I have served with the Missio Link International team, Timișoara, Romania since 1994 when Pastor Eugen Groza invited me to coordinate church partnerships, a program to equip and enable strategic local churches across Romania by fostering relationships with churches in the USA. I continue to serve in this ministry, and it is rewarding to look back and see the fruits. Clearly a highlight of these 30+ years is the people I got to know, the deep friendships with special men and women. Dave and Joan Gall have become friends and family.
In 1996 I met Dave Gall who came to Romania with his friend Mal Long, representing Zionsville Presbyterian Church, IN. In Romania the spread of the evangelical churches is uneven, with a very thin presence in some areas such as south, southeast and our strategy has always been to go where the need is greater. ZPC through Dave were quick to embrace the vision and decided to come alongside a small church planting community in Giurgiu, south Romania. Over the years the ZPC partnership extended to other south Romania places in the Fetești area, Slobozia, Călărași, as well as the Lord’s Army group across the country, a renewal movement within the Orthodox Church.
Dave came with many questions wanting to learn, and with a plan, a five-year plan for the partnership. In 1996, this confused me as Ceaușescu, the communist dictator, also had five-year plans! Five-year plans again? Are we becoming friends and partners until 2001 and then what? 29 years later, in 2025, the partnership with ZPC continues to unfold, the five-year plan continues with joys and disappointments, with deep friendships and flourishing ministries that went beyond any of us could have planned. I also remember deep disappointments when I thought Dave would not be back, I am glad I was wrong. Under Dave’s leadership, our partnership with ZPC and Romanian churches has become a unique mission model. Dave went deep in ministry and friendships taking many along with him on the journey.
How should mission be done in an area where there is a church? Why is this partnership model unique? Can a presbyterian church and leader in the USA equip and enable Baptist, Brethren and Lord’s Army/Orthodox mission in Romania? I am sure there are jokes about this. Dave helped us refine a partnership model that crossed denominational lines and focused on the Kingdom of God. Often groups have their own agenda and come with a five-year plan. Dave led a partnership in which the main agenda was to enable local leaders in developing the best strategies for their areas and then assist them to follow through. The five-year plan became a relationship of trust with clear objectives, planning and accountability, not limited to a rigid grid but open to the Weaver’s hand and plans. Hundreds of people on both sides, ZPC and Romania have gotten to know, trust, pray and serve together as part of this partnership. They became friends and family.
This is not the place to detail the projects in which Dave’s leadership in the partnership with ZPC has a major impact in Romania, but a list to show the breadth of impact is relevant:
- Giurgiu, south Romania: partnership, church planting in rural areas, two church buildings, the Bethel Home children’s home, student scholarships, leadership development.
- Fetești, southeast Romania: partnership, church planting in rural and city areas, church buildings, student scholarships, leadership development.
- Călărași, southeast Romania: partnership, church planting, one church building in rural areas, leadership development
- Lord’s Army group in Târgoviște area, Alba Iulia, and Cluj: partnership and enabling leaders, and church planting.
- Serving on the MLI Board until 2022
MLI Leadership Development:
- Annual Missionaries Conferences with pastors and their teams. ZPC continues to bring together pastors and their team of local leaders for equipping, connecting and mutual encouragement.
- MLI Annual Pastors Conferences with pastors
- Alpiniș Leadership Center, Dave was instrumental in shaping vision and facilitating support for the development of this location as a tool for the Kingdom.
- Annual Youth Camps since 2003 with youth from partnering churches at Alpiniș.
- Hosting Romanian visitors and organizing visits to encourage others to participate in the ministry.
- MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) the initiation of the program in Romania.
I am honored to write these lines on behalf of MLI, and implicitly on behalf of pastor Eugen Groza (1954-2018) who was president of MLI and close friend of Dave and Joan. Dave served on our board of directors for over 20 years and his input and gifts in evaluation, planning and ambassadorship for MLI continues today. Dave would visit Romania four times a year and his agenda was always full.
Ministry and personal life blended throughout these years. Dave and Joan became part of our families and likewise, their home in Zionsville has become home to me and to visiting Romanians with loving extravagant hospitality. His whole family became connected to Romania.
Personally, I have so much to learn from Dave. His style of leadership is one of enabling others and exploring new possibilities. Dave has a special gift to ask questions and to listen, I always feel heard. I always look forward to our conversations addressing life, ministry and theology. His late interest in spiritual direction is inspiring and I think blends well with his style. Time with Dave is fun, he values the journey not only the destination. He loves Romanian dishes, sarmale and ciorba de burtă, (cabbage rolls and tripe soup); once he insisted to order his own food: ciorba de bucă please! (bucă = butt, burtă = tripe) that one never died between us…
I am thrilled that Dave chose to tell his story, he has a meaningful legacy to pass on. His early retirement to dedicate time and effort to people in Romania, his passion for mission and the church are a model of following Christ. A legacy and footsteps to follow! Thank you, Dave and Joan!
About the book (Amazon):
David Gall was born in a small German town in North Dakota, where the rules were as clear and direct as the highways and farmland grids that stretched to the horizon in every direction. The whole world seemed to be designed on a grid, and the grid made choices about who to be and what to do very simple. The grid served David as he entered adulthood and worked his way up the ladder at a major pharmaceutical company. The grid also made faith and church clear and obvious.
For David, God interrupted the plan with invitations and wrenching moments. An early retirement, 30 years of building partnerships among churches in Romania and the United States, seeing countless lives impacted as David responded to God’s invitations, and still found himself asking, “Is this all there is?”
This is the story of a successful man looking back at his life from a contented place, making sense of the fact that for all of his efforts and all of his searching, every person and every experience carried the tension of God’s weaving hand pulling thread after thread together into a tapestry of life. It’s a quiet story from a man who’s found a profound peace after all of his striving, whose success has very little to do with his accomplishments, and everything to do with the persistent work of the Weaver’s Gentle Hand.
