Fr. Jeff Bunke

At the end of high school, Fr. Jeff Bunke left the family dairy farm in NW Ohio for the big bad city of Chicago (college and seminary) – and along the way shed his Lutheran heritage for the Episcopal Church, marriage, and the priesthood.  Having survived Kay and Jeff’s parentage, their three children make family gatherings memorable, as one is a singer, the next an artist, and the youngest an actor (Orlando, Tampa and San Diego).  Two grandchildren provide travel incentives (FL and CA).

Jeff’s priestly vocation has taken the elder Bunkes to parishes in Maumee, Cuyahoga Falls/Akron, West Chester, and Perrysburg, Ohio as well as Port Orange, Florida.  He and Kay became friends of the Transfiguration community over forty years ago (and Jeff professes to be the first priest to run the CT refectory’s dishwasher – in spite of much wimpled consternation).  Returning to Maumee in retirement, Jeff serves as a transition (i.e., “interim”) consultant for the NW Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Sundays generally find him at the altar of an Episcopal or ELCA congregation in the area (or popping up from the pew to make music).  The transition work forms the backdrop undergirding this October’s Transfiguration Retreat.