I recently attended the memorial service for a Wycliffe missionary who went to heaven after a battle with cancer. She and her husband share the same sending church with Joyce and me here in Littleton, Colorado. Two of their daughters were active in the young adult church group which we led and taught for nine years.

Brad and Toni gave 30 years of their lives to translating significant portions of the Bible into the language of the Koluwawa people in Papua New Guinea.

At the service, Brad read Philippians 1:21, first in English and then in Koluwawa. As he read it in their language, he was moved to tears. These words from the Word in the language of this people represent much of his and Toni’s life work and ministry.

This passage states, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Brad and Toni lived their lives for Christ. And for Toni to transition to heaven through death has become her great gain indeed.

Friends as we all begin this new year, we would do well to remember that because of the great hope we possess in Christ, our highest priority, greatest effort, and deepest honor in 2023 is to live for Christ.

Only a few are called to translate the Bible in and for cultures around the world, but we are all called to depict and describe Jesus to people in our worlds. Wherever we are, there we are on mission.

Thank you for the portion of your calling that is faithfully employed through your financial gifts to Cadence and our staff. God has always used believing military people to be a witness for Him in cultures around the world wherever the military sends them.

May God bless you as you live for Him in your location.

David Schroeder
President

“There is a name I love to hear, I love to sing its worth. It sounds like music in my ears, the sweetest Name on earth. Oh, how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me.”

Like many of you, I basically grew up in a pew. Church twice on Sundays, often on Wednesdays, and other times as well. The great hymns of the faith are etched on my heart from years of singing both melody and harmony along with my five siblings and the congregation.

There’s something about hymns that anchor those who know and love them. When my wife, Joyce, sits down to the piano in our living room to play a hymn (and she can play them all) there is a stillness and peace that permeates our home.

Now, I also really enjoy many of the new hymns and today’s praise and worship songs. I am grateful God calls some of His servants to inspire us, as the Psalms say, to “sing a new song.” While the hymns anchor my heart, the new music ascends my heart in worship.

The hymn I quoted at the beginning of this letter beautifully fits this Christmas season. We celebrate the sweetest Name on earth—Jesus! We love Him, we adore Him, we serve Him.

It’s a special time of year for our Cadence staff to speak His Name in military communities. They join military believers around the world in sharing words of light, love, and life.

I love this little phrase in 3 John 7, “It was for the sake of the Name they went out . . .” Speaking of the motivation of the early believers, it transcends the centuries and also compels you and me. We live for and love the Name—the Name above all other names.

We speak of Jesus, and oh how we love Him!

On behalf of all our Cadence staff who “went out” to military people and their families for the sake of the Name, thank you for sending them!

May our Savior bless you and your families as you celebrate His birth during this Christmas season.

David Schroeder
President

Recently appointed as new Cadence missionaries, Duncan and Suzanne have a wonderful story of God using Cadence in Duncan’s life as a young man serving in the Army. Cadence missionaries, Brad and Debbie Ellgen, were there for Duncan at a key moment in his life. Here is his story:

“In January of 1985 after graduating boot camp, I was sent to Schweinfurt, West Germany to my first duty station. I was young, just 18, traveling by myself for the first time to a foreign country. I didn’t speak the language. I had no idea what to expect. I was scared, nervous, and a bit overwhelmed. I felt adrift in a big ocean. I was a Christian, having chosen to follow Christ about two years earlier in high school. Already life in the Army had been a difficult path for me. In just the first few months, I had witnessed an abundance of depravity the like of which I hadn’t seen before in my short life.

Upon reaching my unit and getting settled in, I met another young soldier who had just arrived there the week before. He invited me to join him at this place he just discovered called a Hospitality House. It was run by an American couple. So I went, and then kept going back every chance I could.

Brad and Debbie were a home away from home. They were a shelter in the storm. They were a beacon of light in the darkness. They did way more than simply provide me with a warm home-cooked meal or a Bible study. They showed me through their lives what it meant to love God and others. Brad, with his quick and inquiring mind, asked me questions and taught me to think and helped me to discover how to read Scripture and find answers. Debbie, with her kindness and willingness to serve, taught me about grace, mercy, and self-sacrifice.

And the men and women I spent time with there became true friends, honestly sharing their struggles and joys as we grew in faith together.”

Duncan’s story is a beautiful and familiar one to Cadence. We seek to be a “shelter in the storm” for young, impressionable, and searching young people. We provide a safe community where they can “grow in faith together.”

The impact is unquestionably powerful. Thank you for partnering with Cadence in this ministry!

David Schroeder
President

Joyce and I began our Cadence International careers as young adults serving in the mission’s Student Ministry division (known then as Malachi Ministries). We enjoyed over ten years of fruitful ministry to military students and their parents stationed at various Army installations in Germany.

Since then, we have served Cadence at our Headquarters here in Englewood, Colorado. We always love hearing stories from the field of transformed military lives, and it’s especially encouraging to hear of military students still being influenced for Jesus through Cadence Student Ministries.

Here is a testimony of one of those students who is now serving as a Cadence Intern at The Hangar, a thriving ministry in Spangdahlem, Germany.

While in middle school, my family was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, where I attended the Cadence youth group. Cadence’s Student Ministry had a significant impact on my life. I see how the Lord used it as a gift to enjoy during my time there and to deepen my understanding of His love for me. While in college, Cadence had a booth set up during our Missions Week, through which I connected with the organization again. Recently, the opportunity arose to serve for a year in Germany. The door opened at the perfect time, and the Lord’s provision was abundant! It was very exciting to see it all come together.

Growing up as a Navy brat, I felt I had a fairly good understanding of the military culture and lifestyle. Both of my parents are followers of Christ, so their priorities (such as family, church, marriage, etc.) were very different from many of my father’s coworkers.

Although I knew the military lifestyle was difficult, my understanding of that has deepened exponentially through this internship.

~Laura Sparks, Intern serving at Spangdahlem Air Base

Over the years God has led some Alumni (those who were involved in a Cadence ministry) to return to Cadence to minister to the military as Staff or Interns. This is always exciting and rewarding!

Thank you for being a part of the many stories like Laura’s and for faithfully partnering with Cadence through your financial and prayer support.

God bless you!
David Schroeder
President

I attended two memorial services recently—one in Missouri and one in Michigan.

The service in Missouri was to grieve the sudden loss of a young man tragically killed in a car accident on his way home from work. He had been married for only two months to the daughter of one of our Cadence couples.

The chapel was filled with young people seeking to somehow trust God and celebrate Caleb’s life while also wrestling with the fragility of life here in this broken world under the curse.

It was very difficult.

The service in Michigan was to celebrate the life of a former Cadence missionary who had lived a long and fruitful life for the Lord. He suffered for about 24 years with the slow digression of the central nervous system caused by Parkinson’s Disease.

This chapel was filled by mostly older people celebrating Steve’s well-lived life and the joyful hope of heaven.

Two lives. Two deaths. Two services. One hope.

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” 2 Corinthians 5:1-2

As I write these words to you now, I’m processing additional difficult news of a different kind of loss. I’m groaning today, longing for the day when death, sorrow, and tears will be no more.

Friends, each moment on this earth is truly a gift from God. I pray that you will find your strength in the One who not only gave us this life but made our eternal life and destiny possible. As we sang in church this past Sunday:

Man of Sorrows what a name for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim! Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Yes, today I again choose to sing Hallelujah!

David Schroeder
President