(June 7, 1953 – September 5, 2006)
“I’m afraid she’s too girly and fragile to be trekking around the world with a 30 pound backpack for the next nine months!” Dave’s dad exclaimed. He was trying to reason with his 24-year-old son who had his mind set to take me, his bride of two years, on an extended trip overseas.
Dave’s purpose was for me to experience frontline missions firsthand. It was in Mali, Africa, four years earlier, that God had given a clear call and turned Dave’s heart towards a mission-focused ministry. For the first few years of marriage we would lay in bed at night and Dave would tell moving stories from that trip. My interest grew and it wasn’t long until I was out to prove this “girly” type was up for the challenge! During the year 1977-78 we took every mode of transportation imaginable and visited 24 countries.
We worked for missionaries, helping them with a variety of tasks, asked lots of questions, listened to incredible stories, prayed, laughed, cried, and sang our theme song from the bottom of our hearts, “Let Me See This World Through Your Eyes Dear Lord”. We knew by the end of that trip that we had been changed forever. Dave Petrescue was a Canadian of Romanian and Ukrainian descent.
His childhood was spent on a farm in southern Saskatchewan where the daily chores and many tasks built into him a solid work ethic. Even as a youngster he looked for a challenge, whether it was the biggest stone to lift, the highest tree to climb, or the toughest ram to ride.
When Dave was nine years old his parents had a miraculous conversion experience. Dave’s dad was healed of alcoholism and saved from an attempted suicide. The subsequent miracles he witnessed in his home created in him a deep spiritual awareness but from ten years of age on he grew street-wise in Regina, Saskatchewan, getting more and more involved in vandalism, theft, and crime.
His early teen years were loads of fun mixed with a lot of pain. At sixteen Dave was dramatically saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. He immediately began to win friends and others to Jesus as he modeled a living, vibrant relationship with Him.
I grew up in a loving and supportive Christian home in Regina. As my teen years were approaching Dad and Mom made one of the most difficult decisions of their lives. They left their longtime, “extended family” church to attend a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church which provided ministries for my sister and me. I will be forever grateful for the sacrifices they bore among family members, as a result of that decision.
It was in Regina at the Hillsdale Alliance Church youth group that Dave and I met. Through the ministry of our leaders, Bob and Sandi Kinnie, lives were dramatically impacted for Jesus. In later years, we took a count and approximately 70% of the youth group at that time were in some kind of full time ministry. What a testimony and tribute to this couple, to our parents, and of course to the great moving of the Holy Spirit during those revival years.
Our Sojourn in Mission Both of us graduated from Canadian Bible College, Dave with degrees in Christian Education and Theology, and I received a Bachelors of Religious Education. It was during the Friday night missions meetings that I first started to realize Dave’s passion for missions.
Often after a guest missionary spoke and gave a challenge, Dave was face down at the front saying, “Anywhere, Lord!” I was left glued to my seat in fear. Our relationship was getting serious by that time and all I could do was project into the future. I visualized someday saying good-bye to my school-aged children, and putting them on a plane to MK school. I also became consumed with fear as I listened to all the testimonies of missionaries being captured or martyred.
It was a Vietnam missionary, Betty Hunt, who ministered to my fearful heart one night. She told me God never promises His GRACE for our thought life and all the ‘what ifs’ in our future. He promises His GRACE when we need it and at that time it will be exactly enough. I never forgot that. I would need this important reminder frequently over the years.
Dave’s life verses were Psalm 40:2, 3a, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” I don’t recall ever observing Dave singing, “Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me,” without tears filling his eyes. His heart was incredibly grateful for being rescued from his past.
My life verse is Jeremiah 29:11-14a, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” As I reflect on the sovereignty of God and His loving plan for me, I am encouraged.
It was during our world adventure that we accepted an invitation to be the Senior Pastor of Unionville Alliance Church in Toronto, Canada. We ministered there and experienced phenomenal growth both personally and in our church family from 1978 –1991. Dave was blessed with continual confirmation of his spiritual gifts in evangelism, preaching, and pastoring. Missions was a priority focus in our church.
