My name is Melad Gergis. I grew in a Christian family in Egypt but made my personal commitment to Jesus Christ in 1984. Five years later, I felt a call to ministry and serving others, so I pursued completing Biblical studies with YWAM “Youth With A Mission” for six months in Cypress. After this, I started an outreach ministry to reach the Arab Christian and other people in the Middle East, Europe, and Australia.

In 1992, I met my wife Theresa in a Christian outreach ministry, and we married in 1993 and after that had two children, Freddy and Joy. I was a business man in Egypt besides my ministry. At that time, I had my own factory for aluminum goods, such as windows, doors, etc. However, in October 2010, the Lord called me to leave Egypt with my family and move to another place. We didn’t know how this was going to happen. The Lord miraculously opened a door for us through the American Visa Lottery. It is a random lottery which gave us a legal residency in the U.S.A. through the Green Card. The odds of winning this was highly improbable. This was a huge miracle and a testimony to us regarding God’s call for us to move!

We moved to Knoxville, TN in May of 2012, and the Lord led us to start the first new Arabic Church on New Year’s Eve, December of 2012. On May 10, 2013, Pastor Mark Kirk, as the Senior Pastor of Calvary Knoxville, ordained me as a pastor of the Arabic Church to take care of the sheep, feed, and teach them the Word of God. Most of the members of our congregation are from Iraq, Egypt and Syria and many are refugees. I am serving the Lord at the Arabic Church, but I am not a paid minister, so I have to work to take care of my family as well as find time to study and do the ministry.

Since then, I have completed my Biblical studies by earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology, with a major in Christian Theology from the Arab-American Theological Association, U.S. University of Theology of San Francisco, CA.