Blevins Update Dit keer een engelse update geschreven door Jolanda's team.

Thank you for all your prayers last month! Jolanda was with her YWAM team in Michigan in February. Having a team of dedicated missionaries come together with the purpose of supporting and caring for other missionaries well is such a powerful gift to the Kingdom.

God was working during our time together. But so was the enemy... 
Because we are aligning our vision with God's vision, and because missionaries are finding freedom and healing in Him, the enemy is not happy! We experienced various forms of spiritual warfare during those two weeks, but we are advancing from a place of victory knowing that if this spiritual pushback is happening, we are on the right path! 

Continue to cover our team in your prayers as we do this work of encouraging and equipping missionaries and missionary families together.

Team Training Week

We had such a great time as a team, learning and growing together, during our team training week in February. Everyone flew in from different places in the US (and globally!), and we gathered with the goal of encouraging and equipping ourselves for another year of ministry here in Paw Paw, Michigan. We focused on the culture of Excelling Leaders, our vision and mission as an organization, and strategized for this next year of ministry. 

 Our guest, Coach Tim Powers, taught on Physical Wellness many of the afternoons. Since Wellness is such a big part of our Radiant Life Retreats for missionaries, our team needs to prioritize it for ourselves as well! Why is Physical Wellness important? Because it’s important to God--we are His temple, and we need to be good stewards of the gift He has given us in our bodies so we can continue leading and serving well. 

We will be going deeper into the different areas of Wellness in future emails, so stay tuned!

Workshop Week

For the first time, Excelling Leaders hosted and led a Missionary Children and Teenager Debrief Workshop here at our ministry campus in Michigan.Our workshop was filled with individuals from a variety of debriefing, ministry, and occupational backgrounds who wanted to learn how to come alongside missionary families and help the children and teens of those families process their experiences, find healing, and be equipped to begin a new season. The room was full of wisdom and a variety of experiences, and we all had a blast. 

We want to especially thank Ton and Carla Vegt, as well as Christy Wall, for preparing, planning, and leading this workshop! And also, all those who contributed to that week with logistics, campus prep, prayer, and hospitality. It took our entire team to pull off this incredible event, and we are so grateful!

We will be exploring more workshop and training opportunities in the future.

2025 Retreat Dates

We have four Radiant Life Retreat (RLR) dates for missionaries and missionary families lined up for 2025: 
April 8 - 17 
June 3 - 12 
August 19 - 28 
October 21 - 30
Please keep these dates in your prayers as our team plans and prepares to support and come alongside countless missionaries this calendar year. We were blown away by God’s faithfulness in 2024 and look forward to seeing Him go above and beyond our expectations yet again this year! 

Coming Up: April RLR
Our team is already getting ready to welcome missionaries to our campus in Michigan next month! We have a lot of logistics to work out, cabins to prepare, schedules to develop, and teachings to finalize before then. But most importantly, we are preparing ourselves spiritually for all that will happen those two weeks. 

There are two significant elements of our Radiant Life Retreats (RLRs) that set us apart as a missionary care ministry: 
We focus on the whole family 
Whether they are a seasoned overseas worker or a young child of a missionary, our programs are intentionally designed to care for each member of the family at various levels. 
We prioritize wellness
"Now what?" is the question most asked after Week One of the debrief. Week Two, we give them the answer! We equip the missionaries with tools, resources, and encouragement to continue walking out their stories with the Lord in the next season of life or ministry He is calling them into. 

The April RLR is filled to capacity with participants, and the June, August, and October RLRs are almost full as well. Praise the Lord!

For more information, contact us at info@excellingleaders.org or visit our website for more details: Radiant Life Retreats

One of the seven cottages on site where the missionaries stay while participating in our Radiant Life Retreats. The lake-front views, peaceful environment, and intentional design offer the missionaries a space to rest and renew as we walk with them through the debrief process.
Thank you for being a part of our mission to encourage and equip missionaries and their families so they can be effective and resilient!

The Excelling Leaders Team