As a result it was one of the top giving Canadian churches to further God’s kingdom mandate around the world. During those early years in ministry, we were blessed with the arrival of our three children – Janelle, Tim, and Michelle. Between family and ministry we were convinced that life could not get any better. We even survived and stayed serving after a massive church building program!
Dave was an awesome combination of leader, husband, and father. He modeled a transparent, on-the-grow, faithful follower of Jesus. He believed in giving until it hurt; we tithed faithfully during some pretty lean times in life.
I recall a time when Dave was challenging the church family to dig deep during fund raising for our new church facility. He came home after that service and asked if I would support giving all that we had. Even with the responsibility of two little ones at the time, we gave our all, cleared our account, our wallets, and even a little piggy bank. The following day someone stopped by to drop off a jug of milk. That week a cheque came in the mail from an unexpected source. Jehovah Jireh, our Provider, proved Himself faithful once again!
After twelve years at Unionville Alliance Church I hit the most humbling season of my life. Due to over-commitment and heavy responsibilities, I experienced a clinical burnout and was basically out of commission for close to a year. Later I would often look back on this time and thank the Lord for the nuggets of truth I learned. It was a sobering life lesson to realize my own human limitations.
In the thirteenth year of our ministry Dave faced his first staffing crisis and it pulled the rug out from under him. Although the district was very supportive and helpful, Dave found his energy diminishing. We began to wonder if the Lord was directing us to move in another direction. After all, we initially had come to Unionville to do our two years home service and then go overseas and now it was 13 years later. God spoke to Dave using the same message He spoke to Abraham thousands of years earlier, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8). That’s how we left Unionville.
About the same time, a challenge came from my 81-year-old mentor who encouraged me to begin praying, “God, just surprise me!” With a rewarding sense of completion to our ministry in Unionville we left, with three young children, in June, 1991.
We were invited to do an interim pastorate at the Kelowna Alliance Church for the next six months while we waited on God’s direction. During our backpacking trip years earlier, we had told the Lord “anywhere but the Middle East!” I’m sure God had a smile on His face when we arrived in Cairo, Egypt, on January 1, 1992. Little did we realize how many wonderful surprises would be in store.
Our children took most of their schooling in Cairo and graduated at the foot of the Sphinx with the Pyramids towering in the background. I was privileged to have a teaching job at the same school the kids attended and, with a lot of hard work and wonderful family support, I received my Masters in Education in 1998. Dave was the senior pastor of the Maadi Community Church for 15 years. During this time we kept our credentials with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and were officially called Missionaries on Special Assignment.
The Maadi Community Church (MCC) is an international, interdenominational, English speaking, independent church ministering to foreigners living in Cairo.
At the time we arrived the city’s population was about 17 million and it grew to 22 million during our 20-year tenure there. Cairo is both the political capital of Egypt and the center of Islamic education for all of North Africa. It traces its roots all the way through the Old and New Testament. It was even the home of Jesus when his parents fled Bethlehem to save His life.
The church averaged about 70 attendees when we first arrived in Maadi. We met in a rented, quaint and beautiful little Anglican chapel. Within two years we had moved outside to the courtyard under a tented canopy, battling heat, swatting flies, distracted by horns honking and dogs barking BUT we did church like we had never experienced before! With 50 denominations and 40+ nationalities in attendance Dave repeatedly commented, “This is just a foretaste of what Heaven is going to be like.” For several years we had five weekend services and the church grew to about 1,500.
In addition to all the typical church ministries, Maadi Community Church had:
- a cell group ministry involving over 200 small groups
- thirty ministry partners that teamed up with the Development and Outreach arm of MCC
- a dynamic youth internship program
- local ministries which invested into the Christian nationals of Egypt
- a Bible School, which was initially for Africans, but presently, has a number of continents represented
- and various ministries to refugees