Paul and Leanne Dzubinski

We have a real passion for Europe and a passion for missions. We have been serving Christ in missions for over 20 years now.

Back in 1983 when Paul went to Dallas Seminary he started to serve Christ in the Formosan Christian Church. When Leanne got there in 1986 she began to help out too. We served the church until finishing up at Dallas, Paul in ’88 and Leanne in ’90.

Our friends use to say, “So, where are you going to go for ministry? Leanne is interested in Austria and Paul is interested in Asia.” Well, we got married in ’88 and God worked on Paul’s heart.

Honestly, I wanted to go to Asia. I had always wanted to be a missionary. One day, when I was about 18, Bill Wilson (missionary with OMF) showed me a poster that said something like, “America has 5% of the world’s population and 95% of the world’s full time Christian workers.” Then he asked me, “If you saw three men carrying a log down the road (why a log I have no idea) and there were two men carrying one side and one man on the other, to which side would you go to help?” The answer was obvious for me. I needed to go to the mission field.

I felt like Asia was the place in the world with the greatest spiritual need. But God tugged at my heart to look into Europe as a mission field. So I pulled out my old copy of Operation World and began to do some comparisons. As you can see from the charts the estimate of evangelicals in Austria and in all of Europe is lower than the others. That together with the stories we heard that Austria was a ‘graveyard for missionaries’ encouraged me to change my view. So, we chose Europe and went with GEM.Off to candidate orientation we went and we were GEM appointees by the end of the summer. That just started the ride. Leanne had one year of school yet. She finished up with her ThM with honors. That was great. I finished my ThM by the skin of my teeth. She even got two awards. I was really proud of her. Shortly after graduation Leanne gave birth to our first daughter Kate. We moved from Dallas to Atlanta and began the long process of getting ourselves and our support ready to leave for Europe.

I have almost always been interested in serving the Lord in Europe. At 14 I was called to missions. In college I went on a short term trip to do evangelism in Europe with IFES and OM. Then, after graduation, I went to Vienna, Austria for two years with IFES. While there Betsy Mann encouraged me to go to Dallas Seminary, which is where Paul and I eventually met.We were all set to leave for Austria in 1994 but we did not have residency permits. So our field director had us move to Germany until we could get all the paperwork together for Austria. It was quite an experience. Leanne, who already spoke German having studied it in college, was our translator and Paul started language school. Just for fun, here is the town we moved to: Piding. It is just across the border from Austria.After almost a year we were able to move into Austria to a town called Graz. There, together with a number of different people we helped start a church. It was an amazing time and the team we were in was wonderful. God, however, had other plans for us.It turned out that for health reasons we had to leave our now beloved Austria for Barcelona, Spain. We have been here now since 1999. Our main ministry is still church planting but we are also involved in a number of other ministries. Leanne teaches in a leadership training course for GEM missionaries and also a Bible Study program for missionary women. Paul is also co-field director for GEM-Spain and serves on the core team of the European Missions Research Group.

We feel blessed of God to be able to serve Him in church planting, leadership training and missions research. The need for evangelical churches in all of Europe is among the highest in the world.