Called to a life of love, faith, service, and adventure

“When I visited Pastor Robert and Marji Gentet in their Windcrest, TX, home, I didn’t even have time to say, ‘Would you like me to take my shoes off?’ before Marji basically dragged me to the dining room table to see photos of their summer 2022 trip across the U.S. Their 7,444-mile trip included visits to all three locations of their favorite organization, Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. She was so excited to show me her Shutterfly book. She went through each page of photos taken at the Ranch and talked about them.

“Okay, I may have exaggerated the part about her dragging me to the table, but you get the point. They are amazing people and love the work the Ranch does.” — Janie Wunderlich, Development Officer

“The Ranch helps children who have difficulties learning in one way or another,” Marji said. “That and the Dakota connection is what really attracted me.”

Robert said their campus visits made a huge impact on him. And these folks have seen much in their lifetimes.

Robert and Marji Gentet both grew up in the Midwest. Marji’s parents lived on and farmed the 200 acres in Iowa that her grandmother owned. When she was 12, they bought a farm in South Dakota where they raised crops and animals.

“I experienced several South Dakota winters during my teenage years,” Marji said, “which is why we now live in Texas!”

Robert was born in a little Kansas town across the Missouri River from St. Joseph, MO.

“My father was a mechanic in a garage there. It was during the Great Depression, so times were very difficult financially. They began to hire people in the aircraft factories in Wichita, KS, so when I was three years old, my family moved there. My father worked for Beechcraft and Boeing, and when he had some health problems and had to get out of the factory, he became a traveling salesman.”

Marji and Robert met at Ambassador College in Southern California, the first stop for both of them in their lifetimes of exploring new places.

“I went out there in ’57,” Robert said. “By the time she got there in ’62, I had graduated and was working full time. We met in Marji’s freshman year and married in the spring of that same school year. We’ll have been married 62 years this September.”

Robert and Marji had two daughters, both born in California, before they decided to move back to the Midwest. In St. Joseph, Marji completed a degree in construction engineering. From there, they went to Wichita, where Robert earned a master’s degree in geology and Marji began her career as an architect. Marji’s career, the majority of which was creating military family housing, took her all over the world.

“Most of the military housing had been build shortly after WWII, so the housing had been there for 50 or more years. It was time for it to be upgraded or replaced,” Marji said. “We established what needed to be done—on miliary bases in Germany, England, Japan, Korea, Hawaii, and Alaska—and how much it would cost. All that information went to Congress so they could approve the funding.”

At 50 years old, Robert started seminary, so they moved to St. Louis, MO, where he attended Concordia Seminary. He completed his year as a vicar in a congregation near St. Louis, took his first call in Indiana, and from there pastored a church near San Antonio, TX, where they remain today.

Robert and Marji both grew up regularly attending church, Robert in Wichita, where his family belonged to an LCMS congregation, and Marji in South Dakota and Iowa where her family attended Methodist churches.

In retirement, Robert and Marji spend time with their grandchildren and serving others. In addition to flower gardening and regular walks with Robert, Marji volunteers two days a week at “The Pantry,” a food pantry operated by their church, King of Kings Lutheran, San Antonio, that provides huge shopping baskets of food to more than 130 families a week.

Robert served 11 years on the board of directors at Creation Research Society, and in 2007 created a website, creationhistory.com, that brings together his passion for geology and theology. He has studied everything “from heaven to earth,” and shares his knowledge through articles and essays that interpret the earth’s history from both scientific and biblical perspectives.

The Gentets are great friends of Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, having contributed to the ministry for more than 20 years.

“Giving was something that developed in our marriage,” Marji said. “We looked for organizations that we felt were in some way contributing to the betterment of society. We started out with barely enough to survive, and now God has given us resources so we can live comfortably. He has blessed us so why not share those blessings with others. It seems like that is why God put us on this Earth—to find ways to improve and help others.”

Robert said they started out giving a little to many organizations. When they decided to pare it back so they could make a bigger impact, they were drawn to the Ranch’s work with children.

“The tremendous, unbelievable opportunities these kids are offered in different activities and schooling and the whole atmosphere, really brought it home for me,” he said. “These kids grew up in situations where their parents may have had trouble just taking the trash out, so the Ranch is exactly what they need.”

Marji agreed. “It was great to see that these children have a home there. They feel comfortable and productive and are in a place where they are learning and contributing.”