What does Christmas mean to you?

Every year we pray to remember why we celebrate Christmas, why this day is so special to us. As the world becomes more and more caught up in the commercialization of the holiday, we try to slow down the pace to reflect on why we love this time of year. What does Christmas mean to you?

We all have family traditions that make Christmas special. In the Collins family (Cathy's), we go to church on Christmas eve. On Christmas morning, her dad reads the Birth of Christ passage from Luke 2, we exchange gifts, laugh, and eat a nice meal. All to try and celebrate the birth of Christ.

It is an amazing thing, an incredible act of love. The God of creation comes to earth as an infant child. God incarnate, God with us. What a miracle! How can we grasp this? We love this day. Not because of time with family, not because of fun traditions, but because of the realization that God loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to be born as a child, live on this earth, die on a cross so we can be reconciled with God and rise from the dead so we can experience true freedom and life!

Glory to God! Merry Christmas to you all! May you realize the true meaning of Christmas in a new and personal way this year!

A Season of Thanksgiving! A Season of Joy!

We are entering a time of the year for us is a very special time. For many, the holiday season (Thanksgiving, the Advent, celebration of the birth of Christ) can be a busy season, a depressing season, a lonely season. For us, it is a time to reflect and appreciate the many blessings in our lives.

We appreciate the beautiful world we live in...here is Cathy at the Blue Springs State Park in Florida. We took a nice walk through the park, saw manatees, beautiful birds and gorgeous scenery.

We reflect on how thankful we are for relationships. As we have finished another road trip for Cadence, we are grateful for the people God have put into our lives. We have beloved family and cherished friends. But, most importantly, we have discovered how much we love our relationship with God.

We are amazed at how God has used different people in our lives to teach us more about Him. Over the past few months, God has used many of our friends and family on our travels to confirm our new direction in life, why military ministry is important, why sometimes rules are in our best interest and how much we are going to miss people when we go overseas.

Here are Brandon & Ashley Murphy, who have reminded us how exciting the first year of marriage can be. They are adjusting to living together, learning to communicate and just having fun!
Here is our sweet friend, Mandy Mueller. Mandy is currently in the Air Force and stationed in San Antonio. Mandy reminded us of what it means to truly enjoy serving our country and our God. She loves her job, but she also spends her time teaching 3rd graders Sunday School. She serves the poor and hungry in San Antonio. We were challenged by her example and reminded how service can be truly joyful!
As we enter the Advent Season, and the Christmas season approaches, may you take a few moments to reflect on what is important to you. For us, it is you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Godly Interruptions -- do they exist?

As we are continue to develop our ministry partner team, we are also focusing on catching up on our reading. We are studying the book of Acts, reading books on Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD) and managing our time and avoiding burnout. One of the things that I (Cathy) have been meditating on - as I have been reading more about managing our time - is the idea of Godly Interruptions.

I've been thinking through how to discern when we need to take time out of our schedules to be available to God and people. We just read the about Philip ministering to the Ethiopian Eunuch and his willingness to obey and shared with the official. Philip ended up leading him to a relationship with Christ. I'm reminded about the women who touched Christ's hem, during His busy schedule, to be healed. Christ knew - despite people pressing in - that someone had touched Him. He stopped and engaged the woman. Jesus took time out of his schedule - He was on His way to heal another person - to engage her and minister to her.

I wish I could be that sensitive to know when I should leave my "to do" list and evaluate the interruptions in my life. As a Christ follower, I desire to minister to people, share my faith, lead people to the Lord; but I get so caught up in life, doing my Cadence partnership development and training, reading, hanging out with friends, serving my church that I know I miss the blessing of the Godly interruptions that He brings into my life.

As we get ready to run a hospitality house, we need to learn to be sensitive to the needs of the people that God brings into our lives. Pray for us that we can be available to take the time necessary to allow God to rule our lives and not our tasks.

We are back in Colorado!

We made it back from our mid-west trip on Monday, 6 October. We had a wonderful time visiting friends, talking to folks about Cadence and seeing a few sites. We traveled from Colorado all the way east to Canton, Ohio and back through Madison, WI. We left on 22 September and returned on 6 October.

