Jan Merk

Dr. Jan Merk (b. 27 November 1953 in Abbotsford, British Columbia) is a Uralican pastor, teacher, author, and politician. He is best known for being the only Mennonite to sign the Uralican Constitution, and for being a professor of Biblical exegesis and other Biblical studies at Uralikan Yliopisto, but he is also very active politically, having been elected to every term of the Uralican Tribal Council thus far.

Biography
Merk was born to a Canadian Mennonite pastor, Jonah Merk, and a school teacher, Leah Merk, and his childhood was no different than any other Mennonite boy's - he went to school, played sports, went to church every Sunday, and spent much quality time with his family. Even in his teenage years, he was a true ambassador for Christ in everything he did, upholding the Mennonite virtues of pacifism, dedication to Biblical theology, and devotion to prayer. He was never lacking in Christian zeal, seeing Jesus in everyone he dealt with in daily life, Christian or non-Christian.

This zeal caught the attention of Jennifer Wieler, another member of the Mennonite community in the Abbotsford area. She found Merk to be charming in person and everything she desired in a man. He was "almost too perfect." They began dating when she was sixteen and he was seventeen, and after four years of being an item, they married in a simple church service in nearby Yarrow.

Instead of having children right away, though, they both decided to further their education. He went to Trinity Western College starting in 1974, spending eight years there studying to be a pastor. By the time he finished his studies he had done work equivalent to that of a combination of Bachelor's and Master's Degree studies, so he was awarded an MDiv after being asked to write a thesis. His wife completed studies in counselling, and would later return to "officially" complete an MC.

Their first child, Mattias, was born in 1979, their second, Rebecca, in 1982, and their third, Paul, in 1984. Lydia and Mary, who are twins, were born in 1986.

When Jonah Merk began leaning towards retirement from official pastoral duties in the early 1990s, Jan seemed to be an obvious choice to replace him, and in 1994, he did precisely that. In spite of being in a general part of North America becoming increasingly hostile towards Christianity, he was well-regarded in the community simply on account of all the thankless work he did in tending to the poor in the area. He would go where others would dread to in the area - places like East Vancouver, First Nations lands, and other areas where the marginalised and downtrodden would congregate.

By the time Cataclysm came around