Tourney helps couple realize goal of overseas missions

Stephen and Candice Schroeder are taking the first steps in their journey to be missionaries overseas. On Aug. 17, about 60 people participated in a Wiffle ball golf tournament to help them on their way.

Held at the Martin Tree Farm Wiffle Ball Golf Course in Cape Girardeau, the First Fruits Charity Wiffle ball golf tournament helped raise money to send the Cape Girardeau couple to New Tribes Bible Institute in Jackson, Mich., where they'll undergo two years of training -- studying the Bible, understanding how to learn languages, how to translate the Bible and how to exist in the jungle and other harsh climates and environments.

"We had a great response from people at Cape Bible Chapel as well as the community. In total, we had 28 companies and people help sponsor the event with donations of food and prizes," Mike Edmonds, event coordinator, said. "There's a lot of love for Candice and Stephen."

Dustin Powell, who helped to set up the tournament, said, "Wiffle ball golf is just like regular golf with 18 holes, only the distance is shorter. The game is played with softball-sized Wiffle balls with the holes taped up and golf clubs." The two-round tournament awarded prizes for feats such as "closest to the hole."

New Tribes Mission, established in 1942, is an international, theologically evangelical Christian mission organization based in Sanford, Fla. It has approximately 3,300 missionaries in more than 20 nations. The organization sends missionaries from local churches to Latin America, West Africa, Southeast Asia and the Arctic. It focuses on groups where no translation of the Bible exists. Missionaries are sent to learn the language and the culture of the native people, translate biblical literature into the indigenous language and teach natives how to read and write in their own language. The goal is to establish fully functioning churches that operate independently of missionaries,

Stephen and Candice Schroeder with their 7-month-old daughter, Eliana. (Fred Lynch)

"There are over 2 billion people in the world who have not heard of Christ and do not have access to do so," Candice Schroeder said. "Statistically speaking, missionaries tend to become disheartened after two years and come home. So NTM equips people to go and do what they feel called to do."

After two years in Michigan the Schroeders plan an 18-month stay at the New Tribes training center in Camdenton, Mo., where they will focus on learning cultures, language acquisition, chronologically storytelling the Bible and home schooling children.

Married in 2008, the Schroeders in the last five years have prayed, trying to determine where God wanted them.

"The whole process has been drenched with prayer," Stephen Schroeder said.

In 2009, the couple participated in a seven-week ministry called The Traveling Team at the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, Calif. There they took a course called Perspectives on World Christian Movement.

"God used this course to radically change our lives. We became aware of the physical and spiritual needs of the world," Candice Schroeder said, adding, "It was then we decided to go do missions. We were burdened by the fact that there are people who do not know about the Lord."

Traveling to Africa in 2011 was a wake-up call for the couple, as Candice Schroeder explained.

"This was an awakening time for us where we realized we were so passionate about missions but also realized how much we did not know so we needed good training," she said.

In January the Schroeders became parents. Upon her birth, the baby, Eliana, went nine minutes without a heartbeat and 12 minutes without a breath. The Schroeders were told she may not survive, and should she do so, she likely would suffer brain damage. Eliana's umbilical cord was wrapped around her in such a way that she was strangled and suffered a torn nerve in her shoulder, for which she has since had surgery.

After 20 days at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis -- where Eliana suffered two seizures and the Shroeders were told not to get their hopes up -- an MRI of the baby's brain came back perfect.

Attributing the results to the prayers of many people, Stephen Shroeder said, "This actually added to the affirmation on our becoming missionaries. Everything reaffirmed our decision."

Candice put it this way:

"We are not doing this to earn God's favor because we know we're complete in Christ, but we have so much joy in the Lord that we wouldn't be content not serving Him."