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When school lets out for the summer later this year, among the students racing out the doors will be Principal Martin Gelderman, ready to start his first summer as a retiree. 

Gelderman has spent a total 45 years in Christian education with most of that time at Terra Ceia Christian School (TCCS). For 27 years, he has worked as a middle school teacher, a history teacher and for the last six years has served as Principal of TCCS. He noted that his family cleaned the school for many years. 

“Becoming the Principal of TCCS was a highlight after 39 years of being a classroom teacher,” he said. 

Gelderman hopes the next principal will “make the school a better school than it already is.” 

“Terra Ceia Christian School is a school equipped with great teachers that not only teach academics, but teach it in the context of the Christian world and life view­ that God is the creator of all and that fallen mankind stands in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Christian education seeks to view all of reality through the spectacles of scripture,” he said. 

In discussing the future of TCCS, Gelderman said he hopes it “will continue to experience modest and manageable growth, not losing sight of the vision of Christian education held by the founders of the school in 1937.”

Gelderman and his wife moved to North Carolina in the late 1990s to be closer to her family. Before they moved, he taught at Christian Schools in Edmonton, Alberta and Abbotsford, British Columbia in Canada. 

At this time, TCCS has not selected the next Principal.