Darlene Elizabeth Scovill Noden went into the presence of the Lord on May 15 at 12:09pm.
A memorial service will be 2:00 p.m. Saturday, June 7, 2025 at Primrose Retirement Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Another memorial service will follow at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, July 12, 2025, at the East White Oak Bible Church, in Carlock, Illinois.


Darlene was born in the town of Finlayson, Minnesota on 18 May 1939 and lived up to her teen years on a farm with her parents and seven siblings near Askov, Minnesota. During her junior year of high school at Prairie High School in Alberta, Canada, she met David who was to become her best friend and husband. After high school, Darlene attended Moody Bible Institute and graduated with high honors in June 1960. Shortly after graduation, she married David Lewis Noden under the banner "UNITED FOR SERVICE" in the Evangelical Free Church of Sandstone, Minnesota.


Darlene and David moved to Wheaton, IL and later Bloomington, IL to pursue further education-Darlene's degree was in elementary education. During their time in Illinois, they served in local churches and were passionate educators. In the summer of 1967, a 5-month pregnant Darlene and her husband David boarded a ship in the New York Harbor and embarked on the 5-week sea journey to Kenya, Africa to be missionaries. Once in Kenya, they began teaching in public high schools, Kangundo Boys Secondary School and Machakos Girls' High School. Mere months after their arrival, their son Bruce was born and they became a family of three. Darlene embraced motherhood fully, constantly conscious of Bruce's needs while juggling a busy teaching/ministry life. She also embraced the adventure of camping in game parks (producing coffee and sticky buns for 5AM game drives), fun relaxing times at the beach, and leading a group of high school students to the top of Kilimanjaro.


After nine years' teaching in the Kenyan public schools, Darlene and David were reassigned to the missionary boarding school Rift Valley Academy, where Darlene was a 5th and 6th grade teacher and elementary principal. She was a creative teacher who passionately defended students under her care. She is remembered for her no-nonsense approach, yet also her ever-present compassion and care for students. Darlene's hospitality was truly amazing, providing special meals for countless students who, to this day, recount how meals and overnights at her house made huge differences in their lives. The house was always bustling, hosting families visiting their children, short-term visits from friends in the US, and students baking and making meals. She saw these moments not as burdens, but as opportunities to serve the God she loved.


When the family moved back to the US in 1985, Darlene became executive secretary of the Africa Inland Mission office headquarters in Pearl River, NY. In 1992 she joined David in regional administration for AIM, visiting and recruiting missionary candidates from Virginia to New York. They took short-term mission groups to Madagascar and Namibia. They also traveled to Zimbabwe and Florida for the births of their grandchildren, and regularly visited in following years, prioritizing time with family despite the distance.


David and Darlene retired from active missionary work in 2007 and moved back to their home area of Normal-Bloomington, IL and to their home church: East White Oak Bible Church. The church community became true family. Following a few years of precious worship and service at EWO, Darlene and David moved down to Stillwater, OK in May 2016 to live close to their son and his family for the first time. In Stillwater, they quickly immersed themselves in ministry opportunities at Primrose Retirement Center, leading weekly chapel and Bible studies. Darlene was renowned for her exceptional piano skills-from any requested hymn to Oklahoma folk songs. Relishing the opportunity to live near family, Darlene jumped into life as our Grammy-hosting family meals and celebrations, donning heavy coats for freezing soccer games, setting out hearty tea-time spreads, and feeding hungry college boys coming through town who still remember her meatballs and cookies. She loved "sundowners" in the big backyard around the fire pit-often reminiscing about similar memories in Africa.



Darlene has been a loving wife, mother and grandmother, passionate teacher, a vital partner in ministry, and a consistent encourager in every move and change. Only one month shy of 65 years of marriage, Darlene has modeled what true commitment, loyal and faithful love, and partnership looks like. To know Darlene is to know David-they have been a unified team of ministry partners from the beginning. As mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother, she left no doubt in our minds that she loved us, esteemed us, and was proud of us. As a teacher, she embodied the Illinois State University Ed Department motto: Gladly Will I Learn and Gladly Teach. She is remembered by students scattered across the world, from Africa to Europe to the United States. She is greatly missed in our family for her deep care for each one of us and her "all-in" involvement in every big moment of our lives, from graduations to choir concerts to birthdays. Whenever we were all together, she would get teary-eyed about how much she loved her family-we felt secure in that love no matter what corner of the globe we were in.


Darlene is preceded in death by her parents Gordon and Dorothy, and her brother Philip.


She is survived by her husband David, son Bruce (Myra), grandchildren Anna and Ethan (Hannah), and siblings Don (Evelyne), David, Doris (Stewart), Dan (Doreen), Dorcas, and Esther (Lee), and sister-in-law Marlys.



Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
Isaiah 26:3-4 (Her Life Verses)