Strengths and Weaknesses

Okinawa CSM/CCM staff

At the beginning of a new year; making resolutions, plans to improve, to be a better person, to function well as a team is exactly what our Cadence team did at our first ever Cadence Student Ministry/ Cadence Children's Ministry, CSM/CCM, conference. (Sarah and I are the first CCM missionaries). It was a time of looking to the future, seeing where we want to go and asking the Lord if He would direct us there.  It was also a time for us to get to know each other better because over half of the Asia team arrived on the field 3-6 months ago,  To help us understand each other better we all completed a ProScan Trait Survey. It is like a personality test that identifies an individual’s four basic personality traits and a whole lot more; strengths and weaknesses, sources of motivation, energy level, current satisfaction level, and sources of stress.

Sarah and I were both hesitant about going away for a whole week to do a conference. Our thoughts were, “it’s the new year! We have so much to do! We have so much planning and so much work to do, so we shouldn't be going to a conference! We just got on the field!!”  It was a rookie outlook on what conferences can do for a team and for our own renewal. Needless to say, we followed the guidance and wisdom of the leaders set before us and made the journey to the first ever CSM/CCM conference.

During our free time one afternoon, a few of us
explored a waterfall.

We had our conference at Okuma, which is a resort on the Northern part of Okinawa that is for U.S. Military.  Our leadership brought in guest speakers, Darrell and Cheryl Hammond from Higher Ground Consulting, for the week to help us understand the ProScan test. They are experts on building teams and improving communication between people.  While we talked about a lot of information over the week, my big takeaways were the motivators and demotivators for the team (especially when it comes to Sarah).  The motivators are something that truly drive you to take action. We all took time to look at a list of motivators that were specific to our ProScan results and defined 4 of them.  After that we all shared with each other our motivators.  I shared that cooperation, friends, happiness, and outside activities were the things that get me to take action.  If I have one of those things in my life, I love to take action and get things done quicker!  Happiness is my number one motivator.  If I’m not happy, I’m not effective. Period.  Sarah’s motivators are stability, structure, time to adjust to change, and strong leadership.  Knowing these will help me motivate her to do her best!  We had a chance to talk to Darrell and Cheryl one on one about these different motivators. They told me to encourage Sarah to take time out of her day to reflect and have moments of peace.  This will help her feel less stressed and be more motivated to do things, not just in work but in life.  While most of her motivators are going to take time to establish, we have started working on them.  It was great insight for me as a husband to understand that these things are important to my wife!  It is making me a better husband and person! The demotivators also helped me better understand how and why Sarah communicates the way she does.  While the demotivators weren't unfamiliar to me, I just didn't have a name or description to put with them.  Putting a name to something always helps me better understand.  All of this information is also going to help me with my new teammates as we begin to work more together.  I’ll be able to know how I can be most effective when working with them or just hanging out. It was such blessing to go to the conference!  We came back refreshed, ready to hit the road hard!!

Our leadership team encouraged all of us to get to know 

each other better. Sarah and I did that by sharing 

meals with those on our team.

Sarah and I have come to a clearer realization that rest is important!  Whether you are in ministry or not, taking time to rest and reflect on life is important.  Cadence International is helping us realize this. This past conference, we learned a lot, on top of  getting refreshed! After making an international move and starting two overseas children’s ministries, it was needed and will continue to be needed!  Looking to the summer, we have our all staff conference. This is a conference for every missionary within Cadence to attend and it is hosted every 5 years.  While we still have a little bit of the “we just got here” bug; we are totally on board with being refresh and renewed by all the stories of ministry happening on U.S. military bases around the world. We will be sharing the details of our summer conference in the weeks to come, stay tuned!

Eight Week Challenge

Eight weeks, Matthew and I have eight more weeks to raise our support so that we can be on the mission field in September. Some of you may be thinking, “September isn’t in 8 weeks, so why do you only have eight more weeks?” Good question. We need to be fully supported for three consecutive months before we will be released to the mission field. We are hoping, praying, and asking for our monthly support to be in by May 31^st so that we are able to count June, July and August as our three consecutive months—seems easy, right?

Now, you may be wondering how in the world we plan on raising the rest of our support in 8 weeks?! Another great question! Matthew and I have created an eight week challenge! This challenge was created to motivate us and those around us. We are going to work and pray diligently for a new person/family to join our support team every day for the next eight weeks.  We have and will continue making phone calls, sending emails, sharing our hearts and meeting with people for dinner, coffee, etc. Our challenge technically didn't start until this past Saturday, but we got a little head start because we were excited! So far, we have had seven individuals/families pledge their support! Whoot whoo!! We are now bringing in 40% of our monthly goal, which is $7,055 and have $13,500 (out of 19,800) of our start up fund!!

What can you do? 1. Pray/consider becoming a monthly supporter. 2. Pray for our boldness as we ask others. Pray God will continue to send new supporters our way! 3. Let us know of anyone who you think may be interested in supporting us.

Ephesians 3:20 “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”

Wanna Help?

If you are looking for a way(s) to help, we have three main areas you are able to help in. We have a prayer team, a financial team and an outreach team. Each team plays an important role in the ministry and is important to Matthew and myself. You get the opportunity to join in this ministry by joining one or more of the following teams! Matthew and I would be so blessed for you to join any of these teams! Yippee!

The Prayer Team: is committed to praying for us, the ministry and families of our military. Matthew and I need consistent prayer for our relationship to grow and deepen as we start this new journey. Pray also that we would trust God and His provision in this current faith building season. Pray that God would continue giving us dreams and a vision for the future children’s ministry. Our military families and military personnel  need your prayers as well. When military personnel are deployed, he/she leaves their families making the other spouse act a single parent. That spouse needs strength to balance the day-to-day “to-do” list as well as take care of the children. Our military personnel who are deployed need prayer just as much, they go through more than one could imagine while missing their friends, family and home life in the midst of it all. Once they return, it can be hard to adjust to “normal” life again. Some of our military personnel even struggle with connecting with their children.

The Financial Team: In order for us to officially get on the mission field, we need to raise our finances. We are required to raise $7,600 a month, which is a lot of money! We have to raise money to get us and our household items to Japan, to start up and run our ministry, for health insurance, a house/apartment, a car and everyday living. You are able to choose from different options within the financial team. You can choose to support us monthly, give us a one-time gift or “one-time” gifts periodically through the year. You may be happy to know because Cadence is a non-profit organization, your gift(s) are tax deductible. You can support us by using your debit/credit card, use an electronic funds transfer (EFT) or by writing a check. To invest using your debit/credit card or to set up an EFT, you can visit the Cadence International website, also found on a separate tab at the top of our blog. You can also look in the right column of our blog and click the link under “investing.” If you choose to write a check, you will need to make it out to “Cadence International” not to Matthew or myself. To have the check go to us, write our account number, which is 10790, in the “for” section of your check.

The Outreach Team: The outreach team involves people who desire to help us get our name known to the public! You can share our blog via Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Email, word of mouth or all of the above! We have “share” buttons that allow you to share with social networks easily. We also encourage you to share our ministry with your church; see if your church is willing to let us come share our hearts, lives and vision!

In the future, we look forward to having people join us on the field! We hope that you will come join us for a week or two and serve the kids with us! More on this will come once we have officially made it to the field! =)


**If you make the decision to join any of the three teams above, please let us know. We love knowing who is supporting and investing in this awesome ministry! We would also like to personally thank you for jumping on board and impacting lives alongside of us! =)