Since Cocoa was still having her challenges (we thought when we got her that she was more broke than what she was), in August of 2010 our need for more horses was fulfilled. We received another donation of two horses, Tigger and Buddy, referred to us by Tracy, the trainer who referred Allie and Cocoa. Thank you Lord for these two animals. Not only did I get these two donated horses that were fairly well trained, but I also received some more tack. A couple saddles and a few other items, plus the promise to donate money for each horse for 3 years to help them with their expenses as long as I have the previous owners first right if I needed to get rid of them for some reason. No problem. What an awesome gift. Only God can surprise you with such an amazing donation. Now we had 10 horses. Too many for the barn, so we turned the geldings out with each other. I learned quickly about pecking orders. The two new horses plus the mustangs and Dillon were all turned out together. Allie, who was turned out just next to them, would always kick at them and kick the fence instead. I think it was about twice that she really hurt herself from kicking the fence. Sometimes it would take her weeks to get better which left her out of commission.
We were crowded. It wasn’t great, but it would do. Now that we had more horses to ride, we continued to get more people coming out. We were getting very busy. God will only give you as much as you can handle. Tom Hayman also became our Farrier. Unknown to him, he would be playing a very big role in our ministry.
My husband and I still visited our house in Laguna Beach every month which would mean that the Ministry needed to go on without me the Saturday that I was gone. This is when I had to begin to turn God’s ministry over to others. It was not going as smoothly as I had hoped in the beginning, because I truly believe that Satan is always looking for a way to destroy this ministry. Even though this is God’s ministry, He has still given me dominion on this earth. So through prayer and intercession, I was able to be victorious over Satan's continued plan of attack once again!!
Not long after this growth spurt in late September of 2010, I found out from David that Chris was asking him to move out. He needed to rent the apartment for income. Wow!!! I went straight to prayer. David is still fighting the cancer. He trains, feeds and cleans the horses plus he volunteers his time with the people coming for the Ministry. David was and still is a very integral part of this Ministry. I knew he would require help finding a place to live. Where ever the place, it could not be very far away from the barn because he feeds the horses twice a day. The volunteers have also stepped up their commitment, during some times when they would come and help feed and clean when David could not. I had a great volunteer and participant base at this time. I knew God had a plan. I started looking for rooms to rent for David in the area. They were running about $300-$400/month. That would work if that was the direction God wanted us to go, however, they weren’t all that close to the ranch. That was the dilemma.
I then remembered that my Mom and her new husband, Cal, had just returned from Washington with their Minnie Winnie, a small motor home. I called her and asked if she would be willing to let us use the motor home for the winter months since David needed a place to stay. It just so happened that she HATED the motor home because it had bed bugs and she never wanted to stay in it again!!! Amazing timing!! So she donated the motor home to the ministry. A $9500 donation!! OK, so now I have a motor home for David to live in. But where would we park it? I called and asked Chris if I could park it near our barn on his property and he said no. I also called and asked our Farrier, Tom Hayman, if we could park the motor home on his property. He said no, but he knew of an old Roping Ranch that used to have RV hook ups, owned by a man named Gene Dietz. He thought it was somewhere off of 136th St. Then I started calling around the Rio Verde area to find someone that new of Gene Dietz. I got a hold of a woman in charge of the Rio Verde Horseman’s Association and asked her if she knew of a man named Gene Dietz. She said no, but she knew of his son, Paul Dietz. I called Paul and got the number for his dad. I found out later that Paul Dietz had a flyer on Chris’s bulletin board!! Funny, what a small world. Anyway, I called Gene and asked about his RV hook ups. He said he had one available and that he charges $300 month. Since this was about the same as the rental rooms, which I had pretty much settled on that new expense, I was willing to pay that. The Lord then led me to ask him if he had any room for horses. He said that he charged $75 for a stall or $50 for a turn out for a do- it-yourself program, providing your own food and cleaning yourself. Oh my goodness. That price per horse times 10 would be at the most $750/month plus David’s $300 for the RV parking, would still be more than a $1000/month savings. I was so excited about this new opportunity. No agreement was made over the phone until we went over to meet him and check out his place.
David and I drove up and I was in dismay. This 10 acre ranch had been severely neglected. Not only was it a storage for all sorts of street lights, scrap metal and trash, but it also had severely neglected horses on the property, about 10 in all. There were 3 trailer homes on the property that had also been neglected and poorly maintained. My first thought was, Lord, is this what it has come down to? Living in despair and destruction? David was quick to point out that all of this was cosmetic and could be easily fixed. I’m glad he had vision, because mine was being challenged. We met with the owner Gene, and he showed us where we could hook up the motor home. It was our only solution to David’s living arrangement. We also discussed the possibility of moving all the horses over. Gene’s explanation for the neglect of his ranch was heartbreaking. It brought tears to my eyes. I could not let the appearance of the ranch dictate my decision since we HAD to make a decision. So I asked if we could move in by the end of October. That would give me 30 days advance notice for Chris plus whatever improvements we could make to the ranch before we moved over there. I would immediately fly David to California to get the motor home from my mom, have it sprayed for bed bugs, then move it to the new ranch with his horse MaGlory in the beginning of October to satisfy Chris. It would only be a couple weeks that David would have to drive back and forth to feed the horses until we moved them over.
Here are pictures I took of the ranch which I showed to my husband:
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