The following is an update from our GraceMissions missionary partners Phil and Linda Gottschalk. Learn about how they got their start in missions and some updates on how God has been using them in recent years.
Linda and I have been supported by Grace Church for almost four decades! We were first introduced to Grace after I met Pastor Al Detter at a MEBC meeting at Bethany Baptist in Pittsburgh in 1980, where I was an intern at the time. Linda and I have always been missionary teachers. We began our ministry teaching Yugoslav students as a part of the Eastern European Bible Institute in Vienna, Austria from 1986 to 1994. Many of our EEBI graduates are now involved in ministry to children through Child Evangelism Fellowship, planting churches in challenging places like Podgorica, Montenegro, and leading evangelistic outreaches in Serbia and Slovakia through the Christian Evangelistic Center in Backi Petrovac, Serbia.
From July 1992 to 1994, we worked with Serbian refugees from Bosnia and Croatia in Novi Sad, Former Yugoslavia (Serbia), during the Bosnian War. We taught EEBI extension classes and discipled new believers. Several of these believers are now pastors and elders in new churches that they planted in the area and in Bosnia.
We also worked with international students at the International Church of Evangelicals in Leuven, Belgium, while I was studying at KULeuven University from 1995 to 2000. We were involved in leading Bible studies, discipling new believers, preaching, leading worship, and serving on the Board.
In 2000, we moved to the Netherlands and taught at Tyndale Theological Seminary near Amsterdam for twenty-one years, until 2021. Many of our students came from Africa, Asia, Europe, the US, and South America. Many have gone on to start new churches and even Bible schools. One student I mentored for his Master’s thesis has since started a Christian high school in Malawi. Another student from the Philippines has planted a church in an unreached region of his country. Others have served in leadership at TransWorld Radio, and some are now professors at Tyndale!
In August 2022, we moved to Bucharest, Romania to work with Ukrainian refugees. We are still working with them, planting a church among those Ukrainian refugees who remain in Romania. Linda began teaching Church History at the Bucharest Baptist Theological Institute in the spring semester of 2024. The Institute is one of the three theology departments within the University of Bucharest’s Theology Department. I began teaching there in the fall semester of 2024.
Linda has continued to teach Church History I & II, while I have taught Christian Ethics and Theological English and am currently teaching History of Christian Thought and, this spring semester, Christian Apologetics (the defense of the Christian faith). I have taught Christian Apologetics many times since our early days at EEBI in 1989—in Serbia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and now Romania! Our students—young men preparing for ministry in the Bachelor of Theology program—are actively planting churches and involved in evangelism and discipleship even as they study.
Thank you for your continued support, prayers, and encouragement.
