E52: Before the Storm: Preparing Your Homestead and Heart for What is to Come | Darin & Monica Strong

In this compelling conversation, Darin and Monica Strong share what they learned from building their early homestead in the wrong order and how those lessons now shape their approach to preparation, community, and faith. They explore what “building your ark” looks like today— from prioritizing food storage to decentralizing your resources and refusing to homestead in isolation. With bold conviction, they urge us to cultivate discernment in this cultural moment, listen for God’s leading, and remember that growing our faith is the most important step we can take toward being prepared for what is next.

In this episode, we cover:

• How Darin & Monica realized they built their first homestead out of order and what they now believe every new homesteader needs
• A fresh take on “building your ark”: how Noah’s obedience, timing, and spiritual posture are reflected in the modern homesteading movement
• Why long-term food storage is the first layer of peace, not panic, and how one bulk order can jump start your preparedness plan
• What happens when you acquire animals before infrastructure (including the milk cow story that changed their plans!)
• A call to break out of isolation and rebuild the kind of agrarian, interdependent communities our great-grandparents lived in
• How homesteaders are decentralizing their food sources and reclaiming territory
• Why homesteading often looks “irrational” from the outside and how that mirrors Noah building an ark before rain existed
• Discernment for this cultural moment: knowing when to stay, when to move, and how to listen for God’s voice above the noise
• A bold reminder that faith (more than skill, money, or land) is the foundation of resilience in the storms ahead
• Encouragement for the families feeling stirred or called into something new and why obedience now matters for what comes next

Thank you to our sponsors!

KubotaUSA.com | Providing the right equipment to keep us moving, shaping, and growing America’s farms, fields, and construction

Premier1Supplies.com | Your one-stop shop for a variety of homesteading supplies and expert advice

About Darin & Monica

Darin and Monica Strong are the founders of HOMELAND, a movement dedicated to helping families build lives rooted in faith, legacy, and purpose. High school sweethearts and parents to eight children, they have devoted their lives to following God’s call and encouraging others to do the same.

Darin’s background includes real estate, investments, and creative financing, while Monica, formerly a labor and delivery nurse and midwife-in-training, brings a nurturing and faith-centered perspective to their work. Together, they share a passion for family discipleship, intentional living, and creating spaces where people feel Home and can encounter God’s presence and live out their calling.

Through Homeland, the Strongs inspire others to cultivate homes and communities that reflect God’s design—planted, rooted, and flourishing for generations to come.

Resources Mentioned

Gain access to the conference videos mentioned in this episode by becoming an HOA member

Get a copy of Monica’s Azure Standard Pantry Stock List

Find out if there’s an Azure Standard drop near you!

Check out the previous HOA episode with AJ Richards

Snag your REFORMER hat here

Connect

Darin & Monica Strong | Website | Instagram | YouTube | X

Homesteaders of America | Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Pinterest

Before the Storm: Preparing Your Homestead and Heart for What is to Come Transcript

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America Podcast, where we encourage simple living, hard work, natural healthcare, real food, and building an agrarian society. If you’re pioneering your way through modern noise and conveniences, and you’re an advocate for living a more sustainable and quiet life, this podcast is for you. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell, and I’m the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization and annual events. If you’re not familiar with us, we are a resource for homesteading education and online support. And we even host a couple of in-person events each year with our biggest annual event happening right outside the nation’s capital here in Virginia every October. Check us out online at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. Follow us on all of our social media platforms and subscribe to our newsletter so that you can be the first to know about all things HOA (that’s short for Homesteaders of America). Don’t forget that we have an online membership that gives you access to thousands—yes, literally thousands—of hours worth of information and videos. It also gets you discount codes, an HOA decal sticker when you sign up, and access to event tickets before anyone else. All right. Let’s dive into this week’s episode. 

Amy Fewell All right. Welcome back to the Homesteaders of America podcast. I have my dear friends with me today, Darin and Monica Strong. Welcome to the podcast. 

Monica Strong Thank you. Thank you for having us. You are a dear friend. I would definitely categorize you as that. 

Amy Fewell It’s going to be fun today because I don’t think we have any idea what we’re going to talk about, but it will get going. Trust me, I know this. So let’s start with who are Darin and Monica Strong?

Monica Strong Well, according to Amy, our name is Donica. And now whenever we are at a coffee shop or a place of food preparation, they ask us for a name and we laugh because we just want to tell them Donica. We are Darin and Monica strong. We are high school sweethearts. We’ve been married 17 years with 8 children, 11 years and under. We wanted four, God had different plans. And I would say that pretty much sums up our life in general—is whatever we have wanted, God has totally broken our box of what we thought life would look like. And he has made us into the people we are today, which is nothing like what we planned 17 years ago, yet everything like we planned, I guess, you know? 

