Accomplishment-fed Rest.

Walking out in the sun today, Holy Spirit soul-whisper rolled through me. Reminded me that the accomplishment-fed rest that settles me in bed at night, is not all there is. That swift movement and lots of check marks on my list, meant nothing if I hath not love.

I move through life so internalized on getting things done that when phone rings, Mom, I half-hover over ignore, before a tired half

‘hello?’

and grumble

‘the middle of something,’

 get back to sluggery of online glow job ads. Let Pinterest trickle through every 5 minutes or so as that ‘there’s still bright in life’ relief.

I farm more than just online—there’s gym, date, read, write, eat right, play, pay, pray, relax, God time, time with family, me time, going out time, look at the time time, forget the time time, instagram time—

When my day is checklisted and all to-dos, what life is there left in me but “I got a lot done today” (practically dead) sleep.

No, that whisper yelled—

                                    SLOW.

                                                DOWN.

                                               

                                                            It’s not about how much you get done—

                                                            but how you do it.

And while we’re at it…

                                                            Destiny isn’t what you accomplish

                                                            But who you are.

Is not the laughing farmers wife with muddied, glee-eyed kids greater in destiny than the full-pursed, Armani suit, with cinder eyes? Or even the serious, downtrodden missionary with no joy left for those he would save?

It’s scary, this slowing. This unbearable lightness of just—being. The slow soul that sees dappled green light leaves, the rib cage that opens enough to listen—the relationships that pipe fresh when you do…and all the hope that beauty floods. All piling up on that shambled roof called fear of disappointment, almost making it crumble. Under the weight, fear whimpers, ‘all will let down.’ Too heavy, the glory. So we hide. Again.

Get out the magazine, distract, list out all we desire. Our veil hanging by a thread, lace up our feet, all ready to complete more things when

                                                            BLAM

Some sunset, some stream’s quiet babbling charm, some arm, some ‘Daddy, up!’, some God-vision, some book, some poem, some dream, all SCREAM…WAKE! UP!

“Then you will look and be radiant,

your heart will throb and swell with joy;

the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,

to you the riches of the nations will come.”

Isaiah 60:5

He is doing something majestic in the earth and I want to see it, to really see it. Not just do it, like I have to make a grade, but drink in His glory with my soul and breathe awe at this human life.

Because it is not necessarily about how much you get done, but how you do it.

Remember who you are, be engaged. That your light may be seen bright and not shuffled behind the busyness of this world.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come,


    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth
    

and thick darkness is over the peoples,


but the Lord rises upon you
    

and his glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light,   

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

“Lift up your eyes and look about you:
    

All assemble and come to you”

Isaiah 60:1-4

Love, Natalie

The Poem as Mask

I am just a little bit obsessed with this right now. The Poem as Mask
by Muriel Rukeyser
Orpheus When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness, it was a mask, on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy, it was a mask; when I wrote of the god, fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love gone down with song, it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from myself. There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued child beside me among the doctors, and a word of rescue from the great eyes. No more masks! No more mythologies! Now, for the first time, the god lifts his hand, the fragments join in me with their own music.

gypsy.

I've been obsessed with gypsies lately so here's a little Charles Simic poetry to celebrate gypsyhood:

I was stolen by the gypsies. My parents stole me right back. Then the gypsies stole me again. This went on for some time. One minute I was in the caravan suckling the dark teat of my new mother, the next I sat at the long dining room table eating my breakfast with a silver spoon.

It was the first day of spring. One of my fathers was singing in the bathtub; the other was painting a live sparrow the colors of a tropical bird.

Easy ways to save the earth: with water.

We use to not care a bit where we drank our water from:

Now we need an Aquafina, Fiji, or Voss water-bottle  to ensure that we are drinking purified and convenient water. I am talking about myself here as well. However, I have been making a conscious effort to decrease the excessive amount of plastic I use. When I am at home I drink water from the refridgerator in a glass, when I'm out I try to bring my refillable water bottle.  If you are freaked out by tap water then buy a Brita filter pitcher for your fridge! It's the little things that make a big difference, can you give up or decrease your water bottle usage to save the world?

Easy ways to save the earth: at lunch.

Hey ladies and fellas...
I want to start a new little series of posts that are just periodic... about saving the earth! That sounds so overwhelming so I am just going to post simple ways to be nicer to creation, hope you enjoy!

Today, we are saving the earth at lunchtime!!!!

