STORIES
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Cadence Staff Spotlight
I’d like to introduce you to Jeremy and Shawna Quattlebaum who have been serving with Cadence Intentional since 2013. For seven of those years they ministered at The Lighthouse, Cadence’s hospitality house ministry to the Sailors and their families stationed at the U.S. Navy Base—Fleet Activities in Yokosuka, Japan. It is the largest overseas U.S. Navy installation, strategically important in the region, and Cadence has experienced thriving, fruitful ministry there since 1969!
From the Field
Stories of God’s work in and through the military.
Setting Our Minds on Things Above
It’s time for a New Year’s resolution check-in. Did you make one, and if so, how is that going?
A few years ago, I heard someone being interviewed on a podcast about New Year’s resolutions. They gave some statistics stating that 43% of people quit their resolutions by the end of January, and only about 9% keep their resolutions for the entire year. Wow! That’s not very encouraging, and it begs the question of why bother making a resolution to begin with.
Kingdom Connections
American military personnel are accustomed to packing up and going wherever the military sends them, whether it is a six-month unaccompanied deployment or a three-year duty assignment in the U.S. or overseas. Accordingly, Cadence staff may have only a few months to invest in those who attend their ministry and usually no more than three years.
This Present Moment
“Really, God?”
Am I the only one who asks that question from time to time? Over and over, I have found myself in new environments. Military moves, different ministry locations, and changing seasons of life bring new relationships and variables, and it can be so easy in those moments to feel the weight of change.
Love Freely Given
“I remember going to the Vilseck Hospitality House for the first time. Initially, I was scared that my past would mean that I was too broken of a person to fit in amongst everyone there. I assumed that everyone around me was perfect Christians who had their lives together and that I was a disaster. I was so wrong.”
Setting Our Minds on Things Above
It’s time for a New Year’s resolution check-in. Did you make one, and if so, how is that going?
A few years ago, I heard someone being interviewed on a podcast about New Year’s resolutions. They gave some statistics stating that 43% of people quit their resolutions by the end of January, and only about 9% keep their resolutions for the entire year. Wow! That’s not very encouraging, and it begs the question of why bother making a resolution to begin with.
Kingdom Connections
American military personnel are accustomed to packing up and going wherever the military sends them, whether it is a six-month unaccompanied deployment or a three-year duty assignment in the U.S. or overseas. Accordingly, Cadence staff may have only a few months to invest in those who attend their ministry and usually no more than three years.
This Present Moment
“Really, God?”
Am I the only one who asks that question from time to time? Over and over, I have found myself in new environments. Military moves, different ministry locations, and changing seasons of life bring new relationships and variables, and it can be so easy in those moments to feel the weight of change.
Love Freely Given
“I remember going to the Vilseck Hospitality House for the first time. Initially, I was scared that my past would mean that I was too broken of a person to fit in amongst everyone there. I assumed that everyone around me was perfect Christians who had their lives together and that I was a disaster. I was so wrong.”
Life-Changing Community
Fort Polk is located in the Vernon Parish of Louisiana. The fort is under the command of the Joint Readiness Training Center of the 4th Brigade and is the only training center in the Army which both trains and deploys units for combat missions. Approximately 9,000 active-duty military call Fort Polk their home.
We Send
The Cadence Way lists five priorities that describe the unique ways Cadence ministers to and impacts military communities and the world for Christ. You can find them on the front page of Cadence.org. They are:
To Live is Christ
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.
Name Above All Names
“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.
Shelter in the Storm
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:
An Intern Returns
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.
The Gospel in the Center
Each Sunday at our local church, the cross is brought from the platform back down the aisle to the middle of the sanctuary for the reading of the gospel. Behind the cross, a pastor walks holding the Bible high as on each side the people turn to face the cross. Then it is said, “We bring the cross into the center of the people as an outward sign that Christ is with us and among us. May His Word be always on our minds, upon our lips, and deep within our hearts.”
One Hope
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.
We Stay
We Stay.
Thank you for your prayers for our recently completed Cadence worldwide staff conference in Green Lake, Wisconsin. Our theme, Unhindered, the last word Luke penned in the book of Acts guided our time together. We celebrated and took courage in the truth that the gospel will not be stopped, thwarted, or hindered in its advancement around the globe.