Darin Strong So we’re the founders of Homeland. Monica’s background’s in healthcare, my background’s in real estate, and that was before we went on the radical faith journey about 10 years ago. And since then, God has kind of been teaching us and leading us toward the more homesteading type life, so we’ve gone on a journey. He taught us about this little thing called permaculture while we were on a journey in Kansas. And so since then, we’ve kind of just been trailing through trying to establish our homestead dream. And through that, he’s had us do a myriad of different things. So it may not come out in this conversation, but as of right now, we’re raising eight little kiddos, building Homeland, which has been in a small town, in New Market, Virginia, but God is relocating us. And there we were establishing community, setting up community businesses, hosting a lot of people through short-term rentals. We established a little business called Thirst, which was a organic ice cream and drink shop on Main Street. And so we did that for about six years, just really trying to build community, and then we had the opportunity to purchase a family farm on the other side of Virginia. And so for three years, we were so excited to finally come out of the vehicle to 20 plus acres and try to build a homestead. So we did for three year and if you know any of our story, it was fun. It was exciting. We built the whole thing of what we had dreamed of this whole time, and then we dismantled the whole thing because we learned that we built it out of order. And so we did that for three years, learned a lot, and it was an incredible experience. And so, we thought we were just going to hit reset and start over. But God is now massively shifting in our life. And we’re doing two things right now, which is focusing on, in this season, building community (and we could talk a little about what that looks like), and we’re being relocated halfway across the country. 

Monica Strong Halfway across the country? 

Amy Fewell I was going to say, kind of past the country. 

Darin Strong Well, I’m considering it our country. 

Monica Strong Halfway across the world. 

Darin Strong We’re being relocated to the other side of America. So there we go. So what do you want to jump into? There’s a lot to talk about with our story, with our journey. We want to add as much value as we can to your audience. So whatever you feel like the pulse is for your people, for your audience, or whatever you feel like we could contribute. I mean, there’s a lot of things we could talk about: diversification of income on homesteading, we can talk about what it looks like to homestead with a lot of kids, we could talk about building community and the sacrifice that it takes to do that. Just so many things. So you tell us: how can we add value? 

Amy Fewell We totally should have done this on a live stream. It would have been great because I know people have had a lot of questions. But before we get into a topic, first let me let you guys know, who are listening: Darin and Monica are speakers at HOA. They’ve been speakers for a couple of years now. You guys might have heard some of their talks. Why don’t you give just a little bit of a description of what you guys talked about this year at HOA? 

Monica Strong Okay, so this year was super practical and very important for people, and it was “Build Your Ark, the Storm is Coming: How to Build Your Homestead in the Proper Order.” And so, Darin and I frame our life around a biblical worldview. What does that mean? It means that we crave the Word of God as guidance for our life, and we consume it daily like manna, and we do not believe in the cessation of God’s working in human lives with the Bible. We believe the Bible is not a historical account only. It is a living, breathing document, word of God that he has left us in order to speak to us every day and lead and guide our lives. With that said, we believe that the story of Noah, through many confirmations in our life… And in the first year we spoke with HOA, you can go back and listen to that talk in the Big Barn, but we spoke about how the Lord led us to Kansas. He confirmed with us: this is like a season of Noah. He threw many things… This is a season of Joseph. He confirmed that with us. The whole reason we know Amy is because I picked up Joel Salatin’s book, Homestead Tsunami. I read the foreword, which was by Amy Fewell, and she talked about Joseph and Joel Salatin actually talked about Noah. Yeah, and so I was like, who are these people? Because they’re saying the same things God has been telling us for 10 years, and we don’t even know them. And that’s how you know it’s the Spirit of God leading you because we’re saying the same things, it’s rooted in the Word of God, and you do not know each other. It’s very much like Ezekiel in Jeremiah, it’s very much like people in the Bible are saying the same things. They’re saying what God is saying, but they are not in the same location. A lot of these things are how you know what God has been declaring over people in a certain time. And so this year we broke that down. Great, this is what God was saying, now how do we, you know, transition that into practically? How do we live with that daily? And that’s where Darin is really good, honestly, because you know, with people of faith, with people that are declaring God’s word… Like a lot of times it can become very confusing and it’s like, great, thank you for that word of exhortation. Thank you for that prophetic word of direction, but what do I do with that? Well, Noah was given very practical instructions by God to prepare. Noah’s job was then, in faith, to be obedient to God. And to do what he told him to do. And so for the Homestead community, Noah is an amazing example of the time we’re living in. And this is an active word, I believe, for this entire community that God gave us to leave the homestead community with. You can take it in faith and build diligently what God is telling you to build, but there absolutely is a blueprint. Noah was a righteous man. That is the first and foremost thing. It was not his actions. It was the fact that he walked with God in a generation of people that did not. And the Bible says he was obedient to God’s commands. And to please the heart of God, it is more to obey than to sacrifice. And in this season, Noah, through a covenant marriage (so healthy marriage), covenant children, he then built what God was telling him to build with his children and his family alongside of him. Very much the heart of homesteaders—to have children at home, raising them and homeschooling them. Very much our heart. This is what God has put on our heart. We were not from homeschooling families, we were not from farming families, we were not from any of this. This is really what God burdened us with. And Noah being diligent to put the infrastructure in place. We could not emphasize this enough with a group of homesteaders: Can you imagine if the animals showed up before the ark was built? 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Monica Strong Well, this is what Darin and I experienced. 

