When God warned Aletté Winckler that 2024 would be her "year of war," she had no idea what was coming. Today, this pastor, author, CEO, mother of four, and wife to renowned Afrikaans singer Heinz Winckler sits down with JustGospel to share how that prophetic word prepared her for public controversy, physical breakdown, and ultimately, a ministry breakthrough that's now touching 16,000 lives globally.
FROM CLOSETS TO HEARTS
When God warned Aletté Winckler that 2024 would be her "year of war," she had no idea what was coming. Today, this pastor, author, CEO, mother of four, and wife to renowned Afrikaans singer Heinz Winckler sits down with JustGospel to share how that prophetic word prepared her for public controversy, physical breakdown, and ultimately, a ministry breakthrough that's now touching 16,000 lives globally.
Even when booked to speak about fashion and dressing, Aletté's talks would always shift to inner healing. "I would say, yes, that is important, but what is more important is what's going on in your heart."
For years, the two ministries walked hand in hand. But in the last two years, inner healing surpassed image consulting entirely. "I realized that the need for inner healing is so much more important," she shares. "When you're healed from the inside out, it will look like you've had a makeover. It will show on the outside so much more evidently than just fixing the outside."
THE YEAR OF WAR BEGINS
For years, the two ministries walked hand in hand. But in the last two years, inner healing surpassed image consulting entirely. "I realized that the need for inner healing is so much more important," she shares. "When you're healed from the inside out, it will look like you've had a makeover. It will show on the outside so much more evidently than just fixing the outside."
What followed was a cascade of trials: relationships ending, betrayal, and public humiliation. In November 2024, Aletté and Heinz made the cover of Rapport newspaper - labeled as "too conservative." "I was like, okay, well, if I'm too conservative, that's a good thing," Aletté laughs. "On that same cover was a famous celebrity couple announcing their divorce. If I'm going to be on the cover of a magazine, I would rather be there for being too conservative than for announcing my divorce."
But the enemy wasn't finished. "In the middle of the year, my body just gave in," she shares. "I've never had issues with my health in that sense. I was literally in an Uber and my life flashed in front of me because I had this incredible pain in my stomach I've never had before."
The physical breakdown was accompanied by emotional and spiritual warfare. "My husband said to me, 'I'm worried about you. I've lost my wife. Who are you even?' Because I was quiet. And if you know me, you know I'm not quiet. I was reserved. I only spoke when spoken to. There was a constant spiritual battle raging in my head."
THE YEAR OF WAR BEGINS
Seven days after the first Rapport article, God spoke directly to Aletté through Ezekiel 3:16. "I just opened my Bible and it was on Ezekiel 3 that says, 'I've made you a watchman,'" she explains. "And before that specific verse, He speaks about, 'I've sent you to a people that is familiar to you. It's your people, it's your nation. But they are rebellious, but I've made your head as flint - just stand strong.'"
In that moment, God confirmed what Aletté had always known but now couldn't deny: He had called her and Heinz to speak truth in South Africa and the nations. "God said to me in my spirit, 'Watch out, there's a second wave coming.' And I knew it. I was able to prepare my heart."
When the second Rapport article hit in November 2025 - this time attacking the 40-Day Exodus Experience as a "medical thing" without proper journalism - Aletté was ready. "What made this so much different was the fact that we had an army of people who have been through it, who suddenly saw the truth. We didn't go through it alone."
The media attacks included being publicly ambushed on a national Zoom call with government officials and other training academies. "I was literally like, blissfully signing into the Zoom call, and that morning I was ambushed where all other training academies in South Africa had a vendetta against me," she recalls.
But God had prepared her. Before the second wave hit, Aletté emailed everyone involved: "I am sorry for whatever I did to offend you and harm you and I ask you to forgive me." Not one person replied. "Then the article appeared and I was like, I did my part. I'm clean. I'm standing clean before God."
THE TURNING POINT
On December 31st, 2024, Heinz told Aletté she needed to speak to someone. She reached out to friends Linda and her husband, who prayed over her. "Everything shifted," she says simply. "The next day I went into 2025 and I knew that it shifted in the spirit. It was a new year with new opportunities."
The shift was so dramatic that when Aletté looked back exactly one year later, she was stunned. "The 18th of June 2024 was the day I was rushed with the Uber back home with pain, and I literally felt like I was going to die. And the 18th of June 2025, I was standing on the stage at a Radical Reset, completely in health. I lost 15 kilos. I was in victory. I was able to speak confidently to those women."
THE 40-DAY EXODUS EXPERIENCE
The ministry that emerged from Aletté's year of war began almost accidentally in May 2025. Struggling with health issues before leading a Radical Reset retreat, she visited health practitioner Linda for a body scan. "She said, 'Your thyroid is underactive. You have too much estrogen in your body and all your other hormones are non-existing. Your adrenal glands are absolutely fatigued.'"
