Lots has been happening the past week at Iona House.

We rented a compact track loader (skid steer) with a forestry grapple and went to town cleaning up old burn piles, cleaning up rough terrain, cutting new trails, and removing poison oak. It’s a great machine! This is exactly the kind of machine we want to purchase when funding comes together for it. It’s like a swiss army knife.

We took delivery of approx. 80 yards (four massive dump truck loads) of wood chips that we will put in the parking area to keep dust down. Many thanks to the good folks at El Dorado Truss who donated them to us!!!

We had a group of four amazing volunteers come out on Saturday along with 7 chainsaws (!!!). We removed some trees that needed removing and chopped up a bunch of wood which they hauled away as fire wood. It was a great afternoon.

Finally, we began cleaning up an area that will add more to our upper pond. It was a large depression in the earth leftover from 1800’s era hydro-mining (looking for gold). It was full of trees, brush, and debris.

With every passing day, there is good progress! Praise be to God.

Come visit! Looks like we’re having wonderful cool weather this coming Saturday and a Community Day is coming together. It will be a great day to come out. Email me if you want to join us.

Most of our blog posts to date have been about property development. This one is more about exploring one of the underlying inspirations for what we’re doing. We’ve been deeply shaped by the Benedictine (Christian) monastic tradition. For 1600 years this faithful way of following Jesus has deeply impacted the life and health of the Church in countless positive ways. Unfortunately, many Christians (especially protestants) have notions of monasticism that are less than positive. We believe there is much to be gleaned from the Christian monastic tradition even for the vast majority of those of us who will never actually become a vowed monk.

An example of the treasures to be discovered in monasticism is illustrated in this is a wonderful article that was shared with us by a friend. It captures the experience of a young 25 year old woman who spends part of a summer living at a monastery as a guest. We hope it inspires you. https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/cultivating-benedictine-wonder/

A few weeks back we had our third community day. We had a great group of around 20 people come out. We enjoyed a variety of work projects: road / trail maintenance, burning dead debris, transplanting trees, drainage ditch improvement, and most of all seed sowing! We had a wonderful BBQ lunch, midday prayer, and an extended time for solitude and silence. The day ended with us walking the whole property sowing seed: Rye Grass on the trails and Crimson Clover on the hillsides. As we walked and toured the property, we spread seed as we prayed over the various components of our ministry. It was wonderful! Soon there will be splashes of bright red clover springing up all over.

One of the ministries that Iona House / Institute for Christoformity will be developing over the coming years is offering the experience of pilgrimage. We will be leading trips to the Holy Land, the Footsteps of Paul, and Celtic Christianity tours (Ireland, Scotland, England). For nearly two millennia Christians have made journeys of faith to sacred places in order to enrich their own faith and enter into solidarity with the people of God. Countless people have been deeply marked by a pilgrimage experience.

We (Elizabeth and I) were blessed to have been invited to lead a group of 15 people to Israel for a 10 day pilgrimage. We THOROUGHLY enjoyed our time with a fantastic group of committed Christians. We learned so much from our Palestinian, Christian guide about the current context of Christians as well as the history of God’s people in Israel/Palestine. We saw many ancient sites and also got to know some of the “living stones” (present-day Christians) of the Holy Land. We had a chance to walk the Via Dolorosa and pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (which has within it both the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and the tomb where He was laid). We spent time in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Galilee. We also visited the site where Jesus was baptized, floated in the Dead Sea and saw a host of significant biblical sites. It was AMAZING!

One of the highlights for us was finding a bell in a market in the Old City of Jerusalem that we purchased and brought back to use as a means of calling people to prayer. It weighs about 27 lbs and is solid brass. Everyone chuckled at us when we showed up at the bus with our large, heavy bell. “How are you going to get that home?!” Truthfully it did destroy our suitcase. But it’s worth it to have a bell from the Mother Church calling us to prayer! When you hear the bell at Iona House, know that it is a call to prayer from the source of Christianity.