Amy Fewell That’s what most homesteaders have experienced, yeah. I’m pretty sure we all got animals before we were actually ready for them. 

Darin Strong Yeah. That’s true. 

Monica Strong We ask people in the audience, we’re like, “Who here is actively homesteading? Who here wants to homestead? Who here is… Like, you’re here because you’re in that in-between—like you are looking for properties,” and it’s like, a lot of people were not, you know, actively having these huge homesteads. And I mean, this is really… It’s kind of like with parenting: when people give us advice, Darin and I listen. I mean, because we’re like, we’re no longer in our twenties where we think we know everything. And so we’re like, we glean wisdom from any and everything. Like you can eat the fish and leave the bones. You can also get a grain of wisdom from someone. And so we were like, “Yes, we have all done it, but please… If there’s somebody here, please listen to us. Please do not get animals before you build the infrastructure.” And so we did, we detailed out a lot of that. And I know a lot this is like… Really, this is the biggest point of the entire thing: in the end, the Ark was not what saved Noah. It was not the construction of a boat. The Bible’s very clear. What saved Noah and his family was his faith. The Bible also says in 1 Peter, I think at the end. It’s in one of the books of Peter, but it does say that God was patient as well with Noah and he waited. God held back what he was sending until Noah was done. These are two huge things for homesteaders. A lot of times people see what’s on the horizon with our natural eyes. We see what is going on in the world and we operate out of fear and we operate out of chaos because we’re trying to get something in place to be prepared, right? And the reality is, if you are walking with the Lord, if you are obeying his voice, if you are having faith in what you’re doing, honestly, you can build something really primitive and be sustained through whatever comes because God is actually the one that is sustaining you. And he’s actually the one that’s going to be patient with you. So take the time. Do it, enjoy, learn from people who did it out of more like, i’m trying to get everything done because I have 10 years built up in me of youtubes and books and all the things. And you’re doing it all out of a rush and a like, I finally have to do this, and I empathize with that because we did that. But I did give people, and again, go listen to the… If you’re a member, you have access to all these videos. If you’re not a member become a member and you have accessed all these ideas because I did give a list of Azure Standard, a $2,500 order. In that $2500 order that I bulleted out, it will give you one to two years worth of bulk food that you can grab off the truck, throw in a cool, dry, dark place, and it will keep for 30 years. And a lot of that is the essence of like, we feel unprepared, right? If something were to happen, how would we sustain our family with food? And so for $2,500, you can have that security checked off the box. And the other thing Azure Standard drops are great for is building community, which a lot of people, this is what Darin’s saying. This is what we’re really big into this next season. Building community, a lot of those people at those Azure drops are people that think like you, they’re people that are doing what you’re doing. Even if they’re not homesteading, honestly, I think this is a little bit of the box that needs to be broken. There’s still people that may have your philosophy. They may not be homesteading, but they’re the people that have your philosophy. They’re decentralizing their food systems. They’re wanting better. So build community with those people. Grab that order of Azure Standard things to just put away and then you’re secure, and then start doing the things. I think Beth Dougherty talked about this this year or last year, but she said, like, “Could you build an off-grid, perfectly sustainable homestead with no ties to, you know, the country? And yes, you could. It’s going to take you a lot more time though.” And so like, while the backhoe is here, build with the backhoe. Like, prepare on one hand for, yes, the off-grid nature of things or, like, if this, you know, apocalyptic situation happens, can you be sustained? Yes, build that kind of parallel with. That’s kind of what I’m saying with the Azure Standard. It’s like, order all that food and then learn how to grow the beans and learn how to preserve the beans, because that’s the whole other thing. I mean, it’s like we had a year of harvest. It’s like, what do we do with this now? And on top of all that, we have eight children under eleven, three in diapers, two nursing. I mean, it’s like you have to discern the season you’re in. And this is why community is huge because I think you can get really burned out trying to do everything on the homestead, thinking that it is all you that has to do this. 

