Dorothy Gereke

During her last hours on earth, Dorothy Gereke had a visit from a deacon who quoted scripture to her, saying, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” He added, “Yours must be very big!”

She replied, “It would have to be. I have lots of children.”

Indeed, she did.

Gereke, known internationally as the co-founder of the Teens Encounter Christ movement, considered the thousands and thousands of TEC retreat participants as family.

Gereke and Father Matthew Fedewa co-founded TEC in the Diocese of Lansing, Mich., in the years following Vatican II.

Their idea was to create a faith experience for youth and young adults that was similar to Catholic movements such as Cursillo.

St. Wendel parishioner Diane Fehrenbacher was involved in the Cursillo movement when she first heard about TEC. And she was an active TEC volunteer when she met Gereke during a TEC conference at the University of Southern Indiana in 2000. “What a blessing,” she said of the woman who would become a dear friend.

“Someone said if every youth could make a TEC, their whole life would be changed.” All of Fehrenbacher’s sons made TEC weekends, and she believes those experiences “kept them grounded in their faith,” especially during their college years. “They always had TEC friends there.”

She has seen how the TEC experience changed the lives of many young adults in the Diocese of Evansville, noting that after making a TEC retreat “they felt it was cool to be Catholic.”

A TECer once told her that after he made a retreat, “the Eucharist was the center” of his life.

“Youth are always looking for friends and a place to belong. TEC gives them that place. Some parishes do not have the opportunity to have strong youth groups. TEC gives them an opportunity to have that.”

It has become for many “an extended family in Christ,” she said, noting “those relationships just keep building and building. When they have a need, they call on their TEC friends because they know they will be there for them.”

Participation in the weekend retreats “allows them to be Catholic. It allows them to be brothers and sisters in Christ.

That was so like Gereke, she said of the woman who “had a way of talking people into becoming better than they thought they could be.

“She was a great motivator. Everyone loved to be around her. They called her ‘Mama TEC.’ She was motherly, a matronly type.

“She was a very outgoing person. You just fell in love with her. She was the mother of everyone. She cared about everyone.”

Over the years, Diane and her husband Wayne became Gereke’s “handy couple,” helping out wherever they were needed in her Florida home. 

When news of Gereke’s failing health arrived, the couple headed south because they wanted to be with their friend when she died.

At her wake service, “30 people spoke at an open forum — about how she changed their lives through the TEC movement.”

Fehrenbacher remembers her times with Gereke, times when she felt “like you saw the face of Christ. She was the loving servant, the gentle guide to walking a better life, the nudger.

“She said, ‘Be better,’ and we tried to be better. She was a saint on earth. It was wonderful to be associated with her.”