Below is a gallery of some highlights of the trip.

The well drilling rig

We have been eagerly awaiting the well being drilled on the land. We’ve been in the queue for 8 months and finally this week the drilling rig arrived and they began the process. They discovered that there is a lot of dirt on our land. Typically they hit bedrock around 40 feet. At our land it was 140 feet. On the third day of drilling (good biblical reference in there) they hit good water at about 450 feet. We have a solid well that is producing 25 gallons per minute. That means it can produce 36,000 gallons a day. We will be utilizing one, possibly two different storage ponds for our irrigation needs.

Having a good producing well is an answer to prayer, especially since county water does not serve our land. The parcel next door (that we hope to purchase later this year) has an even better well of around 70 gallons per minute. Between the two of these wells, we should be able to easily accommodate all of the water needs on our future campus. Praise be to God!

This weekend we’re headed to San Francisco to connect with a number of folks about Iona House. We’ll be doing a special gathering with Eucharist Church on Saturday and then I (Ryan) will be guest preaching for RealitySF for Palm Sunday. We’re looking forward to connecting with a lot of friends and folks in the Iona House network.

Our next event is another Community Day on Saturday, April 23rd at the Iona House property. We’re planning some other upcoming events as well: a silent retreat (1 day), a workshop about regenerative agriculture and Christian spirituality, and more. Stay tuned. We’ll put details on the website once we have them. Also, if you want to come up and get a tour of the property, please contact us and we can arrange it.

Please continue to pray for all aspects of the development of Iona House. Pray that God would provide us with great team members / leaders, a thriving intern program, an abundance of financial supporters, and more.

Here’s the photo of the day. (We have these chapel windows out on the property evoking our future prayer chapel building).

This week we’ve got a couple of guys running machines continuing the fire prevention, forest clean-up, and manicuring / prepping of the land. This video shows a tractor (compact track loader) with a “grapple” (like a big rake) moving pieces of manzanita into a pile to either be buried or burned. There is 150 years worth of organic material that has built up. This is a big process!

We had a wonderful group of 17 folks (including 7 kids) come out to join us on Saturday, April 2nd for work, prayer, tours of the property, BBQ, some silence and solitude, and a whole lot of bonding. It was a wonderful time together and we accomplished some great stuff. Here are some pictures.

Kids busy working while some adults (ahem) are talking :)

Much of the work of the past few months has been cleaning up and caring for a forest that has not been touched (for the most part) in about 150 years. As part of this process, I (Ryan) enjoyed using a large excavator (Komatsu 138) over the past couple of weeks. After a while the big excavator arm begins to feel just a bit like an extension of my own arm and hand. For those who get very skilled at this machine, this is just what it looks like when they’re operating. Below is a video of me working in a spot with a lot of downed trees.

On March 26th, we had a great group of about a dozen people come out. We did some work (had some burn piles going, etc.), we enjoyed a delicious lunch together, prayed midday prayer, took time for solitude and silence, and worked on the horse round-pen. Here are a few pictures.

During our sabbatical / transition, I didn’t do any blogging. But there has been a lot happening. We’ve done an enormous amount to clear the land and begin to prepare for site plan development. The first step was hiring a two man crew (with me as the third) come out for seven days of brush clearing. The crew had a fancy (expensive) tractor with a “masticating” forestry management unit on the front of it. This device chewed up the underbrush and small trees into wood chips. Pretty exciting stuff! Here are some pictures and videos.

Before the land clearing

After some land clearing

Some of the land clearing in action

As 2021 comes to a close, Elizabeth and I find ourselves in the midst of a significant transition. Though we are moving locations and shifting into a new ministry in 2022, the overwhelming sense we have from the Lord is that the next season of our lives will be one of continuity with all that we’ve been learning and pouring ourselves into over the past 10+ years. This is a joyful thought for us as we look forward to remaining connected to those with whom we have been journeying and co-laboring. 

