A new missionary follows a ministry path that takes him from searching for Scripture truths to serving those who have never heard the gospel.

Steve Gerling, newly assigned missionary to Senegal in West Africa, is no stranger to crossing cultures. His life has been shaped by international moves, spiritual questions, and God’s persistent faithfulness.

International moves

In 2001, when Steve was 11, his family left Marthasville, Missouri, a town of less than 900 people, for Hong Kong, a bustling international hub of over 6.7 million souls. His parents, Bruce and Beverly Gerling, had accepted an opportunity to serve as missionaries with the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board.

“As a child,” Steve recalls, “I had no concept of the world outside of America. It was a theoretical ‘place out there.’ In Hong Kong, I saw the beauty and intricacies of culture and language that weren’t my own: whole groups of people who did not look or think like me, but whom Christ loves and for whom he died.”

Steve’s parents instilled in him a deep love and respect for God’s Word, modeling going to the Bible to seek answers. This would serve Steve well the rest of his life as he wrestled with his own questions of faith.

During middle school in Hong Kong, Steve struggled both academically and emotionally. At a difficult point in Steve’s life, God provided the encouragement he needed through a local youth group.

“I was going through a difficult time with mental health struggles, and I found hope and peace there,” Steve says. “The pastor treated me as someone who was valuable and showed me how the Bible applied to things I was going through. That made a deep impact on me, and I desired to serve people in the way he had served me.”

Spiritual questions

Another international move brought Steve to Taiwan, where he attended high school at a Christian boarding school. There he met his future wife, Hannah, daughter of WELS world missionaries Kevin and Sarah Stellick. High school was a spiritually challenging time for Steve as he found himself wrestling with teachings that didn’t seem to align with Scripture.

“In the Baptist church it seemed that struggling with a sin was evidence that you didn’t have faith to begin with,” he explains. “But I didn’t see that in the Bible. I wanted my faith to be as closely reflecting Scripture as possible, so I distanced myself from Baptist theology. The problem was that I had no idea who I agreed with. I was just grabbing things from whatever Christian tradition I ran across.”

His search became even more painful after encountering the Calvinist teaching of double predestination. This belief says that God specifically chose every individual to be either saved or damned. It serves reason, rather than respecting that the Bible says God desires that all people be saved (1 Timothy 2:4).

“I saw evidence of sin in my life, so I already doubted my salvation. Now I had this extra barrier of ‘What if Jesus doesn’t want me? What if I was one of the ones picked to go to hell?’ The question tormented me for years. The place I ran was not to God for comfort but rather to earthly relationships and other idols,” says Steve.

In 2009, Steve returned to the United States to attend a Free Methodist university in Illinois. Unfortunately, instead of finding answers to his questions, he hit rock bottom spiritually.

“The relationships I sought for comfort failed me, and I became angry at God,” Steve recalls. “My college encouraged me to question things about the Bible and its authority. This made it easier to minimize my sin and comfortably rebel against God. By the end of college, this critical attitude to the Bible and living in unrepentant sin had nearly ended my faith.”

It was a dark, angry, and painful time for him. “In the back of my mind, my conscience was always telling me, ‘This is not right. This is not good for you,’ but I suppressed it,” says Steve.

God’s faithfulness

Thankfully, God once again put the right people in Steve’s life to encourage him. An old high school friend shared his positive experiences with a Pentecostal mission group in Boston, and Steve decided to see if that group could help. Although he rediscovered a love for Scripture there, he still found himself searching.

“As my love for the Word grew,” Steve recalls, “I started noticing the errors of doctrine in the teachings. The more biblically literate I became, the more I realized how often verses were used outside of their original meaning and context as support for whatever vision or prophecy people wanted to give legitimacy. That didn’t sit well with me.”

In 2016, Steve reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Hannah, who was teaching at Divine Savior Academy in Doral, Fla. They began a long-distance relationship, and Steve became interested in the Lutheran faith she had grown up in.

He started attending Bible information classes at an Evangelical Lutheran Synod church near Boston and found something he had been seeking for years: a church committed to letting Scripture interpret Scripture without compromise.

As Steve and Hannah’s relationship grew more serious, he moved to Florida to be near her. There he completed Bible information classes and was confirmed at Divine Savior in the fall of 2017. The couple married the following summer.

Ministry training

Seeking greater purpose beyond his role as a local Chick-fil-A manager, Steve applied for the pre-seminary certification program at Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minn.

“It was difficult for me to willingly come back to six more years of schooling, because academics has never been something that comes easily to me,” Steve says. “In addition, one of my big fears coming into it was that I would ask the wrong kinds of questions and get kicked out of the program.”

Instead, Steve completed the program and went on to Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, Wis., where his questions continued to be not only welcomed but also encouraged. “The professors were always patient and willing to walk through God’s Word with me to strengthen and equip me in my faith,” he says. “They all have very gracious, patient hearts, and it’s clear that it’s not just about academics for them but rather about bringing God’s Word to their students and equipping them to share the hope of the gospel.”

During those years at the seminary, Steve and Hannah experienced both joy and sorrow. They welcomed three children: Sofia; Silas, who is now in heaven; and Elisha. Through every blessing and heartbreak, God’s truth, faithfulness, and the support of a family of believers around the world remained constant.

Now the Gerling family is preparing for yet another international move. In May 2026, Steve was assigned to serve as a missionary to the new exploratory mission field in Senegal.

“I’m reminded of God telling Abraham to come out of everything he had ever known and go to a land God would show him,” Steve says. “I know that just as God was with him and blessed him, God is with us and will bless and strengthen us for the ministry he has for us.”

Steve’s journey has taken him across continents and through seasons of doubt, grief, and searching. Yet at every stage, God faithfully used his Word to draw him back, answer his deepest questions, and prepare him to bring the hope of the gospel to others.

Now Steve is eager to share the same unchanging truth that transformed his own life: Salvation rests not in human effort or wisdom but in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Watch a video to learn more about the Gerlings and the Krolls and their work in Senegal. Additional WELS videos are available at youtube.com/@WELSLutherans. 

Learn more about WELS’ work in Senegal. 

Author: Hannah Gerling
Volume 113, Number 10
Issue: October 2026

Serving together in Senegal

In late August, the Gerlings and the Krolls arrived in Dakar, Senegal, as the first WELS missionaries to serve in this area. Dan Kroll and his wife, Karen, have spent many years serving in other areas of Africa, including World Missions assignments in Zambia, Cameroon, and Malawi.

As WELS works to establish this new mission field in Senegal, the first step for the Gerlings and Krolls is a six-month immersion experience designed to prepare them for life and ministry among the Wolof people.

“The language school hires families that will take care of us,” explains Dan Kroll. “They’ll feed us and we’ll have afternoon teatime with them and we’ll stay at their house and learn their traditions and routines. That’s all part of learning the culture.”

After six months, WELS World Missions leaders will meet with the Gerlings and Krolls to determine what makes sense as a next step for the mission after the missionaries have learned more about the Wolof people.

“We ask for prayers for wisdom, endurance, and patience,” says Kroll. “This is so much in God’s hands. This is God’s mission, and it’s a super blessing—and the Gerlings feel the same way—that the Lord would use us.”