Amy Fewell We’re taking a quick break so that I can tell you a little bit about one of our 2025 sponsors. We are honored to have Kubota as one of our sponsors this year. Over the past 50 years, Kubota has evolved from newcomer to neighbor to partner in pursuit of the American Dream. They’ve grown together through community by providing the right equipment to keep us moving, shaping, and growing America’s farms, fields, and construction. Hundreds of millions have been invested here at home, for over 7,000 American workers to fabricate, wield, and assemble with domestic and global parts. 1,000-plus Kubota dealership locations contribute to local economies and invest in the people that have lived there for generations. Constant evolution and innovation keep Kubota forward-looking and focused on working together to build a better future for all of us. You guys know them as the orange tractor in the homesteading and farm world, but we know them as friends and sponsors, as Homesteaders of America conference sponsors this year. Make sure you check them out at KubotaUSA.com.

Amy Fewell Yeah. So I think one of the things that you just said was really that a lot of people don’t think of: you were saying, you know, you have this list, which we will try to link to that. Did you guys use a PowerPoint for your talk? 

Darin Strong No. 

Monica Strong We did not. 

Amy Fewell Was that in your PowerPoint or a link or anything at all? 

Darin Strong What’s a PowerPoint? I’m just kidding.

Amy Fewell Okay. I’ll get with you guys on that and we’ll, you know, put that together for you guys listening, below. But I think that’s a really wise statement because a lot of people go into homesteading and they’re starting from scratch, right? We are not all fortunate enough to start with the family farm with infrastructure already in place. You guys found that out when you moved to your farm with, you know, little experience and lots of kids. And so if you are concentrating first on building up your preps, right? What does my long-term food storage look like? That really takes the stress off of you and your family because you already have your personal storehouse, right? You have this personal space where you have food. It really takes the fear out of it. That’s the thing—there are so many people who homestead and prep out of fear, but it should be the opposite. It should be out of faith. Okay, I have this stash. I have faith that God will take care of us because ultimately, too, it’s the abundance from him that’s really taking care of us. And so then you can start building your homestead. That’s such a wise thing to say to the homesteading community, because you know, one of the things we do here, which I’m sure we’ve had this conversation in our personal time, like someone said to me, an old timer said to me one time, “We would grow three years worth of a certain product so that we were not growing it every single year.” 

Darin Strong So good. 

Amy Fewell And it took the stress off of them. You know, these are tidbits, right? Nobody taught us these things. And so, like tomatoes, I could easily grow three years, even just two years, worth of the tomatoes that we need. And then the following year, I’m only growing what we’re gonna eat, right? Because we’re gonna eat off of that two to three year storage for a whole year, year and a half, two years, and then I’m in rotation with all of these things—green beans, sweet potato… Well, potatoes are a little bit different, unless you’re gonna can them. If you’re gonna can’t potatoes, yeah. Things that you’re preserving, and then you’re not overcome with every crop every year. I’ve got to get it in. What if it doesn’t work? Like what if the deer and rabbits eat all my beans? I have no beans, and it’s gonna happen, right? You know, shake your head, amen. And so I think that’s really important to tell the homesteading community because we think we have to all do it all at the same time, yeah, all by ourselves. And you guys have kind of learned, right? You don’t have to do it all by yourself. 

Monica Strong So I told this funny story actually about the milk cow. And I know you are very near and dear to this story. But you know, I said this from stage. Like I have looked at people’s Instagram for, you know, all of 10 years with their cute milk cows and bringing in their raw milk in the, you know, silver pail and doing all the raw milk things. And here I found myself this year pregnant and…

Amy Fewell Okay, hold up, hold up, hold up. Let me interrupt you for a second. How it really went was Monica was like texting me, “I want a milk cow!”

Darin Strong True. 

Amy Fewell And Amy was like, “I think you need a milk cow.” And then Amy didn’t think about… Wait, were you pregnant before or right when you got the milk cow? 

Monica Strong No, I was pregnant. I was pregnant yet again. 

Amy Fewell Okay. And Amy didn’t think about that. So if you want a milk cow, don’t ever text Amy Fewell and say you want one because I’m going to tell you to get a milk cow.

Monica Strong She’ll show you the Facebook group to get in to get it. She will vet the cow. She will do all the things. Amy is that friend. And so Darin…

Darin Strong This is the part of unity in building a homestead. We’ll talk about that later, but I’ll let you keep talking about your story here. She would text me and I’d be like, “You’re, you know, seven months pregnant.”

Amy Fewell “You’re hormonal.” 

Darin Strong “Yeah, they’re kinda off. We need to just settle…” “No, because the storm’s coming, honey. We need our milk cow.” I’m like, “Okay, we need a milk cow. I can’t argue with that.” 

Amy Fewell And Monica found out.

