Our History
The LifeCompass gap year program started in 2011 under the name Cadence DTS and was founded by Buddy and Jen Rathmell. Located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, it was in the hub of over one thousand long-term missionaries and their ministries. LifeCompass has partnered and served many of these ministries as well as championed their call by connecting our students to see and hear how God is at work in the nations.
Jim and Rachel Turnage started doing youth ministry in Scottsdale, AZ in 1993. In 1998, they joined Cadence International and led youth ministry on US military bases in Japan, Germany and Okinawa. They moved to Thailand and joined LifeCompass in 2012 and were soon given leadership of the ministry. In 2020, LifeCompass moved stateside to Columbia, SC. The purpose was to give our discipleship students more exposure to doing ministry in English, to better equip them to be able to disciple and share their faith in their native language.
In 2021, LifeCompass launched from their parent organization, Cadence International, to form it's own 501c3. With this launch, this allowed them to continue to partner with Cadence but also increased their ability to recruit beyond the scope of the military. It also moved them beyond the single focus of a discipleship gap year program. We seek to be a platform for discipleship initiatives, for discipleship coaching and to build a retreat center to be a hub for discipleship in the community.