Stephan Gensicke graduated from the Lutheran Hermannsburg Seminary for Missionaries which is located in Northern Germany near Hannover. Stephan was born in South Africa where his parents were missionaries. The family moved back to Germany because the Apartheid system had made it too difficult for the family to stay. During his high school years Stephan took one year off and spent a year as an exchange student in the United States in Georgia. He was in the senior class, played on the football team, and was active in the youth program of the Pentecostal congregation of his host family.
During his theological studies Stephan returned to South Africa for an internship of 6 months, living in a township with a Zulu family. When Stephan and his wife Steffi return home after their internship in Dickinson, he will graduate from the Seminary in Hermannsburg with the (again nerve racking) Second Theological Exam. Graduates are then ordained and sent to their first position where they are required to stay for at least nine years. Stephan and Steffi plan to move back to South Africa for their first call.