Monica Strong I did. I had that milk cow for seven days. And so Darin grew up with no animals. And so for a lot of you homesteaders that are maybe unilaterally gifted with, you know, all things farming… I mean for me, I’m like little bit country, little bit city. I lived six months of the year of my life growing up on a farm, and the other six months was in the city. And so like I am totally a farm girl at heart, but I hate flies, and so that…

Amy Fewell Bad combination.

Monica Strong I’m definitely redneck yacht club right here. Yeah, that’s me. But Darin, total opposite. He is like City Boy, comes from a family that does not do any farming. 

Amy Fewell She is throwing you under the bus, man. 

Darin Strong Hey, listen. I farm this thing up though. You would have thought I was Joel Salatin out here on this farm. I was slinging them fences better than Justin Rhodes could ever think about handling them wired mesh solar fence things, whatever those things are. 

Monica Strong It’s so true. We have stock in Premier One. 

Amy Fewell And this year’s sponsor… 

Darin Strong Exactly. 

Monica Strong So yeah, I got the milk cow because, you know, I’ve been totally duped and influenced. And she kicked me on my hand. She got me. And I was like… My uncle punched horses growing up. I mean, he was like old school veterinarian, okay, like who raised me. And so I was about ready to haul off on this cow. And I was losing it with Darin. I’m like seven months pregnant, and I’m just like, “I am not doing that.” Darin’s like, “Well, when this baby comes, I’m not milking the cow. So what’s the plan?” And I’m like, “Oh my word.” And so needless to say, we found a great home for the cow that actually had grass and other cows. Funny enough, she’s thriving there. And so I’m saying that to say, we have an amazing connection in the Shenandoah Valley with a Mennonite family who produces… They have a dairy. I mean, they have a creamery. So they produce all A2 pasteurized milk for sale in retail locations. And then they have a raw milk share for people. And you know what? He has a big ol’ farm in the Shenandoah Valley. And that is his family business. And Darin and I learned that that $10 a gallon of raw milk to support his family business was worth it. And this is where community is just super important because, you know, I like to think of it now through my experience with all this, is like we very much all believe in this agrarian lifestyle, right? We do believe inherently that life is better, families are happier, communities are stronger, but I guess the friction we’re having right now is that we all feel very connected community-wise because of the internet. But when the internet was not here, agrarian communities used to live in close proximity to one another. And so when you saw the homestead as a community structure instead of a singular home structure… I think we look back at people’s pictures and we hear their stories, and honestly, I think they were thriving more because Amy down the street was my milk source. I got to go and pick it up weekly. I got to have a cup of coffee with her. We got to literally share what God is saying with each other. We got to encourage each other. Our children got to play together and we fulfilled a need. I provided her family with some money, and she provided my family with some raw milk. And like for me, really at the core of it, I’m a healer, right? Like I’m a midwife. That would be my role in a village if we were in a village space—herbal medicine, delivering babies, raising healthy children. That’s my gift. That is my calling. And so what would I do? I would most likely have like a prolific herb garden. And people would come to me with their children and they would come to me pregnant and they would, you know, provide my family with some money because of that, or some meat or some, you know, whatever the need was. They would value my time through something, and then what I’m giving them would be a value to them somehow. And so, you know, this is where I think (and this is what we said from stage, it’s really bold) but if you don’t have two to five people in your close proximity like this, you need to consider moving to a place where you do know two to five people and they’ve got this kind of nucleus established. Or sure, you be the pioneer and get those two to five people to move by you. This, for us, we had just already been feeling the shift. Even just being here the whole three years. It was like everything we were doing was kind of met with a huge hurdle, resistance, you know, everything. And we are living by people that don’t at all think like us. And, you know, it does provide a lot of friction and a lot of discouragement in times that you maybe need people around you that are like your people, you know, that are encouraging you and lifting you up and everybody kind of is interdependent instead of being codependent. There’s an interdependence. Everybody’s giving of something. And so yeah, I mean I think if we… Like you’ve done this, this is gonna be 10 years. And I was telling somebody yesterday on a podcast, if you look up the definition of the word odyssey, the word odyssey means a 10 year period. And so it’s like we are in a shift. God is radically shifting our family and what we’re doing to a point I could have never imagined. I’ve never lived outside of Virginia a day in my life except for nursing school, which, you know, was for a purpose and we were in Tennessee, but we wanted to get right back to Virginia. I mean Virginia is definitely our heart. This is definitely our homeland but we are being totally moved to an area I would have never, you know, personally thought, but when you’re yielded to the spirit of the Lord, when you’re surrendered in your life and you do only live by faith, you are willing to be a pawn in the hand of God. Darin always says, like, “The devil is playing checkers, God is playing chess.” When I see what people are doing online, I do not look at that, is what Darin is saying. Like I don’t look at the moves that these people are making because God is 20 steps ahead. You have to stay surrendered to his guidance because he is so far strategically ahead of what we’re seeing with the naked eye. We cannot get caught up with that. And so I see a lot of people… We’re talking to people, and it’s like, this is a very strategic time. People are being shifted and moved. You have to know, is it my time to go? Is it my time to stay? Like, what is God doing with me? What is he saying? And honestly, it takes a lot more faith for us to move from a place we love, you know, that we want all these things. And so it did take a lot of faith to dismantle the homestead. Like it’s taking a lot of faith to say, Okay, I’ll leave like the only place we’ve ever had like a home ‘home’, you know, for the kids. And it’s like with eight kids, people are looking at us like, what are you doing? But it’s like Paul says, if people call you foolish, then you’re working for God. And if they say you’re in your right mind, then you should question, you know… 

