The Apollos Watered Team

Travis Michael Fleming:
Founder and Executive Director

The voice of Apollos Watered, Travis is our podcast host, primary speaker, and vision caster. His passion is to make the Gospel known and understood in majority world cultures so that the church grows all over the world and all people groups may glorify God, reflecting the unity of Christ's church and His mission to the nations.

Travis grew up in the farmlands of east central Illinois and has had the privilege of pastoring for over 20 years from the urban center of Chicago, to the north shore of Massachusetts, and back to the suburbs of Chicagoland. Under his leadership each church grew in spiritual depth and diversity. Travis is a gifted speaker, frequently addressing churches, Christian camps, and conferences around the world. He boldly combines the deep truths of Scripture with a winsome, energetic and often entertaining style. Travis lives in northeast Florida, is a married father to four kids, an avid Chicago sports fan, collects International Harvester tractors, and enjoys trying out coffee and clothing from the hidden gems of the world

Kevin R. O’Brien:
Chief Strategy Officer/Executive Editor

A self-described pragmatic idealist, Kevin is always thinking, analyzing and looking for strategic ways to effectively accomplish our mission. An ordained pastor, writer and speaker, Kevin has a passion to help the church to be the church wherever God places it and who believes that the deep things of God are for everyone, not just a spiritual “elite”, that theology and everyday life go hand in glove. As our content guy, he helps Travis to develop the direction for the podcast, as well as curating and writing additional content.

Kevin grew up in a small town in the far western suburbs of Chicago, spent time on the east coast and in Toronto Canada. He has spent 20 years in the Christian publishing world as a book and music buyer for Lemstone Christian Stores, and a Bible developer and marketer with Tyndale House Publishers. As an independent strategic consultant, he has worked with Christianity Today and Oasis International. His articles have appeared in several Bibles including The Way and The NLT Illustrated Study Bible, as well as for FaithTech and Preaching Today. He is coauthor of Life on the Spectrum and author of Devotions for Advent 2020. Kevin lives in North Aurora, Illinois with his wife Loretta, their three children, a cat, a dog, and “temporarily” a chinchilla. In his spare time, he enjoys woodworking, reading, detective shows, watching the Chicago Blackhawks, and will eventually finish writing that novel.

Melissa Fleming:
Executive Marketing Officer

Travis's better half, Melissa leads the charge to get the word out about what's going on and why it matters. The rare Florida native, she loves her family, sunshine, beauty, interior design, good food, football, and cooking. She makes sure that our voice is consistent, our thoughts are sharp and that Travis is dressed appropriately in videos. Melissa leads the way in all aspects of communication for Apollos Watered. She has a degree in Church Music and loves leading people in worship and helping people go deeper in their walks with Jesus.

Kurt Hawthorne:
Audio Producer

Kurt & Jill Hawthorne have served as a ministry team since their early youth group days. (Fun fact: Kurt & Jill first met Melissa Fleming in their South Florida youth group!) Kurt is a professional musician, ordained minister and established recording / event producer who has a long career of full-time service to (3) 2000+ member churches and multiple notable worship movements including Passion, Integrity Music, Morning Star Ministries, Every Nation Music, Champions for Christ and performed live onstage alongside well known ministers such as Louie Giglio, Israel Houghton, Ce Ce Winans, Darlene Zscheck of Hillsong, Ron Kenoly, Paul Wilbur and many others. Jill degreed in Psychology, Bible and PHD’ed in ‘COOLEST BOY MOM’ and counsels regularly to see women flourish in their relationship with the Lord. These childhood sweethearts are best friends, empty nesters (except for Lolly their goldendoodle) and claim greatest success in life as having miraculously survived raising 3 young men and lived to tell about it!

They proudly serve Apollos Watered first in friendship, then as leaders on mission… and secondly as audio podcast producers.

Sajid Chohan:
YouTube Producer

Sajid was born and raised in the great city of Chicago by his Christian mother from the Philippines and his Muslim Father from Pakistan. He is a middle school math teacher at Midwestern Christian Academy, and does video work for Phantom Ranch Bible Camp during the summer. Sajid has a passion for connecting Christian education with the camp experience. He still lives in Chicago with his wife and 2 boys where he enjoys editing for his YouTube channel “How Do You Do”.

Vicki Rosas:
Grant Writer

With a love for all things grammar, wordsmithing and attention to detail, Vicki has been given the task of researching and writing grants to support the work of Apollos Watered. She holds a M. A. in Missions/Intercultural Studies/TESOL, which she obtained after discovering a passion for missions, having participated in church planting in Romania and teaching English in Russia. She began her professional career teaching English as a Second Language to immigrants and refugees, and quickly moved on to hiring and training ESL teachers, writing grants, and overseeing educational activities. Other positions Vicki has held involved instructional design, training, and continuing education for church leaders as well as judges.

Vicki and her husband have two children whom she homeschools. When she is not writing grants or teaching the kids, she loves to experiment with new recipes in the kitchen, play violin and sing on the worship team at her church, disciple women, volunteer with her kids’ musical theater organization, and get lost in great books with her family.

Chris Kloetstra:
Webmaster

Chris has worked with technology from a young age and has been building websites since the early days of Geocities for his high school youth group and band. Professionally he has worked for marketing companies as well as running his own marketing and website design business for over 10 years. He enjoys the making and listening to music, being outdoors (kayaking, fishing, hiking & gardening) as well as spending time with his three kids. He lives in Canada, just a couple hours outside of Toronto, Ontario.