Deflated but desperate, Aletté reached out to Leisha from Hadassah Healing Oils. "Literally all she said to me was 'give me 40 days.' And the moment she said it, I knew in my spirit I need to do what she says."
What started as Aletté's personal healing journey exploded into a movement. "I started on the way to Langebaan. I made a video to say I'm going to go on this 40-day journey. And by day five, six, seven, when I had results, people were like, 'Where do I sign up?'"
The program combines holistic health - proper nutrition, sleep schedule, hydration, natural supplements - with deep spiritual work. "We give an eating plan. You get on a WhatsApp group where you get daily devotionals and prayers and an incredible amount of information on what's going on in your body," Aletté explains. "Leisha is like an encyclopedia. She's a qualified pharmacist. She knows about medications. She wants to do it the natural way. She wants to make your body heal in God's way."
The results have been extraordinary. "I think we are at 16,000 now after our last intake," Aletté shares. "We've had people extending for six times who've lost like 40, 45 kilos over this journey. It just changed my life. I lost 15 kilos. My health got like literally incredible."
The program is now a full-time operation with staff, a website, and global reach. "We had a time together over the holiday where we just prayed over this journey. And God just told us, 'The Exodus Experience is mine,' says the Lord. He will do with it whatever He wants to do with it. But our heart is, and we know that God wants to heal His bride. He wants to heal the nations. He wants people free, free, free, free."
THE RADICAL RESET RETREATS
Before the Exodus Experience, God planted seeds for another transformative ministry. It started when Aletté began counseling people from church and noticed she couldn't charge for the deep inner healing work taking hours of her time.
"The seed was sown of like having more people go through the journey," she explains. The result was the Radical Reset - weekend retreats where 300+ women gather for intensive inner healing
"From Friday to Sunday, we have worship and we have sessions and we get to truths and we forgive and we cry and we laugh. And on the Sunday, we have a baptism session," Aletté describes. "I cannot tell you how friggin' ridiculously amazing it is. I was on such a high for probably three weeks after the first radical. The testimonies just streamed in."
The ministry has expanded to include a six-week course at their church (160 people signed up), and now an online course available globally. "The Holy Spirit does the rest. He tells you exactly who, where, why. And I am telling you, I am so humbled to know that this has been so effective and has changed so many people's lives."
WHEN BREAKTHROUGH SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE
One testimony particularly captures what God is doing through Aletté's ministry. A woman with an eating disorder, struggling marriage, and ADHD reached out during the 40-Day Exodus. "Just in the way she spoke I'm like, 'Lord Jesus, this woman needs a radical,'" Aletté recalls.
After sitting with her for hours, working through layers of pain, trauma, and destructive patterns, Aletté gave her the online course. "She would report back every now and then. She would say, 'My husband watched it with me.' And I'm like, 'It's ridiculous because my husband started doing drugs as a 12-year-old boy. He's in the film industry. He's between such sinners.' But every now and then she would check in and say, 'We've watched this. We've forgiven each other for this. We've dealt with this.'"
Then came the message that brought Aletté to tears: "The Lord has completely restored our marriage. We are getting baptized tomorrow."
"The woman that sat in front of me that first day with all the negativity and bad attitude, and the woman who was standing in front of me on Sunday - it was two different people," Aletté marvels. "If God can do that to her, God can do that for everyone, for anyone."
THE KEY TO BREAKTHROUGH
Throughout our conversation, one theme emerges consistently: forgiveness is the master key that unlocks every door to breakthrough.
"Forgiving is the key to all breakthrough at this stage, I can assure you that is forgiveness," Aletté emphasizes. "If you read your Bible, you will understand that if you have unforgiveness in your heart, that will be the main reason you are struggling with illness, with sickness, with financial struggles, with relationships. It sits in your body and you have to let it go and give it to God."
Even simple things trigger the Holy Spirit's conviction. "Literally earlier today I had a meeting with my bookkeeper. She would go into my bank statement and I would see people's names. And the Holy Spirit was like, 'There's still somebody you need to forgive. There's still somebody you need to forgive.' It's a never-ending story. But we have to be open and humble enough to actually just do it."
Aletté's message to those who've given up on breakthrough is direct and uncompromising: "You cannot sit in your fetal position and cry and do nothing. 'Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.' The Lord wants you to take the first step. The first step to your breakthrough is raising your hand and say, 'OK, here I am. Send me. I'm here. I am. I'm going to do this. I am going to go through the pain. I'm going to go through my past. I'm going to work through the things. I'm going to forgive.'"
"If you are willing to do it, oh my goodness, you will just see what the Lord will do," she promises.