Darin Strong You know, the amazing time that we’re living in—talk about the odyssey journey, the 10 years that you’ve been running this incredible organization—you know, it’s so important for us to study history. That’s why they want to get rid of it. That’s why they want to change it. That’s why they want to doctor it, alter it, make it say what they want to, but if you go and find actually what happened a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, it’s gonna absolutely tell you what’s about to happen right now. And if you go back and study history, when this nation was thriving and running off of this agrarian lifestyle, it was the industrial revolution that began to squeeze out the farmers to take their lands, to take their territory, to take their influence. It was the farmers who had all the influence in government. They had all the land in the country. You know, they were the ones feeding people, they were the wealthy, they were the backbone of our country. And then when the Industrial Revolution came in and business owners and industries, they started to squeeze them out. And we’ve been in that for over a hundred years, if not more. But what we’re starting to see is a generation rise up, these little swells, that’s beginning to now disrupt and alter and decentralize these industries. It has nothing to do with the meat. Like the debates on the floors of these government officials from the USDA and all these things… This has nothing to do with trading across state lines, nothing to do about good or bad meat. They don’t care if that steak’s gonna kill you. It has everything to do with them coming to take our territory. They’re coming to take our influence. They’re coming to take back what we took from them. And it’s absolutely happening. And God is looking for people to plant in regions and for people to be surrendered to say, “Yes, I’ll do this.” And the same way that we came over to this nation and colonized it through an agrarian movement, through villages, through communities, through establishing these little towns—take a road trip and drive through small town America, go to the general store and look at what the town used to look like—that’s what these people did. They planted towns throughout the country. And then they squeezed those towns, they made those towns become impoverished, and built their cities around it and all this stuff. And so what we’re seeing now is a return back to that and it’s gonna come with the same thing. So people, when they’re talking about homesteading and they’re looking at buying food from farmers or raising your own food, it’s just God… What goes around comes around. History always repeats itself. What they’ve built is unsustainable. It’s beginning to collapse. 

Monica Strong I think we can say it’s already hit the iceberg. They’re just playing the music to make you think it’s not sinking. 

Darin Strong To fool the farmers, to fool the cattle ranchers, to fool the homesteaders. Like, you know, “We we own y’all.” “No, you don’t. We’re coming for it and you know it and you’re freaking out. And your boat’s actually sinking. Your industrial mammoth that you built called the Titanic that you thought would never sink, it’s beginning to sink. And we’re coming on our arks and we’re gonna take back everything.”  

Monica Strong You heard it here first. 

Darin Strong What is happening is it’s so amazing because this is what happened when we came over here. And what we see in the beginning of that, which is the same exact thing. Like we’re telling you the stories. We did not know how to grow food, raise animals, herd all these cows, do all this stuff. When they came over here, half the people died because they didn’t even know how to grow a garden. Like there’s a lot of carnage in the beginning of a move and a shift like this. And I don’t think people are gonna die, but there’s gonna be a lot of frustration, a lot of learning. Like you said earlier, like we weren’t taught this, you know, to grow three years at a time and do this… So we’re learning all these things. And that’s why it’s important as a community to band together. We cannot single-handedly, on our little homesteads, do what God is trying to do on a large scale. We have to come together the way that they did in these villages and towns and communities and begin to colonize the way that they did. Because something I was gonna say earlier, God’s not done with America. So yes, it’s gonna crumble, but something’s gonna be put in its place. It’s not gonna stay vacant. America as a whole is not gonna be vacant. And no, China’s not gonna come take us. So we’re gonna take back our own country. And he wants to take it back with people that value family, people that value his land, people that value his seed and want to actually use his seed to plant, and then it’s his harvest that we’re praising him for. And so this is what we’re a part of. It’s much more, I believe, than what people are actually conceptualizing. We’re actually taking back a country through means of the way that they came and colonized the first time. It’s history repeating itself. 

