Fidel Alcala was born December 16, 1934, and attended Howard County Junior College (Big Spring, Texas), WTSU (Canyon, Texas), and Howard Payne University (Brownwood, Texas) for a total of 60 hours. He attended Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas, and the Latin American Bible Institute (1957). In 1985 he submitted a request for transfer from the West Ohio Annual Conference to the West Kansas Conference. He had been serving Assembly of God churches since the 1950s, while also being employed in a secular field. He had become a UMC minister in 1962 and had served since then as a supply pastor, local pastor and associate member of the West Ohio conference. Most recently he had been serving Iglesia Metodista Unita Church in Toledo, Ohio. Now, in 1985, he was exploring the idea of coming to Kansas to develop a new Hispanic congregation in the Garden City-Liberal area. His transfer was approved effective June 1, 1986, and he was appointed to the Dodge City district of Kansas West Conference. There, he started the Garden City Mexican American Church, which later became a UMC church. On October 5, 1975, he married Tania Leticia Alcala (born June 29, 1955); their children were Tania Leticia, David Joel, and Tehina Marie. In 1994, after eight years of his pastorate at Evangelica UMC in Garden City, Kansas, Rev. Alcala requested a transfer to Texas to do mission work. His transfer, effective June 11, 1995, took him to the La Trinidad (Fort Worth) charge in the Rio Grande Conference.

Note written by Sarah St. John