We managed to eat breakfast in Columbus, OH (Go Buckeyes!) one day and two days later eat breakfast in Madison, WI (Go Badgers!). We enjoyed time in Lou's old stomping grounds of Galesburg, Illinois and spent time with his little league buddy, David Walker. We toured the campus of Athletes in Action in Xenia, Ohio and had a personal guide, Clint Mahan. We enjoyed a wonderful steak dinner with Doug & Rhonda Hess and saw the Football Hall of Fame.

God was very faithful to us. He granted us great weather, extreme graciousness from folks that we shared the Cadence vision with, blessed relaxation and He maintained our health. We will be back in Colorado until 9 November. We then head to the southeast: Albuquerque, San Antonio, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina and back home via Dallas. We are excited about this time in our lives and feel very honored to have this opportunity.

The Journey to Deep

We are still on our road trip. We moved on from Kansas City to St. Louis to Louisville to Dayton and now we are in Canton, Ohio.

We enjoyed our trip to Louisville and truly had a ball getting reacquainted with our nephew and neice. Raymond Miller Palmer is 3 and Avery Michele Palmer is 16 months. We learned that pumpkins and apples are fun to pick, but more fun with kids.

On Sunday, we joined Lou's family at their church. We heard the first sermon in their I Corinthians series, entitled The Journey to Deep. We feel like that is what is happening with us during this time in our lives.

As we begin discussing the vision of Cadence and why we are excited to be a part of the team, it is a faith journey to ask people to consider joining our team. Whether it is supporting us by joining the prayer team or by supporting us through financial gifts, we are on a journey.

Pastor Kyle Idleman reminded us to (1) Focus on Jesus; (2) Stand on God's Wisdom and (3) Grow in a Spirit of Humility. This last point was the most challenging to us. As we have begun this journey, we have been humbled by God's provision and the surprise of how our friends and families are joining us on this next adventure. Pastor Idleman reminded us the opposite of humility is pride.

Over the years, God has continued to deal with this sin in our lives. Kyle explained that Pride makes us selfish, argumentative, opinionated, defensive and prejudiced. We both were shaken to realize that we still struggle mightily with Pride. Think about it, pray about it, learn to be a person of humility.

As a man thinketh....James ALlen

"The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires, and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own. Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit."

We are learning to guard not only our hearts but also our minds. We are thankful for the reminders of Godly men and women that go before us to challenge us to become more Christlike. Take the challenge! Be unique and different! Become people of character!

Nice Night in Nebraska

We spent Monday - the first day of our road trip - in Omaha. We were visiting with Cathy's aunt and her family. We had a super time visiting, getting caught up on life and of course sharing about what's next in our lives as Cadence Missionaries.

We enjoyed a great steak dinner and learned that Taylor doesn't like steak. So, she had a hot dog -- hot dog vs. steak -- we're not sure about that. Greg continues to do well his new found passion of cross country running. Tori seems to be settling into her high school career.

We are off today to Kansas City. We are looking forward to seeing Mike & Terri Murphy and Brittany Moore. Pray for good weather, Omaha is suppose to get rain. Stay tuned for more adventures of Lou & Cathy Rozmiarek. :-)

Getting ready to hit the road

We are looking forward to going and visiting friends and family in the mid-west. We are leaving on Monday and heading to Omaha first. We will spend about 3 weeks on the road, visiting folks in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and back to Colorado.

The easiest way to reach us during this time is on our cell or by email. We know that God will give us opportunities to chat with people about Cadence and our role in serving the military. 2008 has definitely been a year of change for us!

The Next Adventure

We just took a position with Cadence where will begin serving as Hospitality House missionaries to the military community. Our first assignment will be at Ft. Bragg in the spring of 2009. Our permanent assignment will be in Germany in 2010.

Cathy finished her tenure (21-1/2 years) with Northrop Grumman earlier this month. We will begin to visit friends and family to share about our opportunity with Cadence International. We are excited about the chance we have to serve God in this way.

Please book mark this page — you can check in on us and see what is happening in our lives and ministry. If you would like to track us down, check out www.cadence.org