In my household we have a culture of using paper plates for breakfast and lunch. It's easier, we don't have to do dishes, and you can just toss them in the trash. However, I am now trying to use our ceramic plates and spend the extra time rinsing (with as little water as possible) and sticking them in the dishwasher. We are going to use the energy and water to run the dishwasher every night anyway so I might as well save some trees by using less paper plates. 

What are some habits of your household that you can change to SAVE the earth?

VICTORY...thanks grandpa.

A few months ago my grandpa passed away, today he gave me a gift.

I have BIG dreams in life, I want to change this place before I go, I want to make a difference and help people. I want to hold the victims of sex trafficking and let me them cry their stories until there is nothing left to be said, I want to feed the children in this world until they are full enough to run after the dreams they were created to fulfill, I want to love my husband with everything I am and be super woman for my children. I want to be a force to be reckoned with and a friend who can always be relied on. I want to be beautiful and loving and fierce and strong.

But today doubt crept in, I felt defeated, unworthy, and hopeless. Mostly I felt alone.

So what else was there to do? I prayed. I crawled into bed and cried, I wept and asked Jesus why I was still single, why I still have a crappy job, why I felt so small, and mostly just asked him to hold me. He did and I slept for a few minutes. when I woke something had shifted. I didn't feel great, I just felt like I wasn't going to give up. I turned on some worship music and just declared that He was big enough in me to do anything through me and WITH me. His love is so much bigger than anything we could ever fathom. How could I feel alone and unimportant? All those dreams I have of fairy tale romance are already true in my life...the prince I've always dreamed of, gave up everything and died for me so he could be with me. He is ravished by me!

I kept repeating "I am victorious! I am Victorious! I am victorious! I am victory! I AM victory!"

That was weird...why did I say I AM victory...like it was my name? And then I remembered a funny story my family always told growing up. When I was born my grandpa hated my name, he refused to call me natalie and for the first year of my life called me Victoria. We used to laugh about how weird and stubborn he was for doing that. But now, I've taken a different perspective.

Perhaps my grandpa felt something about me ...like that name was just right for me.

VICTORIA (1) Gender: Feminine Usage: English, Spanish, Romanian, Late Roman Pronounced: vik-TAWR-ee-ə (English)  [key] Feminine form of VICTORIUS, though later it was regarded as coming directly from Latin victoriameaning "victory". It was borne by a 4th-century saint and martyr from North Africa. Though in use elsewhere in Europe, the name was very rare in the English-speaking world until the 19th century, when Queen Victoria began her long rule of Britain. She was named after her mother, who was of German royalty.

---

VICTORIA (2) Gender: Feminine Usage: Roman Mythology Pronounced: vik-TAWR-ee-ə (English)  [key] Means "victory" in Latin. Victoria was the Roman goddess of victory. From a young age I had victory spoken over me...so, no matter what happens I will remember that I don't need to strive for victory, that in Christ it is just who I am. He who is victorious lives in me so I no longer need to struggle, I AM victory, I AM Victoria. So thank you PaPa for seeing something in me that I would one day need to be reminded of, for seeing victory in me when I was too small to show it.

the art of play.

I haven't written in AWHILE! School has been so busy, but in this busyness God is reminding me of the importance of play in His kingdom. I have been so caught up in studying, learning, working, earning, striving, juggling, etc. that when I slow down I just want to sleep or turn off my mind or pray quietly in my room. All of those things are good, but I need to remember that God gave me the ability to laugh and again and again reminds us in scripture to be childlike.

So here, in the midst of my finals week and in the first week of summer for most people I just want to take a minute and remind you of PLAYFULNESS.

On Saturday night I went to see "Midnight in Paris" with my cousin, Heidi. Overall it was a silly love story but it had all the great modernist writers and artists in it ..

      Hemmingway

Dali

                TS Elliot

      Stein

              Picasso

you get the point.

The movie was based around people who moved to Paris to dream and create art. I was so jazzed...I want to do that! Maybe not Paris, but I want to live an adventurous life full of art and spontaneity and beauty!

Anyhow, after the movie we felt like little girls..seriously, we were ridiculous. We ran to cold stone and get ice cream, yum. Drove back to my house, put on PJs, sweaters, and of course 1920s hats and grabbed some blankets and books. We sat out under the stars and read aloud to each other for two hours... poetry and short stories and maybe some of my stuff I'm working on :)

It sounds so silly now, but it was so nice to be swirled up in fun, to not feel the weight of responsibility, to be a child who knew how to play still.

That's all, very simple, just a call for you to have fun this week :) 

Be young at heart.