Amy Fewell A quick interruption in our podcast episode for today to bring you a little bit more about one of our sponsors, Premier 1 Supplies. At Premier, they’ve been providing electric fencing and electric netting, sheep and goat supplies, clippers and shears, ear tags, poultry products, and expert advice for over 40 years. I can personally vouch for Premier 1 Supplies because they have been a tremendous help for us personally here on our homestead, and they’re a tremendous help every year when you visit them at our conference. They have fencing, sheep and goat supplies, clippers and shears, all of those things, and even poultry supplies. Make sure you check out Premier 1 Supplies at Premier1Supplies.com.

Amy Fewell And what you guys are hearing, you guys that are listening, you’re really hearing a bunch of pioneers in the homesteading community having a conversation, right? Like these are the conversations that we’re having every day of our lives with one another, with other people who are doing it, right? Like we’ve gone through the process, we’ve figured out our mistakes (a lot of them, we’re still gonna make mistakes), and now it’s like, you know, I posted this the other day—if you can afford land right now, buy it. It’s all part of the process of taking back that territory. I had AJ Richards on. Yesterday I was interviewing him, and so that’s probably already come out by the time everyone’s listening to this. And he was literally talking about the same thing. Like all of these businesses, the main four packers of beef are really in charge of the beef industry and the importing and exporting and all of these things. And they are scrambling. Because why? Because right now the Secretary of Agriculture is not opening the border. And so they’re not making all the money that they’re supposed to make. So how do you hurt them? You hurt them in their wallet. You hurt them by taking territory. The consumer, you know, even people who aren’t homesteading, like the Secretary of Agriculture and AJ Richards, they’re pushing for Country of Origin Labeling. Because why? Because Americans are going to choose “raised and packaged in the United States of America” versus “here’s your Argentinian beef,” you know? And so it’s so important as we start talking about these things, like there are people in the homesteading community who are truly pioneers. Like they are truly starting to rise up, you know, and say the things that you’re saying, that I’m saying, and what we’re seeing, I’ve had so many divine encounters this week. It’s unbelievable—yes, of course it’s believable—where people are like, “Yeah, that’s my vision for homesteading. Yeah, that’s my vision for community. That’s my vision for the church.” And it’s like, okay, God is saying the same thing to everyone right now. And so it’s not just, oh, American homesteaders are thinking this. No, this is truly a God movement. Like God is moving on people to build community, to build the ark, to let their voice be heard. And they’re not scared. Like, you know, a few years ago when I started HOA (well, I say a few, and it’s been, of course, 10 now), ten years ago, you know, people… you didn’t talk about homesteading. And when you did talk about homesteading, it was just, “I want to grow food and live a healthier life,” right? And the mindset of isolation was very real because pretty much, we all just wanted to be by ourselves. You know, our extended family was fine, the few friends you might have are fine, but we didn’t want to be bothered by anyone because we could afford to do that in America during that time, right? That was the American dream. You know, own a piece of land, live in the middle of nowhere, have a great career, make some money, raise a family, you’re done. We can’t afford to be that way anymore because 2020 hits and we all see the government is corrupted. A lot of us knew that before, but it’s not just broken, it’s done. Like it’s over. And it amazes me how many people… We’re only five years out from that, and people forget. They have forgotten. 

Darin Strong I literally said that at the conference. Yeah. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, they’ve forgotten. Right. It’s like it never happened. And that’s the plan, right? Let’s get them back into their comfort zone. And I said that this morning to myself. I was watching, you know, there’s the SNAP benefits getting taken away, the government being shut down, all of these things. And I sensed that, like, okay, we are heading into this next move, this next wave of homesteaders, new homesteaders that are gonna come in. Why? Because they’re seeing the government corruption again. They’re seeing what’s happening, and they’re like, “Oh no, this can’t happen again. I’ve got to take control of my stuff.” And so it’s interesting to hear you guys talk about this and see this next move of homesteaders that are gonna come in. They’re gonna need help, they’re gonna need equipping, they’re gonna need instruction. But it’s also important, I want to encourage people like you guys and the people that are listening that just feel that burning inside of them, right? Like, I have to say something, I have to lead something. There’s a reason that God has placed that on your heart because you are called to lead in community. And I don’t just mean online, I more so mean in person. Like you are called to be pioneers in this next movement, this next wave of homesteaders that are coming in. And why? Because you have the wisdom to back it up. You know, God blesses us with wisdom for those who are builders. And you have the attitude to back it up because like you just said, Darin, we’re taking it back, right? There’s no fear in this. We know what our mission is. We know what God’s called us to do. And ultimately we are creating and equipping the next leaders of America. And it’s not going to look like the leaders of America that we have now. 