STANDING IN THE STORM
Despite everything - four Rapport covers in two years, social media attacks, professional sabotage, and even being called a "false prophet" - Aletté remains unshaken.
"I just want to say stand," she declares to anyone facing criticism for standing on God's word. "I know it is tough, but we need people to stand like never before. Unless one person is going to do something, nobody's going to do anything. We have to stand."
She acknowledges the pain of public persecution. "To go through something publicly is totally different from going through something privately. You can literally see how people stare at you and how people talk about you." But she refuses to let it silence her.
"The reward is so big and it is so worth it on the other side of this earth, on the other side of heaven," she explains. "Sometimes I have to get into the spirit and just say 'Lord' and then you have heaven's perspective and you see that none of this matters. What matters is kingdom. What matters is the fact that the gospel gets delivered and people get saved."
The testimonies keep her going. "We get these testimonies and you're like, 'Lord, it is worth it. It is so worth it. It's worth the sacrifice, it's worth the shame, it's worth the misunderstanding.'"
Her advice to others standing under fire? "Do not cower away and do not let the enemy make you fear because he has already been overcome and he knows it. He knows that it is the last days and he's vomiting out the last bit of his filth on this earth. And he's trying to get people to worship him."
She's particularly concerned about lukewarm Christianity. "Our heart is to wake up the so-called Christians, the people who call themselves Christians and say, 'What are you really? Who are you really believing?' Because if you think that the word of God has changed, there's something wrong. If you think you can take out anything from the word of God, there's something wrong, because you can't. It is the same yesterday and today and forever."
A LEGACY OF TRANSFORMATION
Growing up as the youngest of four children in Joburg, then moving to Vereeniging where her father became a pastor and started a mission school, Aletté's heritage is steeped in ministry. "My grandparents were in ministry. I got saved when I was 10 when I realized that I'm not going to get into heaven because of my parents who are very involved in the church. I'm going to have to make this decision for myself."
That decision launched a journey that would take her through journalism studies, marriage to Heinz, traveling the world with his musical, image consulting training, four children, and now this profound season of inner healing ministry.
"In my heart of hearts, I love Jesus. I am a worshiper. I am loud and I love to laugh and I love to investigate," she says with characteristic energy. "Our door is constantly open. It's literally like a train station."
But beneath the busyness and the multiple ministries, one truth anchors everything: God's faithfulness. When Heinz flew to Israel recently, someone from their church sent him a voice note honoring them. "He says how their lives have changed through our ministries - his wife and himself and his daughter - through our church and through the 40 days and through the Radical Resets. We get these testimonies and you're like, 'Lord, it is worth it.'"
CONNECT WITH THE MINISTRY
For those longing for breakthrough, healing, or transformation, Aletté offers two primary pathways:
The 40-Day Exodus Experience provides a comprehensive holistic health and inner healing journey. Different plans are available for men and women, all combining proper nutrition, lifestyle changes, and deep spiritual work through daily devotionals and forgiveness practices. The program has reached 16,000 participants globally with testimonies of physical healing, weight loss, restored marriages, and spiritual breakthrough.
Website: theexodusexperience.life
The Radical Reset offers both in-person weekend retreats and an online course for those unable to travel. The six-week program includes step-by-step teaching on inner healing, repentance, forgiveness, and freedom from past trauma and lies.
Aletté is readily available on social media and can be reached through her website: https://alettewinckler.com
A FINAL WORD
As our conversation draws to a close, Aletté prays powerfully for listeners: "Holy Spirit, I pray that you will remind them of people, of instances in their lives, of situations, of stuff that they are holding against other people. That they will know, 'Oh my goodness, why am I thinking of this person right now? Why am I thinking of what happened there?' And that will be You saying, 'Listen my love, this is something you have to deal with. This is something that is holding you back. This is something that will set you free once you let it go.'"
Her ministry stands as living proof that God can take a year of war and transform it into a movement of healing that touches thousands. That public humiliation can become a platform for speaking truth. That physical breakdown can birth physical restoration for multitudes. And that standing firm on God's word - no matter the cost - always produces fruit that lasts for eternity.
For those seeking authentic ministry that addresses not just external symptoms but inner wounds, Aletté Winckler's journey offers both inspiration and practical pathway to freedom. Her message is clear: breakthrough is available, healing is possible, but it requires one crucial first step - raising your hand and saying, "Here I am, Lord. Send me."
ABOUT JUSTGOSPEL
JustGospel is South Africa's premier online gospel radio station, broadcasting 24/7 to listeners across 90 countries. With a commitment to authentic gospel content that transforms lives, JustGospel connects believers with music, teaching, and interviews that facilitate genuine encounter with God. Visit www.justgospelrtv.co.za or download our app www.justgospelradio.co.za to experience ministry that goes beyond entertainment to life transformation.