We, Rodney and Jolanda Blevins, have been missionaries with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) since 1997. Through various missions and ministry trips throughout the years, we have impacted people in 16 different countries spanning five continents!

We both did a Discipleship Training School (DTS) at the YWAM base Heidebeek in Heerde, The Netherlands. The DTS is YWAM’s six month training course designed to help you understand God more deeply, live more like Jesus and identify your unique gifts and purpose to use in missions.

In March 2000, we moved to the city of Zenica in Bosnia & Herzegovina where we lived and worked until June 2003. We moved back to The Netherlands in 2003 continue our ministry at the YWAM base Heidebeek.

Jolanda was involved with the pastoral and staff care and development teams at YWAM Heidebeek. She was also been a mentor to other missionary ladies as well as students in the Discipleship Training School and other schools given at Heidebeek.

From 2008 until 2013, Rodney was the leader of EuroCom, YWAM Europe’s communication team. EuroCom existed to serve the leadership of YWAM Europe and YWAM Europe’s communication needs.

EuroCom, like all of YWAM’s communication teams operating at local, regional, field and global levels worked together to:

• improve communication among ministry locations and between leaders and staff
• represent YWAM to the church and public
• empower missionaries with valuable skills, heart and vision
• produce recruiting and training resources
• help YWAM be more effective in its mandate to know God and to make Him known

In April 2012, we traveled as a family to visit Colorado Springs, Colorado to spy out the land and see if this was some place where God would have us move to work with a small, communications-oriented YWAM team called Y360. It was a great trip for us all and God seemed to really be confirming to us that He indeed wanted us to move there. The girls enjoyed it and could see themselves living there and going to school. Jolanda also saw many opportunities for herself to serve there.

Above all, it was the contact with the YWAMers in the team with which we would be working that made the biggest impact on us.

We got a green light from God, and in January 2013 we moved as a family to Colorado Springs, CO, USA to join Y360.

From February 2013 until January 2016, Rodney worked with YWAM Y360 in the online store Crown Ministries International (crownmin.org) shipping Christian teaching materials (books and DVDs) over the whole world. He was also in charge of the web-related projects, helping missionaries and ministries (and even some local businesses) define their voice on the internet and to communicate their message as effectively as possible via the World Wide Web.

Jolanda has worked with the Y360 Life and Growth Team as well as hosting ministries who make use of our facilities for occasions such as board meetings, workshops, etc. She also answers the many emails and voicemails that come in requesting information.

Business IS Missions!

In January 2017, God opened up a door for Rodney to work full-time with a local Web Design agency in Colorado Springs called zipperSNAP led by YWAMers Bill and Karma Duggin. He is doing the same work as he did with Y360, but now he is getting paid for it, plus he has the opportunity to once again setup the websites of international ministries which has been his heart ever since his days as the leader of EuroCom.

Business as mission is demonstrating what the Kingdom of God is like in the context of business – and as we do so, engaging with the world’s more pressing social, economic, environmental and spiritual issues. It’s one answer to the prayer “May Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” as people and communities are positively transformed through for-profit business activities.

It is doing business in a Kingdom way with a focus on holistic transformation with keywords such as justice, dignity and wholeness. Good relationships are central, and the Gospel is both a guide and our message, in word and deed.

Rodney and the zipperSNAP team are privileged to be a small part of “Business as Missions” bringing hope and a Kingdom perspective in the world, in developing countries, or closer to home.

Missionary Care

A debriefing is a relational process in which the realities of the past and their impact are expressed and understood for the purpose of release, renewal, and moving forward. Effective personal debriefing is, essentially, helping a person tell their story in an environment where they feel fully heard and understood. We, as debriefers use a timeline, also known as a “life path”, to help them tell their story. During this retreat in Orlando, together with a male colleague, Jolanda was the personal debriefer of two couples.

From her experience in Pastoral Care and Missionary Care at YWAM Heidebeek in the Netherlands, Jolanda has since January 2016 become part of the Member Care team for North America.

After further training, Jolanda is now also able to walk alongside people / missionaries who are preparing for missions or who have years of experience in the mission field.

It is Jolanda’s desire to walk alongside these workers, preparing them to do their job with resilience either before they go, while they’re on the field or while on furlough. And when the do decide to return for good to their home country, to be able to finish strong. So that missionaries not only “survive”, but can successfully and effectively continue to exercise their ministry with resilience. We all know what it’s like to have a bad experience, crisis, symptoms of fatigue, financial worries and then to feel the responsibility to continue doing the work that is expected of us. Now, how would you feel if you were experiencing all of this in a foreign country, culture and language and still trying to find a good balance? That is why Member Care wants to assist with good preparation, supervision, guidance and debriefing / coaching.

Jolanda is a personal debriefer and since the beginning of 2018 has also been involved with “Radiant Life Retreats” for missionaries (families). This retreat is held approximately 4 times a year and lasts 6-8 days. A personal debriefing with missionaries involves taking a look at events on the field that had a major impact on them. They then put this all down on a “timeline” (also known as a life path) to help them recount and process this.

This process brings out not only the low points but also the victories. It helps set them free from past experiences, renew their thinking and dare to believe that their ministry can continue. This effective personal debriefing helps a missionary tell his story in a familiar environment where he feels completely heard and understood.

Lisa and Sarah

Since February 2013, Lisa and Sarah attend a local public school. They enjoy school and have adapted well.

In the Fall of 2018, both girls experienced a major change: Lisa started High School and Sarah started Middle School.