The daily grind of modern life shares striking similarities to the movie The Matrix – individuals trapped in a monotonous, controlled existence without fully realizing it seems so familiar to a society based on stress, not enough time, and too much consumption.
Our story is much like everyone else’s; working to make what we thought was a living, but never truly living. Please don’t misunderstand, we are grateful for what our Creator has blessed us with.
However, the subtle deceptions of a society of instant gratification and its consequences would add up over time. We began to understand there was something greater and much more in line with the Creator’s design than we ever could image both physically and spiritually.
After nearly 30 years in the high-stress, fast-paced medical field, my wife and I started noticing our health was worsening, and our spirits were low. We felt a strong urge to wake up and realize that the physical world we were living in wasn’t all there was.
We began questioning why, despite medical advances, we and those around us were becoming more dependent on the healthcare system, which seemed to focus more on managing diseases than truly healing. Many of our friends and family were on medications, often multiple and for life. We couldn’t understand why this was happening, why conditions that used to affect those in their 70s and 80 were affecting much younger generations.
My wake-up call happened when my Physician told me that I would need to be put on statins and possibly metformin for my pre-diabetic condition. My wife was struggling with stress and would come home in tears trying to work up the courage to go into the hospital where she worked the next day.
We both began to rediscover our spiritual connection with our Creator and opened up to Him seeking His truth, wisdom and counsel by the grace of His precious Son. He began to work through our hearts and lead us to answers we never knew existed both in His Word the Bible but also in His Creation!
“Yahweh” is the Hebrew word for the self-revealed name of the God of the Old Testament. It comes from the Hebrew verb “To be.” At its core, “Yahweh” means “To be.” The English Bible translates it as “LORD,” which distinguishes it from “Lord” (which is translated as “master”).
We were on a spiritual journey that started early in 2000. We both renewed our relationship with our Creator as well as his Creation.
He also opened a door to the world of Permaculture or sustainable living leading me to a certificate in Permaculture design in 2012. This is truly an understanding of Yah’s design and more importantly how to work within this incredibly beautiful design that is stacked with symbiotic relationships on a highly complex network of life. Throughout this time, we began to search for a property where we could put these practices to work and give back some of what we had taken over the years.
Homesteading refers to a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and sustainable living. It involves growing your own food, raising animals, and producing goods for personal use rather than relying heavily on commercial sources. Traditionally, homesteading was associated with settlers claiming land to farm and build a livelihood. Today it has evolved into a broader movement that embraces off-grid living, renewable energy, and ecological responsibility.
In 2016 We found a small 10-acre property with a home on it. It was a start. Previously horses were kept on the property but had reverted to its more balanced network of indigenous life. Very high hills and rocky clay soil but something about how Yah had brought us here told us we needed this small piece of property to steward, and it and the small community needed us.
With the help of Yah through His grace and truth we are not part of the medical disease management drug system in any form.
Our main goal was to disconnect from the matrix, both mentally and physically, as much as possible with what Yah has given us. In Permaculture, the property is divided into zones, with the home being Zone 0, the heart of daily activities. It’s where energy and water use are highest. To make it sustainable, you need to assess your power needs and minimize them, focusing on reusing and managing water and waste. From there, you can set up a more sustainable and manageable energy system.
Creating an energy-efficient home can be a challenge, but we started with these changes:
Once we did these things, we were ready to add solar panels and batteries to our operation! And while we’re not 100% off-grid, our reliance on the grid is far lower.
At the same time, we were developing our Zone 0 we began starting Zone 1. This area is immediately surrounding the home. It’s frequently visited and is the site of activities that require regular attention, like herb gardens, salad crops, or small livestock like chickens. This is our food production area nearest Zone 0 and with as much as we can manage to maintain the resources like water, soil, and assist the surrounding soil with life-sustaining practices, composting, woodchips, leaf mulch, our worm castings/biochar product, basically putting into practice what we believe will be longterm sustainability.
We were blessed to support an engineering friend in California who had been developing an all Electric Tractor (the world’s first commercial Electric Tractor is now Solectrac, https://solectrac.com/cet-electric-tractor/) which now is part of the farm and is powered by the homestead solar system.
In addition to powering the home and shop the system also charges the hybrid electric Toyota Rav4 Prime which has the ability, in its all-electric mode, to enable us to commute back and forth to town.
We continued to be blessed in our understanding of Yah’s creation starting mini greenhouses that are supplying much of our veggies, fruits, leafy greens, herbs, and tubers.
That is why we feel so blessed to have this website and are able to share with you what we are learning both from our so-called failures (we look at them as learning opportunities) and our success with the help of Yah. We pray this website blesses you!
Yah has blessed us with an incredible community of like believers, like Stewart Farms Co-op who supply us with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) as we collaborate in improving the soil and increasing yields for the community.