"And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me..." Matthew 18

mid terms

As mid-terms of my final months in college come upon me...I think I'll put this creepy woman I randomly found on the internet as my laptop's background to remind myself to enjoy these last few months of essays, lack of sleep, way too much chocolate, and crying.

new uses.

random fact about myself: whenever I am cleaning up my car or snack trash from a table I stuff everything I can into water bottle...total waste of time but I love condensing everything.

Water bottles can be useful in a lot of ways. Consolidating trash. Sandals. recycled into new products in factories. Made into art.

How can you re-use the ordinary things around you to change the world?

Artist's Game of Telephone.

I am reading this blog for class that was featured in the Huffington Post that is amazing. It is called 7 Rings; An Artist's Game of Telephone. One day a poet posts a poem and a visual artist has 24hrs to respond to the poem with a painting. That painting becomes the next day's post and a new poet has to respond to that painting in the next 24hrs. That poem becomes the next post, and the game goes on and on like that. It is really interesting so I thought I'd share it.

ring ring ring     (<-- click)

Maya Angelou and 2011

I don't know if everyone can feel it...but most of the people I've heard from can...the excitement of this new year. 2009 passed without much exuberance the same as 2003 and 1994. But something about this new year is different, something about 2011 is worthy of celebration and jubilee. The Spirit of God is moving in a new way, ready to pour out fresh blessings and revelation and growth.

On 1/1/2011 the Lord put it on my heart to read poetry every night before going to bed. I didn't think I owned any books that I hadn't read yet, but I found one on the shelf called Celebration, by, Maya Angelou. The very first poem in the collection shook me to the core. It almost felt prophetic. It encapsulated all of the things people had been talking about for the upcoming year, all of the things the Lord had been laying on my heart for 2011. As if the butterflies in my stomach weren't enough for me to know that the Lord was using this poem to speak to me....the next night I went to see Narnia (which is amazing) with some friends of mine (Mady and Maritza). Afterwards we went to Borders to look at the C.S. Lewis books and in the church theology section between Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters was a very familiar book. In the completely wrong section was Celebration by Maya Angelou, just waiting for me.

We all sat down in the aisle and I read the poem to the girls. We made some  Nietzsche fans upset because we were blocking their section for the next 15min as we prayed, but it was a powerful time with God. Anyhow I thought I'd share this poem with you, I've bolded the parts that really stuck out to me.

On the Pulse of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.


But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here. 

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words 

Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face. 

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.


Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.




There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.


They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.


Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers -- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,
Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours -- your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.


Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream. 


Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness. 

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country. 
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.


Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope --
Good morning. 

plain scenes (Christmas).

Saturday December 18^th was Antioch’s (my church) Christmas Show and it was phenomenal! The evening started with an hour of free desserts, chatting, and fair trade Christmas shopping. The lights dimmed at eight and the show started. Beautiful solo carols were sung, poetry was read, break dancers wowed the audience with their flips, worship was beautiful, and as the night was coming to an end a ballet was performed with a perfect 4 year old angel (Collette Curry) that stole the show.

There was also a live painter, Ashley Setzler, at the front of the stage all night. Her painting was displayed the next morning at Sunday service as well and as I worshipped, the Lord really brought it to my attention. At first glance it is a rather plain scene, a bare lamp stand, a light bulb with no shade illuminating a shabby brick wall covered in moss. But if you look long enough you realize that the orb of light coming off the bulb forms an ocean blue circle. That is at least interesting…brick isn’t usually blue. Then the moss begins to look too calculated, not just random splotches but perhaps something more intentional. And then the entire message of the painting becomes clear. Here is this rather ordinary looking site that upon closer inspection is actually setting the entire world alight.

            This really ministered to me. So many days feel so ordinary in life. Wake up, go to school or work, take out the trash, worry about spending too much money on Starbucks, make dinner, try and go out every once in awhile, get some sleep, do it again. I sometimes forget that I have the living God inside of me, the same power that rose Christ from the dead, that my Savior came to give me abundant life! Looking at this picture I felt challenged to let God use what I consider to be my very ordinary life to do unfathomable things. I felt challenged to take more risks for the Kingdom, to ask God for more divine appointments in my life, to use me to love a very dark world. In the midst of very ordinary moments God can use us to illuminate the world. When things feel cold, damp, dark, and moldy God surprises us with beautiful miracles that seem to come out of nowhere.

            Is this not the first Christmas story? A dark night, a young girl everybody thought was a tramp, no place in the hotels or motels, a baby being born in the coldest most unglamorous place imaginable…and then God did it. Lit the world on fire with the glorious miracle of his perfect son.

The stork flew by, baby delivery.