Amidst the swirl of emotions (grief, excitement, exhaustion) we are feeling right now, there is one overarching sensation: gratitude. God has done more than we could ask or imagine this past year. From the purchase of the first parcel of land, to the process of transition from Eucharist Church (which has been defined by stability, peace, and mutual blessing), to God providing a fantastic successor for our church(!!), to the joyful enthusiasm of a growing community of people who are with us on this journey of faith, etc., we are in awe of God’s generous goodness and provision. 

2022: THE PLAN

As we look toward 2022 and the ministry of Iona House, one word defines our sense of the future: potential. We don’t know exactly how everything will transpire over the coming 12 months, and that’s just fine with us. We’ve been discovering that adventures shaped by faith are much more joyful and fruitful than ones we carefully attempt to control. 

To the best of our understanding, the vision and ministry of Iona House in 2022 will be shaped by a handful of key themes. After a much needed sabbatical (January-March), we’ll jump in with both feet and begin offering Iona House our full attention in the following ways:

• Spiritual Formation Development - prayer, “beta testing” retreat concepts, research, content formation, symposiums, workshops, classes, listening, guest speaking, etc.

• Raw Land Development - the gorgeous, but raw land for Iona House has a lot of development ahead of it this year: both physical (well drilling, road access, brush clearing, etc.) and infrastructural (permits, research, planning, surveys, government processes, more permits, etc.)

• Agricultural Preparation - irrigation, laying out orchards / vineyard / garden, fencing, soil preparation, etc. in order to be able to begin planting (Lord willing) in the winter of 2023

• Gathering A Community of Partners - developing a broad and deep community to partner with us to see the vision for Iona House brought to fruition and Christ glorified

• Institutional Infrastructure - the important work of developing our board, advisors, key processes (financial, legal, etc.), fundraising, and more

Unknowns: many… perhaps the biggest: will the other two parcels that we have right of first refusal on come available to purchase?

The goal of all of the above will remain the fulfillment of our mission: a place to reimagine all of life in reference to Christ. 

THE VISION

The vision of Iona House is not merely a “Christian retreat center” (of which there are dozens in Nor Cal). The vision of Iona House is to be a unique place of holistic soul formation - one that is rooted and grounded in an ancient expression of the Christian faith while simultaneously keenly aware of the contemporary challenges (and opportunities) of following Christ in the increasingly post-Christian, secular age in which we live. 

The vision for Iona House emerged precisely out of the context of doing ministry in urban, secular, San Francisco for the past 14 years. As such, our prayer is that Iona House will be a timely and strategic means of addressing the tensions and complexities of following Christ amidst the technologically-driven, busy, and demanding setting in which most of us live. Between the monastic-inspired rhythms of prayer and sacred contemplation, the organic orchard / vineyard / farm with its focus on learning to experience the wonder of being a creature amidst God’s creation, and the Christ-centered teaching and spiritual direction (and much more), Iona House will provide an immersive experience offering an alternative picture of life for guests - one in which every area of life is lived in orientation to Christ. We are convinced this will have massive missional implications to individual Christians and entire congregations. This is our hope and prayer.

AN INVITATION

We would like to invite you to consider partnering with us in two key ways: 

• Prayer - join us in praying that God would, indeed, “build the house” (Ps. 127:1)

• Financial Support - see ionahouse.org/donate for all the details about how to give (checks, Donor Advised Funds, credit card, ACH, stocks, etc.)

We estimate that the financial needs of this ministry for 2022 will likely be in the range of $400,000. The vast majority of that will be directed toward significant land development costs (machinery purchases, contractors, development costs, architectural design work, etc.). Additionally, one important part of our fundraising needs will be support for the operational side (i.e. salary for Elizabeth and me to invest ourselves fully in leading and developing the vision). 

We welcome you to partner with us by making a year-end gift to set up the ministry of Iona House in 2022. If you would prefer, there are also ongoing monthly support options. 

