About: Gaylyn Williams

The author of sixteen books, Gaylyn is best known for her practical, biblical approach to self-help. She addresses the struggles, disappointments and challenges that are common to all, honestly sharing from personal experience, including: being sent to a boarding school from age 6 to 13, the deaths of her six-month-old son and her fiancé, fifteen years raising two rambunctious sons alone, as well as running several businesses and nonprofits.

Her most recent book is All Stressed Up and Everywhere to Go! Solutions to De-Stressing Your Life and Recovering Your Sanity.  She has been published by traditional and nontraditional publishers including Readers Digest, B&H Publishing Group, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and Standard Publishing.

Raised as a missionary kid in Guatemala, Gaylyn went on to serve as a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators for fifteen years and The Navigators for three years. Since 1999, she has directed a nonprofit international ministry called Relationship Resources. To support the ministry, she started a real estate investment business in 2003.

Today Gaylyn writes and speaks nationally and internationally. A frequent media guest, she has been featured on dozens of radio and television programs. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, Wheaton College, and English Language Institute China.

Readers and students alike agree: Gaylyn is passionate about encouraging and equipping people in their relationship with God, themselves and others. Her writing and speaking are practical and biblical, empowering people to grow spiritually, personally, relationally, and professionally.

Vistit Gaylyn at: www.RelationshipResources.org

 

About: Juana Mikels

Raised in Richmond, Virginia, Juana Mikels graduated from Meredith College in 1980 and went to work for Xerox Corporation where she worked for fourteen years in sales and marketing; ten of those years she was in a marketing executive position. She was selected to work on a Governor’s task force in 1986 representing Xerox to the state in which she resided, and received the Governor’s highest award: The Order of the Longleaf Pine.

She initially learned to speak and sing publicly through two mediums. In 1976, she worked at King’s Dominion Family Entertainment Park in Live Shows as a singer in the Kings of Swing Band, where she performed in front of large live audiences five times daily. In 1978, she entered the “Miss Richmond Contest,” where she placed as a finalist after speaking and singing to a large live audience, winning 2nd runner-up and first place in the swimsuit competition.

She married her college sweetheart, Terry Mikels, in 1981. With parents that comprised several marriages and a father that struggled with alcoholism, she had no role modeling in her life for Christian marriage. She left her husband in 1984, knowing that something was “missing in her marriage,” thinking she had mistakenly married the wrong person. During her separation, she accepted Christ, and her marriage to Terry was reconciled in 1986. Seven years later, her husband accepted Christ.

They later had four children, Blair, John, Alex and Mary. Their fourth child, Mary, was born totally blind. Juana was befriended and mentored by Elisabeth Elliot in what began as a writing correspondence, after being a listener to her radio program. Juana resigned from Xerox leaving a little over six-figure income in 1994 to be a full time wife and stay-at-home mother, and taught her children at home for the next thirteen years.

Juana realized the dream of sharing her story, first in 1993, when the President of Church Initiative, asked to film her testimony for a dvd series on divorce care. She began speaking publicly in 1995, addressing women’s groups in churches by sharing her faith and story of hope in marriage, and leading seminars on order, home life, and time management for the Christian woman.

She was delighted to appear as a guest for three consecutive days on Elisabeth Elliot’s “Gateway to Joy,” Back to the Bible radio program in 1997 as she told how she got a second chance on the marriage, spoke on family life, and order in the home. In 2007, she was the featured guest on Haven Today for their Mother’s Day program. You can hear the soundtrack of the latter program that aired nationwide, by clicking “Listen” at the top of the page.

Juana and Terry have been married twenty-nine years and make their home in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Visit Juana at: http://www.juanamikels.com/

 

About: Bryan Hill

Bryan Hill – Missionary to Southern Africa
I’m 23 years old currently been living in Southern Africa for the past 5 years doing ministry work, I studied for 3 years at Seminary in South Africa, and for the past 2 years I’ve been working in full-time ministry, I started an organization called Visions of Africa Ministry (VOA) that works directly in the field of community development, partnering with 3 churches and 11 different community based ministries in Pretoria South Africa, using community development as a tool to share the gospel. The ministries that VOA partners with are involved with work in the areas of Prisoner Rehabilitation, Orphan and Vulnerable Children Care, poverty alleviation, job/life skills development and job creation. To read and find out more about me and Visions of Africa Ministry check out the website at www.VisionsofAfricaMinistry.com