On Monday night at midnight we drove to the hospital because my sister went into labor. Are they not the cutest couple ever? My brother-in-law Cody is holding the go-bag (that they've had in the car for a month) and her purse. Aly, my sister, had contractions all the way into the labor and delivery department and we knew this baby was coming quick!

My family slept in half-hour increments throughout the night in the fluorescent lighting of the hospital waiting room. At 5am my dad and I made a starbucks run and by 6am everybody sort of had their wits about them again.

Carter Reef Padrnos was born November 9, 2010 at 6:09 am, weighing 7.9lbs, and 20in long. perfection.

Welcome to the family little one, we love you so so so much!

10 perfect little toes :-)

Daddy and son.

Aunty Nata loves you precious lil guy.

cute little going home outfit.

as an aunty this is by far my favorite picture, look at those big doe eyes!

It started out as a joke with my sister, but I'm thinking of keeping it:

how do you feel about the name "aunty mongo"?

Children in Nature.

Nature 

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,

Leads by the hand her little child to bed,

Half willing, half reluctant to be led, 

And leave his broken playthings on the floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door, 

Nor wholly reassured and comforted

By promises of others in their stead,

Which though more splendid, may not please him more;

So Nature deals with us, and takes away

Our playthings one by one, and by the hand

Leads us to rest so gently, that we go

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,

Being too full of sleep to understand 

How far the unknown transcends the what we know

rainy afternoon

The Rain :: J.L. Borges

The afternoon grows light because at last

Abruptly a minutely shredded rain

Is falling, or it fell. For once again

Rain is something happening in the past.

Whoever hears it fall has brought to mind

Time when by a sudden lucky chance

A flower called “rose” was open to his glance

And the curious color of the colored kind.

This rain that blinds the windows with its mists

Will gladden in suburbs no more to be found

The black grapes on a vine there overhead

In a certain patio that no longer exists.

And the drenched afternoon brings back the sound

How longed for, of my father’s voice, not dead.

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

Family.

I live with my mom and step-dad in Riverside, ca. Like every family we have our days of fighting and most days our schedules allow us to see each other in 5 minute segments. However, there are moments that make you remember what family is all about. Of course days like baby showers and weddings and funerals draw us together, but I value the unexpected moments above all.

Tonight after dinner we were all standing in the kitchen while my mom did the dishes. My step-dad, Bob, a lawyer, casually pulled out a handful of snap-peas from his pocket. In a weird western twang he said "Oh! I almost forgot my magic beans!" My mom and I almost peed our pants we were laughing so hard.
 "Make sure you put them in the refrigerator Jack, because last time you forgot magic beans in your pocket I found them in the wash. I used to find money and now I find magic beans," my mom said. Bob now happily spends most of his time tending a vegetable garden in our backyard instead of at the office. He is much more the farmer, builder type. We were all giggling again and somehow I started doing slavic dance moves, which prompted my mom to ask if I had eaten the magic shrooms instead of the magic beans.

Bob whispered to me not so slyly, "They aren't even really magic beaaans!"
"They only give you the gas? They make you do the slavic dances?" I asked in my slavic accent.
"That reminds me...I was going to let the dogs in," Bob said.
"I could see how our dogs would remind you of slavic dancing and gas," my mom said.

And the laughter rolled again.

This probably sounds completely ridiculous to everyone else on the planet. But the point to my posting this silly moment in my life is to ask you to look at your family. I don't mean just your parents and siblings, although if you have them you should. But look at your church family, your friends, the people you live life with. And with a new appreciation for them, remember to have fun, let loose every once in awhile, and enjoy those people you love.

Whitman and fish.

This morning I had time to sit and eat breakfast outside. I prayed a little but mostly just sat and felt like a child looking out at the trees and unending sky. Below my deck we have a little pond with koi in it. Today they were magical and splendid. They were fleeting dashes of color, full of wonder and dreams.

"And the fish suspended themselves so curiously below there- and the beautiful curious/ liquid,/ and the water-plants with their graceful flat heads- all became part of him."

-Walt Whitman "There Was a Child Went Forth"

I dare you to look at the world like a child today...

Happy Birthday to my nephew Corban.

One year ago today my beautiful nephew Corban was born and also went home to be with the Lord. He was absolutely the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. Today I want to post the letter I wrote for him and read at his funeral. I believe the Lord gave it to me.