DONATE

All donations made to Iona House (a ministry of the Institute for Christoformity, a 501(c)(3) religious nonprofit) are tax-deductible. A year-end receipt will be sent out in January to 2021 donors. 


COMING SOON

We look forward to sharing the unfolding adventure with you via email updates, pictures/videos, and via our blog at the Iona House website. We will be hosting vision walks, work days, and a number of other opportunities to see and experience the Iona House site starting in April 2022. We'll keep you in the loop...

May the Lord richly bless you as you enter into the fullness of the joy of the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas). May the Light of Christ illumine our hearts and minds in the midst of darkness around us. 

In Hope, Joy, and Gratitude,

Ryan & Elizabeth
co-founders of Iona House / Institute for Christoformity

St. Nicholas (the historic source of our modern-day Santa Claus) was a much beloved Christian who lived in the third/fourth century. As the definitive website devoted to telling his story summarizes it:

At the time the area was Greek and is now on the southern coast of Turkey. His wealthy parents, who raised him to be a devout Christian, died in an epidemic while Nicholas was still young. Obeying Jesus’ words to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.

On this day Christians around the world celebrate generosity and gift-giving with a feast devoted to remembering St. Nicholas. May Christ inspire each of us with the same spirit of generosity that he nurtured in his servant Nicholas.

PS - in our home we enjoyed a lovely (but dated) animated version of the life of St. Nicholas with our little boys. It’s available on YouTube and is entitled: Nicholas: the boy who became Santa Claus

We sent out our first “official” Newsletter a week or so ago. I meant to post it here to our blog because there’s a lot of important stuff in it + pictures + videos. Here is the link.

Iona House is no longer merely an idea...

As you know, we've been in a waiting pattern for the past 4 weeks due to the Caldor Fire. With the entire western side of the fire contained and the entire area repopulated, we felt confident about moving forward. So today we gave the green light to complete the sale - it was funded and recorded this afternoon! Praise be to God!!

We're astounded at what has happened so far.

By God's grace, and your prayers and generosity, we have seen just shy of $400,000 raised to date!!! This has made it possible to purchase the land with no debt as well as to begin the first step of the property's development. To be clear, our goal of $400,000 was to purchase the land and get started on the first step (see below - water).

Three major next steps for the land:

1) Water. The plan is to drill a well and put storage tanks on site. This will make possible our agricultural vision as well as provide water for future retreat facilities and increase fire safety. As we all know, water is essential to everything else. We have already taken the first step in the process by reaching out to a local well-driller to get on his schedule as soon as possible.

2) Clean up the Forest & Prepare the Land. This looks like clearing / mulching the underbrush, trimming up the trees, and clearing a section to put in agriculture. This stage is vital for multiple reasons, the most obvious reason, perhaps, being fire safety. With the Caldor Fire as a vivid reminder, the most important thing we can do to protect the property is to clean up the forest (which has not been managed for decades). We'll also work on developing access roads, trails, etc. so that the potential of the whole property can be realized.

To accomplish this goal we're increasingly convinced that the best way to do this is to purchase a tractor that will serve all kinds of purposes for us over the coming decades. Here's a video example of the forestry mulching aspect of the tractor we have in mind at work. This will be our next fundraising project... stay tuned.

3) Agriculture. 2022 will be a year in which we will be developing irrigation, preparing the soil, purchasing trees / vines, planting, etc. to get the farm portion of this vision started. Agriculture takes time, so we'd like to get on this part of the vision early-on.

Other stuff we'll be doing over the coming months:

• Prayer / Vision walks on the land (stay tuned...)

• Preparing for the purchase of the next two parcels (so that when they come available, we're ready to purchase them)

• Site Planning, Architectural drawings, Permits, etc.

This is just the beginning of an incredible adventure. Thanks for joining us in making possible a unique place for people to reimagine all of life in reference to Christ.

