sept 1998), but were survived by their daughter, Linda Terranova Ferris and her husband, Robert, of Bear - Rebecca is buried in Gracelawn Memorial Park, New Castle.

Sources:

Church Minutes, (including register of members and deaths), 1931 --, 1 vol.; Financial, 1932 --, 1 vol.; in possession of Sarah Giusti, 1704 Tulip St. Records are kept in English.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, Deceased Ministers Files (FPHC-DMF)

Giovinazzo, Rocco, The Upper Room: A History of the Italian Pentecostal Church in Melbourne, Marden, SA: PDV Publishing, 2006.

Hutchinson, Mark P., Pellegrini: An Italian Protestant Community in Sydney, 1958-1998, Chester Hill: APSS, 1998.

Legacy.com

Pentecostal Evangel (Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center)