How a Sunny Garden, a Sourdough Starter, and a Whole Lot of Faith Brought Us Here

“It didn’t start with a business plan.
It started with a garden—just a little sunny patch tucked into a suburban backyard.
And a longing.”

Our journey began shortly after Jason and I got married. At first, we weren’t in any rush to have children—we had the classic five-year plan. But life has a way of unraveling your plans and writing a better story.

My body suddenly stopped functioning as it should, and even though we weren’t “trying,” month after month of wondering quietly transformed our hearts. What began as a someday dream to have kids became an ache. We spent years searching for answers—appointments, specialists, vague diagnoses—but nothing changed.

We tried everything we could find: natural doctors, supplements, strict diets, lifestyle changes (yes, even no bike riding or hot tubs). Still nothing.

We went ten years without a child. Ten years of hope and heartbreak, of praying and questioning and leaning deeper into faith. In the middle of that long season, I experienced a miracle—God healed my body. But the fruit of that healing didn’t come right away. In fact, we were part of the way through the adoption process when I found out I was pregnant with our first son, Finnegan. After he turned two, we were surprised by another pregnancy—our sweet Knox. Both were long-awaited gifts, and their presence is still a wonder to us.

During those ten years of waiting, something else began to grow in me. I found comfort in the soil and the slowness of home. Even while living in the suburbs of Grand Rapids, I began to seek out ways to live more from the land.

I started gardening, sourcing raw milk, making cheese, grinding my own flour, fermenting water kefir and sauerkraut, and learning the old ways of food preparation that had long been forgotten. I dove deep into herbalism, even studying at two different schools. Somewhere in the quiet, a fire started to grow.

“Homesteading, I learned, isn’t about geography—it’s about mindset.
It’s about learning to live with the land, not just on it.”

Inspired by my aunt and uncle—also homesteaders—I remember praying one day for just a single maple tree. Just one, so I could make my own syrup someday. That prayer was small, but it was honest.

We also brought home our first backyard chickens, and the joy we found in that rhythm only deepened the desire for something more.

Eventually, we knew it was time to move. We had outgrown the home we were in, but the idea of finding land felt impossible. How could we even begin? We had just witnessed a miracle in the birth of our children, but even so—some dreams still feel out of reach.

In 2021, we made the leap. We spent a summer living in a renovated camper with our boys while we searched for land. We thought we’d end up with a half acre. We looked at more than 70 houses and made 12 offers. Nothing stuck.

Just when we were about to give up, we found this place. We put in one more offer, and it was accepted.

At first, we didn’t fully understand what we’d been given. We saw a few maple trees, some open space, and a house that felt like home. What we didn’t realize was just how abundant this land really was.

It took time to settle in. That first year, I was still finding my footing. But slowly, the land began to open up to me. I started to forage in ways I never could before. The herbal knowledge I had spent years gathering began to take root in my hands. And the dream of creating a business—of making beautiful, healing things from the land—came to life.

We called it Wild Faith Acres. Because that’s what this is—a place built on faith, on wild dreams, and on the beauty of trusting God with the timing of all things.

We’re raising our children here in this sacred kind of chaos. The kind that includes muddy boots, sticky fingers, maple sap season, ducklings waddling through the yard, and late-night fort building under the stars.

It’s a place where you can walk into the woods when the world feels heavy, or stand still long enough to hear the birds sing.

This is home.

This is our story.

This is Forestchella.