Voices from the Field Paul & Tanya Gericke Get to know Paul & Tanya

Moving Toward Goals

Published on May 06, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Spring to everyone—especially to those who are like us in Alberta, just seeing the snow disappear! Though Paul and I are not yet in Romania full time, we have many exciting updates regarding the ministry. Paul and I have been busy wearing a lot of different hats since last summer. Paul finished his ministry at Central as the Worship pastor on Easter Sunday. He feels so blessed to have been a part of such a strong ministry team who have been examples of how we are to serve in ministry as a body. I finished my education degree at the beginning of April and was blessed to have a fruitful practicum experience of teaching and building relationships with teens. I have learned more about working with youth and how to approach teaching young people, which will transfer well into developing young leaders in Romania. We both feel our work experiences over the last few years have played a huge part in equipping us for full-time missions. We will miss the communities we’ve been invested in but are excited to take off those hats and use those skills in missions.

As we began to process stepping into full-time missions, we wanted to come up with a plan of how we would prepare ourselves before we moved. A number of ideas came to mind which included a short trip to Romania with facility development experts, spending the summer at Camp Caroline with the future Romanian Camp Directors (Tamas and Tunde), and church visits.

On April 21st, 2014 we took an 11 day trip with a team of 15 plus 3 Hungarians to Romania. The purpose of this trip was to determine the specifics for the camp facility development as well as the greater vision for leadership development. We had an all-star team made up of a contractor, an architect, a water/sewage expert, ministry leaders, translators and others with a heart for missions. The trip was productive, fruitful and affirming that there is a need for leadership development in Romania. If you are interested in hearing more details about the trip, please visit our website http://www.rootsinromania.com and read the blog under “updates” called “The Power of Community”. In our blog we also share about the ministry opportunities that came up outside of the camp development discussions which are shown in some of the pictures in this newsletter.

Over the last couple of months we have been able to visit a number of churches and speak at some mission conferences. We have felt overwhelming support  and encouragement from the NAB churches and other churches as well. We have been able to share with a number of congregations and communities about our heart for Romania as well as the need for ministry there. We just got back from a powerful weekend at College Heights Baptist Church in Prince George where we were the speakers for their missions conference. Our visits not only serve as a way for us to share about missions in Romania but how Paul and I have been able to receive incredible amounts of support and encouragment. Thank you to all who have organized such events and who have hosted Paul and I. We are truly grateful for the community being built around us and this ministry.

We are now at Camp Caroline serving as the Camp Pastors and overseeing the staff supervisor team. We are excited about this role as we will get to dive into camp ministry at a deeper level in order to prepare us for developing programs that will raise up young leaders in Romania. We look forward to our roles this summer as we will be connecting with the staff and investing in their spiritual lives—an area of ministry that we both love! Tamas and Tunde will also be joining us at Camp and will be arriving in Canada on June 1st.  They will have the opportunity to see how we run camp programs and leadership training in North America. We will then have time to have discussions on how we want to approach camp ministry in Romania. We look forward to the conversations we will have and to building a strong sense of community and unity between the four of us.

We look forward to the incredible opportunity to develop and equip the next generation of leaders in Romania and we truly believe that the camp ministry will serve this purpose and have a great impact on the country. We are excited and passionate about establishing a camp that is self-sustaining, evangelistic, develops leaders and that empowers the local people of Romania. We are thankful for your prayers and support as we step into this ministry.

Thank you for being incredible supporters in our lives and partnering with us in this ministry!

Paul and Tanya Gericke

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