Cadence Associates

Obstacles Turned to Opportunities

9/20/07 | No Comments | Comment on this post below |

Follow a journey of faith and beyond from the US Navy to Kazahkstan! Two Associates (now husband and wife) tell their story. Nothing is too big for our God! >>

January, 1964. A young seaman has pulled into Subic Bay, Philippines aboard the USS Midway. The Vietnam conflict is underway and just a couple months have passed since the tragic assassination of President Kennedy. On his second Pacific tour, Seaman Shiffer is taking an entirely different tack from his first. This time, he has met other Christians and is really trying to live the Christian life.

On reaching Subic, he is invited to go to an OCSC facility just outside the gate. He is introduced to other servicemen and to the Dick Patty family, resident missionaries. They inform him that he ought to attend a Bible conference coming up later in the month. In combination with other servicemen from Clark AFB, many do attend the five day conference receiving three teaching times daily as well as rich testimonies of God’s faithfulness. Going in depth into Hebrews 6, John 10, Philippians 1:20-21 and Philippians 3, all those who attended had a truly life-changing experience. Ray’s life will never be the same. He committed his life to the Lord’s service in missions both by going and by giving. The rest of his tour of duty he visited with as many missionaries as he could coming to understand that theirs was the life he most wanted to emulate.

Finishing his military obligation he continued his education, obtaining both electrical engineering degrees and his masters in Bible with a focus on missions. He served for 21/2 years with an evangelical radio ministry in Peru as an engineer. Then, in 1994 he journeyed with a pastor friend to Kazakhstan. Discovering the communist and Moslem oppression, the difficulty of the language barrier (Russian and Kazak), he didn’t feel that he could minister there. But after studying missions he realized that with God all things are possible.

In 1995 he teamed with others under Frontier Mission to move to a small town in Kazakhstan. As part of the project to address the 80% unemployment, Ray opened a woodworking shop and began with three employees, teaching them needed skills to use for a basic income. At the same time he was involved with the church planting team and attended cell group meetings. The work was slow and the language learning difficult. But people were beginning to respond to Christ’s love.

Some years earlier, as a teenager, Ainissa had recognized her need for something more and began earnestly seeking answers to whether there was a God. Having a Moslem father, she asked if she might study the Koran. He obtained a Russian language version and she began her study. However, she couldn’t understand it and could find no one, including her father who read or understood the Koran! Frustrated and discouraged, she approached her Buddhist mother. She explained her desire to find God. Her mother produced some notes Ainissa’s grandmother had given her when she left Siberia to move to Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the notes were in Tibetan and her mother couldn’t read them. She simply said memorize and recite them and Buddha will understand. As she struggled not understanding and observed the people of her village being deceitful, hateful and dishonest, Ainissa, now disheartened and depressed, gave up.

She moved to the city to study at university. The party crowd took her in but she found that partying and the lifestyle associated with it was as empty and devoid of purpose as the two religions she had pursued. Now despondent with “a voice inside her head” telling her to end it all, she finally agreed and planned to take her life. In her plan she wanted to return to her village to say her goodbyes to her parents and two sisters.

In returning home she found a very different mother than she had known. She was so different she had to know why! Her mother responded that some missionaries had moved to the village and she was attending the meetings. “What missionaries?” Ainissa asked. “They are Christians”, her mother responded. At this Ainissa told her mother to forget it, she had already tried religion. But her mother was insistent that she at least come and listen one time. So, on January 24th, 1997 Ainissa attended the same cell group of which Ray was a part. The two of them had quite different responses at that first meeting!

Ray says, “When Ainissa walked into the room that evening, I couldn’t take my eyes from her.” He actually was so embarrassed, as he felt she was, that he asked the interpreter to apologize on his behalf. Meanwhile, Ainissa had noticed his eyes, but she had noticed everyone else’s as well! What she saw impacted her so deeply that she began to weep. In everyone’s eyes she saw peace, joy and love! She had seen nothing like this ever. As she sat there, her mother asked if they could pray for her and she said yes. That same peace she saw in those in the room settled over her as she realized her need for the Savior and yielded her life to Him. From that point forward she was a new creature in Christ, a new creation!

A year later the rest of the team had to leave the field but Ray stayed on. His shop grew from those initial 3 employees to 20. He continued to serve the two house churches which had begun. By 1999 he was nearing burnout and Frontier said he needed to take at least a six month furlough. Upon returning to the States, he realized how much he missed that young woman who was a co-laborer in the work in Kazakhstan. He began calling her twice a week and the relationship began to blossom. After six months he returned so that they might confirm in their hearts that it was God’s plan for them to marry.

Today, almost exactly 10 years from that crucial cell meeting, they are a happily married couple now serving the Lord with their five year old son in Denver, Colorado where Ainissa is one of Cadence’s newest employees, working in our finance department part time while she pursues her CPA.

Two cultures of this earth, markedly different, but now those differences transformed through the love of Christ. Ray became a Cadence Associate all the way back in 1964 where God changed him from a US Navy sailor to an ambassador for Christ. Taking up his post in Kazakhstan, a young Moslem/Budhist was transformed into that ambassador’s life partner! Another example of God’s amazing grace!

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