My dearest nephew Corban,

You have never met me; I am your aunty Nata. Even though we have never met my sweet little boy I don’t think I could love you any more than I already do. I remember the day your beautiful mommy called me; I was the first one to know you were alive besides your daddy. I was in San Francisco with Nathan when your mommy called and we screamed and danced around the room for what seemed like hours, tears of joy poured out of my eyes. We had waited for you for 3 years! Even before I knew you were here I bought you little boots from Italy.

I hope that even when you were so little you could somehow hear or feel or know the love that has surrounded you since your first moment of existence. Your Daddy had been so anxious for you to be here and never stopped talking about how much he wanted you. From that phone call on every Thursday the whole family and the church that loved you too would ask what size you were. First you were just a tiny dot but soon strong boy you were a grain of rice, a blueberry, a peach, softball, a honeydew melon, and stronger and bigger you got. We watched mommy’s stomach grow knowing that God was forming the most wonderful man inside of her.

At first, I’ll be honest; I thought you were a girl. I’m sorry! But before the doctor told us God gave me peace that you were a boy and I couldn’t have been happier about it. Who were you going to become? What gifts and quirks was God weaving into your heart? My heart dwelled on you day and night. I think Mommy’s favorite times with you were spent with Abba. Every morning she read you the bible, she prayed for you and with you. Baby boy you have been prayed for more than anyone I have ever met. So many hopes and dreams were prayed into your life. You are so special and cared for, you would have to be coming from the two best parents anyone could ask for.

It is very hard to know that I will never get to baby-sit you or throw a big first birthday for you with Mommy, it is very painful to know that your perfect little spirit is not matched by a perfect little body. But how blessed I am to have seen your beautiful face that long night at the hospital. Yes my precious one many tears of love have been cried for you. Your Mommy and Daddy love you so much and they don’t want to say goodbye. Everyone wants to hold you and play with you! Little man there is one who loves you even more than Mommy and Daddy; can you believe that? He is your Abba, your Daddy in heaven; he is your best friend, your king, and your savior. Little one you get to be with him right away. Your life here on earth has already been hard, and we are so sorry that you ever had to have anything less than the best. But now you can run, play, jump, hug, learn; you get to be the man God has created you to be, fulfill an amazing purpose in heaven, and live in the unbroken and perfect relationship with your Abba that all of us down here crave. May you be blessed and loved beyond measure baby boy. We are all in a hurry to get where you are so that you and Abba can show us the ropes of perfect beauty, purpose, love, and relationship.

You are loved little one. Forever and ever and I am anxious to hold your perfect little hand.

Your aunty

Nata

Cultivating Charity

So do you remember the garden I posted about a few months ago? (http://treeofthefield.blogspot.com/2010/04/hip-parents.html)

Well, it is now a little farm! We have had fresh salads every night, carrots and potatoes in our pot roasts, and fresh herbs on everything! I was so blessed when my parents said that I could take the HUGE bounty of lettuce and spinach to a homeless shelter. Four giant bags later and I was ready to go. I heard Cross Winds Community in Mead Valley could use it, from a friend, loaded my car with greens, and headed out there.

I was expecting dusty roads, a big kitchen to feed the homeless, and a rough crowd. Instead, when my beautiful friend Elizabeth and I arrived at 2 in the afternoon of the fourth of July, we were welcomed by an amazingly loving woman named Vicky. She had a big white floppy hat on and took half an hour out of her busy schedule to give us a tour of the grounds, yes grounds, and tell us about their ministries.

Vicky and her husband Herald started Cross Winds ten years ago because they had a heart for the poverty stricken, drug inhabited, prostitution prone area. Today they feed over 300 people a day, send missionaries to Uganda, have a community garden, help families become self sufficient with their own gardens and chickens, give out clothing, offer rehabilitation classes for drug-addicts and alcoholics, visit prisoners, and house homeless men... serving roughly 6,000 people a month. They are a dynamic church who is doing so much for the community it can only be the Holy Spirit's work. Stepping onto their property feels like stepping into a mission trip in a foreign country; in the impoverished rural area they have managed to create a beautiful place for the sick and broken to rest and heal in the Holy Spirit. They are a body that is not about just donating but finding lasting solutions to poverty. Their slogan is "Cross Winds is a ministry which gets to the "ROOT" of the problem..."WHY" people develop life controlling destructive cycles...giving HOPE and LIFE to those who have given up."

I was extremely humbled by Herald and Vicky's character, with all the work they do for the Lord, they kept asking how they could help our new church, Antioch. Such amazing people that I pray the Lord will bless me with a relationship with. Cannot wait until the corn and potatoes are ready for their trip to Mead Valley!

Want to donate or volunteer?

call: (951) 657-1546

email: crosswindsperris@verizon.net