About YES!
NEW FULL-TIME ADDITIONS TO THE YES! LEADERSHIP TEAM
Both from Minnesota, Dan and Shani Parotti live in the Minneapolis area. Celebrating thirty years of marriage in May, they currently relish an expanding-family phase, which includes three adult children, two daughters-in-law, and two grandchildren.
With twenty years as a credentialed minister with the Assemblies of God, Dan has served as both Global Missions and Senior Adults Pastor at Cedar Valley Church for the last eight years.
Shani, in addition to supporting Dan in ministry, has worked with children and families in various capacities for twelve years. She also recently authored two children’s books.
Deeply committed to fostering intergenerational connections, Dan & Shani enjoy helping older adults make the most of their later years—providing meaningful opportunities to impact others positively for Christ.
They joined Wes & Judy in the ministry of YES! full-time beginning in May. We invite you to join them prayerfully and financially as they take this leap of faith.
YES! affirms that God wants to use young voices and vision to help inspire older dreamers---making disciples together.
Founders/EXECUTIVE Directors
Since starting YES! in 2008, Wes & Judy Wick have experienced the empty-nest jolt, the joy of welcoming three daughters-in-law and one son-in-law into their family, and grandparenting jubilation with twelve grands—all ten and under!
With vocational backgrounds in church ministry, college administration, and consulting—and most importantly, with God's prompting—Wes & Judy jumped in with all four feet and started the interdenominational ministry of YES!
They’re also designated as United States chaplains by their denomination.
Here’s a quick overview of core values emerging in their first sixteen+ years of YES!
Board of Directors
YES! has been blessed with a capable board of directors, at times spanning up to five or six decades. Current board members are in their early thirties to late seventies.
Churches often end up with closed-circle patterns where only older adults focus on older adults, and those younger are rarely invited into this leadership mix. The truth is, we know young people need us. But do we realize how much we need them?
Often to our own detriment, we try sailing through this second-half journey on our own. We know our own needs and assume younger generations are justifiably absorbed with their own lives and peer group.
YES! spotlights the biblical principle from 1 Corinthians 12 that the whole body needs to show concern for each part, and each part needs to concern itself with the whole. Generations don’t experience wholeness by themselves!
Broader generational perspective and skill sets can help bring generations together and breathe new life into second-half adult ministry.
Current board, left to right: Gary Geesey, Art Gaeta, Jon Kuert, Ryan Marcella, Christine Turner.
Serving together on this small board we've had husbands, wives, widows, widowers, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and (adult) children and grandchildren of living parents and grandparents.
We love the variety of lenses and unity of purpose in a cause we all believe in: God is not finished with adults over fifty-five! He loves every generation! And He wants us to work together to make disciples who, in turn, make disciples.
“In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.”