Onward in Joyful Faith,

Ryan & Elizabeth

We’re so grateful to God for the amazing generous community that has gathered to bring this vision to life. To date, here is the update:

• Amount Raised: $388,000 (AMAZING!!!)

• Unique Donors: 54 (husband and wife / family count as one)

• Churches represented: 35 (15 Bay Area churches)

• Amount left to raise: $12,000

We’re awaiting the final resolution of a glitch the Title Company discovered on the seller’s side. We are hoping to close escrow on the first 30.5 acres of Iona House next week, Lord willing!

The journey thus far has been simply incredible!!! We are beyond thrilled. It's been reconfirmed for us: God is so good and His people are truly generous. Thank you to each of you who have joined us in prayer and financial support. We are so close to finishing this Phase 1a goal!

Where things stand as of today:

• Total pledged and/or donated to date: approx. $370,000 (!!!)

• This means we're only $30,000 away from our goal for Phase 1a of $400,000.

We invite you to join us in praying that God would provide all that is needed for this vision. If you'd like to give, you can do so at our ONLINE DONATION PAGE or visit our donation page for all of the giving possibilities.

STATS: these data points bring us such joy

• We've had pledges or gifts from 45 distinct giving "units" (spouses / families counting as one) - some donating more than once and/or setting up a recurring donation

• representing 29 different churches (including 15 Bay Area and 3 Sacramento / Foothill churches)

• Donations ranging from $100 - $100,000

This represents a phenomenal beginning to this vision / project. We could not be more pleased by the broad participation and support we are seeing. Thanks be to God!

We’re incredibly grateful and inspired by the progress to date. All glory to God!! Go team IONA HOUSE!

THE UPDATE:

• Total pledged and/or donated to date: approx. $339,000(!!!!!!)

• We're only about $60k from our objective of $400,000.

• We have until August 6 to receive funds for this Phase 1a goal

STATS:

We only share because it's so inspiring...

• We've had pledges or gifts from 42 distinct giving "units" (spouses / families count as one)

• representing 27 different churches (including 13 Bay Area and 3 Sacramento / Foothill churches)

• Donations ranging from $100-100,000

What a joy it is to see God's people rally together for this vision. To see the small community that we are able to communicate with in this still-private-phase of this vision come up with this sort of funds is, in our minds, nothing short of the hand of God. And it's not over yet...

What an exciting day!!! We had 6 more donations made today. Our total stands at $280,000 with an additional $10,000 donation waiting to be made IF we can get another $10,000 in matching donation money. That would put us at $300,000. It doesn’t all have to come from one donor (though that would be welcome)… just another $10k put forward by the time proof of funds is called for. Please reach out to me (Ryan) if you have questions about this. Let’s go team!!! We’re making great progress. Elizabeth and I continue to be in awe of what God is doing. Have your way, Lord!

We are currently at approx. $270,000 in donations and pledges. This amount represents a phenomenal group of people who have acted in faith to partner for the establishment of Iona House. Here are some key data points that excite us and show us what a broad and diverse group God is gathering to believe in and support this vision (even as it remains not-even-fully-public).

• Donations ranging from $100 to $100,000 (all donations matter, no matter the size).

• Donations have come from 26 different donor parties representing over 100 people (if we include spouses and children).

• Some donors have believed enough in this vision to have made multiple donations already!

• Donations have come from people who worship in 17 different churches including 8 in the Bay Area.

Our contact list is actually not very big... so this represents a high degree of participation. Praise God for such a wonderful community of partners and supporters!

The joy and enthusiasm with which people are giving is so inspiring to us. There is something wild and faith-filled about giving to a project when it is in its initial stage - nothing more than an idea and a dream. It is very Abrahamic.

We have been talking about how to recognize and honor the faith of those who have given in this phase. - Perhaps a special commemorative plaque with the names of all those who have stepped out in courageous faith to give in this first phase, those who generously stepped forward to plant seeds for a great harvest to come (which makes us think that maybe the plaque should be in a garden area on our farm where we will be planting seeds each year!). :)