Marty and Carey are graduates of Westmont College in Santa Barbara ’81 and ’85. In 1988 they moved to Amsterdam, The Netherlands with their one-year-old daughter Carly, to serve with Communitas in church planting. During their four and a half years in Holland they helped to establish Crossroads International Church and Marty completed an M.A. degree in World Missions at Tyndale Theological Seminary. Their two sons, Dane and Christian, were born during their stay in Holland.

In 1992, Marty and Carey led a church planting team to Barcelona, Spain. Marty was the lead pastor during the planting phase of International Church of Barcelona. In 1996 he joined the Europe Management Team for Communitas and began to lead research trips to many different cities in Southern and Central Europe looking for church planting opportunities.
For the next 13 years they made Portugal their home and helped to establish Riverside International Church and the Portuguese chapter of Christian Surfers International.

In 2010 the Uhlers relocated back to Santa Barbara, California. Carey works for the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission at Bethel House, their residential women’s recovery program and Marty is on the Staff Care and Development Team functioning as a catalyst for emotional resilience, maturity and relational health for our staff.

The Uhlers love the ocean! Marty has been a surfer for more than 45 years and Carey and the kids learned to surf in Portugal. They love gardening and most enjoy any family time they can get with their adult children; Carly, son-in-law Nathaniel, Dane, daughter-in-law Jillie and their four grand children Ohana, Sebastian, Eliza and Rowan!