On June 18, we enjoyed incredible weather, a wonderful group (only partially pictured), delicious food, and an all around great day on the Iona House land. We made significant progress on our parking area - spreading the wood chips in order to suppress unwanted plants and keep the dust down. It looks so good! We also cleaned out a new storage shed that we had donated. It’s a 10 foot section of a shipping container with a rollup door on it. It works marvelously. We recently had some other valuable things donated as well: kids toys, a campfire pit, storage racks, and more. Go team!!!

We compiled a short video showing some of the progress on the land. We’re so excited about what has already happened. Come visit for a full tour!

Today we celebrate the life and legacy of St. Columba. He was a man who was mightily used by God. But it didn’t start out that way. After accidentally inciting a minor civil war in his native Ireland in which 3,000 people lost their lives, Columba and 12 companions, in a state of penance, exiled themselves to the remote island of Iona off the coast of what is now Scotland. The purpose of this “exile” was to form a distinctive community of prayer, discipline, and deep faithfulness to the Word of God. The monastery / abbey that these men formed went on to become one of the most significant centers of Christian mission the world has ever seen. Much of modern-day Scotland and Northern England were converted from the missionary efforts launched from Iona and the monasteries that were established from this center of contemplation and Christian formation.

Looking back 1500 years, nobody would have ever expected that this remote, beautiful but desolate island on the edge of civilization would go on to have such impact. But this is how God works: He so often takes what seems insignificant to the world and uses it to His own glory. (Nazareth? Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?)

When Elizabeth and I set out to encapsulate the vision God gave us with a name that captured its vital essence, we were led to St. Columba and the abbey of Iona. It’s an incredibly inspiring story. In so many ways we believe the world needs a new Iona.

Our personal story is that after ministering in a place of major cultural significance (San Francisco) for over a decade, we felt God leading us to a place that some people might think of as the edge of civilization. Placerville? (Can anything good come out of Placerville? - I can hear someone saying). Oftentimes God uses the margins and the overlooked places as locations for vitally important formation for His people: Mt. Sinai, the wilderness, the Jordan River valley (John the Baptist), the region of Galilee, etc., etc.

This is our prayer - that God would use the margin / separation / rugged beauty offered by Iona House in Placerville to cultivate a unique and particularly potent place of Christian formation for those who come. May God grant us the spirit of humility, contemplation, faithfulness, and zeal for Christ’s Name that shaped the life and ministry of St. Columba and his companions on the Isle of Iona.

By Elizabeth Jones

Iona House is best understood as a “house” of formation. I believe horses have a key role to play in this mission.

While obtaining my masters in counseling psychology, I learned that an incredible amount of critical formation happens in the first few years of our lives. Before we even have the capacity to think in words or communicate in words, we are forming our emotional sense of self. We are learning the attachment patterns which will guide the course of our relationships through out our lives. We are forming intuitions about our place in the world and establishing our emotional baseline sense of safety. All this is already beginning, and in some cases, rather firmly established, before we even have the capacity to verbally articulate what is going on inside of us.

Horses have a unique way of connecting with us in these non-verbal, embodied places. Horses are incredibly sensitive to what is going on inside of us – what is really going on inside of us. Even if we are blind to our own carefully guarded anxiety, grief, or anger, horses are herd animals whose survival is predicated on knowing the non-verbal cues of their herd. Their bodies pick up on the tensions within our own bodies. They mirror to us what we are feeling, even when we do not know what we are feeling ourselves. In fact, because horses are so big, they actually amplify to us what we are feeling. When we learn to address the feelings being displayed in the horse, it can in turn address the feelings that we are feeling in ourselves.  

I experienced this recently while I was spending time on the parcel adjacent to Iona House a couple of months ago (this is the parcel we hope to purchase). There is a barn on this parcel with a 21-year-old mare who is the last of her herd. She was raised on this land with her mother, but now all the other animal companions (horses, donkeys, llamas and goats) are gone. She is well cared for in every way physically, but her relational world has been largely emptied.

The first time I went to visit her (after the horse’s owner had given me permission), I was a bit of jumbled mess. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself in the wake of losing all that had formerly occupied our lives in SF. I was irritable and blamed it on an exhausting move with two toddlers, but I didn’t necessarily have a conduit to access what was happening more deeply within me. When I went to visit the horse, it took a while for the horse to even let me halter her, but eventually she allowed me. It took a while for the horse to even let me pet her (she isn’t used to much human handling), but eventually she let me touch her. Importantly, what was happening between us was an intricate, embodied building of trust. In the midst of an uncomplicated, bodily felt trust, I found myself crying to this horse who could understand no reasonable words. But in the midst of our interaction, I felt safe to acknowledge my grief (having moved away from our community in SF). Somewhat mysteriously, I simultaneously experienced a feeling of understanding, since this horse also knows what it’s like to feel alone. I have experienced and witnessed unique connections like this many times from when I have volunteered in therapeutic riding, worked as a horse expert in equine assisted psychotherapy, and from when I previously owned my own horse.

As a house of formation, Iona House intentionally cultivates places of non-verbal, embodied formation, and part of this will be through care of our animals at Iona House, including the horses we hope to have one day. I look forward to the day when we can utilize horses at Iona House as an intentional way to access some of the non-verbal, embodied aspects of our souls (that are sometimes wounded, guarded or numbed) in order to bring ourselves more fully into the presence of Christ as embodied, integrated creatures who are more fully worshipping and trusting their Creator.

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!