Our Story
Helping to reconcile broken relationships and restore hope
John and Isabella Colvin are a Combat Veteran family deeply rooted in the Joint Base Lewis-McChord community. After John's 2018 retirement from the United States Army, John and Isabella focused their attention on serving military and first responder families living with Post-Traumatic Stress.
Of John’s 25-year military career, he spent a combined total of 36 months in a theater of combat. Shortly after his last deployment, John became a Master Resiliency Trainer. From 2012 to 2016, John served as the Battalion and Brigade Master Resiliency Trainer. He quickly realized, after attending his first Military Family Conference, that his qualifications as a Resiliency Trainer would prove valuable in building a healthy peer to peer program. Therefore, he volunteered as a small group leader teaching the life skills necessary for Post-Traumatic Stress recovery.
Isabella comes from a military family and has always had a servants heart. She has over 10 years of experience within women’s ministry, serving in different capacities of the Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC). Her experiences and personal relationships with the women of PWOC, and the military community at large led her to understand the realities of Post Traumatic Stress and secondary trauma. Isabella's passion is to build a community of support for our military and first responder families.
In 2018 John and Isabella opened HEROES Challenge, a nonprofit organization dedicated to Post-Traumatic Stress Recovery and secondary trauma recovery. They believe that the most successful strategy for Post-Traumatic and Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress recovery is utilizing a holistic family approach of healing. Heroes Challenge offers peer support groups focused on addressing the effects of Post Traumatic Stress and secondary Post Traumatic Stress on the family. Group members come together to listen, share stories, and lean on one another for support and guidance.
What we Believe
We believe that great struggle can lead to great transformation and growth.
We believe combat-related stress is contagious, therefore, to heal combat veterans, you must focus on the entire family.
We believe that those best equipped to train others to achieve posttraumatic growth are those who have experienced posttraumatic growth in their own lives.
We believe that strong, capable, and trained mentors, working hand-in-hand with mental health professionals is a key component to supporting a healing environment.
We believe that a comprehensive wellness model consists of five elements: the mind, the body, the spirit, relationships, and financial wellbeing.