Monica Strong Yeah, it’s not going to and it’s going to take people realizing that one, you can only… Like I think you just made a hat recently, it says reformer. And major reformations only come every 500 to a thousand years. The Protestant Reformation was 500 years ago, I think like five or seven years ago. So we are right in that cusp, sweet spot, of another reformation spiritually. And when you have a country like America that was founded on Christian principles, that declared out of our mouth, “We are founded on the God of heaven, the one true God in the Bible.” Okay. We are very much like Israel then. We are a country that has been founded on the Lord, right? This is almost like the progression of the church. You have the New Testament and the New Testament was just like a handful of believers, you know. And so then you see this major evangelism throughout like nations, right? So go to Judea, Samaria and the rest of the world. And so it’s like, well, we are two thousand years removed from that. What does it say? It says in Peter, he’s like, you guys are living stones. You’re being built into a living house. And then on top of that, like you’re priests now and you’re actually called to be a holy nation. So 2,000 years later, we should be, yes, us, a holy nation. Well, what we’re doing though is we’re becoming so apostate as a nation. We are tight, we are literally reliving, go read judges. Like every 20 years we’re experiencing a major like shaking, like you’re talking about. There was 911, right? There’s so many things our generation has lived through. It’s amazing we’re still here. We’re being fortified for something, because we’ve lived through 911. We lived through, before that, the 2008, you know, crash and crisis. Then we’ve lived through the COVID debacle, and which was exactly what you’re saying, is just an exposure of where the government actually is. And people can say, “oh, the government, blah, blah, blah,” but the reality is when you’re a part of a nation and that oil anointing is dripping from the beard of the leader down, like, yes, that is the state of the land. What we have to realize is that God is a good God. He is a good father. And yes, there will be, just like any good parent, we will discipline our children if they’re turning away from us, if they’re running in the road, if they’re doing something that is detrimental, right? But with that said, even if we are cut down to a stump, it’s like what Darin is saying and what the Bible is saying in Jeremiah or what God is even saying, like the storm is coming. Yes, it is on the horizon. Yes, it is coming. Yes, please prepare. I’m telling you in my goodness to prepare. This is not fear. But yes, in this next season, this next odyssey, this next 10 years, it’s like you’re saying there will be a new wave of people coming. And for us, really the burden is saying, like, all these people are not going to want… They’re not all homesteaders. Like we have to recognize people all will fulfill different roles. Like there will be people that are called to buy and sell land as your realtor. There are people that are called to be your healers. We will not all have the five to ten acres with all the animals and all the growing and all the preserving and all the things. And that’s why a hundred years ago, the people with common values and goals did start congregating and then it brought out these towns. And, you know, it is about recognizing the greater picture of homesteading into the communal homesteading, the community homesteading, and knowing that there is a lot that we can all bring to the table for each other. 

Darin Strong I look at it like when you talk about homesteading being the ark, which I think that is the central theme of what God is speaking over this movement, it’s an ark. And so if you look at it like that, and the talk that we did, just the idea of homesteading, it’s just so incredible because Noah had to be so incredibly patient. Like to homestead right now in 2025 in America, you’re a complete fool. It’s just pointless. Like you can buy beans at the store for a lot cheaper and a lot easier. You don’t even have to go walk to the store, you can have them drive down your driveway by shopping on your phone, and you didn’t have to move a muscle but your thumb. Like to homestead, it was like Noah building an ark when it never rained before. Like God is having thousands of people do something in a time that literally makes no sense. Honestly, it costs you more money, it costs you more time, it costs you more stress. You know what I mean? If you’re just looking at it like the human life. So it literally makes no sense. So that’s why it’s the ark. And it takes so long. Like you plant these fruit trees, you’re not getting fruit next month. In America, like when I hit search on my iPhone, if it delays a little bit, I’m like refresh, refresh! Like, why are you? I’m trying to get an answer right now, you know? And you want me to plant a tree and wait five years to taste the fruit of it? Like, who’s doing that in our day and age? And so that’s Noah. It’s like, I gotta build this ark for 80 years. I’m doing it and it’s never rained before. I have to do it side by side with my family. This is crazy. And so homesteading is that model. But what Monica is talking about, and what we’re talking about when it comes to the community, it’s like once that ark was complete, you begin to realize this was never just about you and your homestead and your farm because now God’s sending two by two, people to that vessel you built. He’s sending the healers, he’s sending the bakers, he’s sending the spiritual leaders, he’s sending the people into this vessel that you’ve built with infrastructure and decentralization and community driven. And now I’m gonna send families two by two into this region or into this homestead you built, and then I’m gonna begin to fill it because the ark was never just about Noah and the boat, it was about the whole world. Just nobody got on, you know?

Monica Strong And that’s where it’s kind of like Joseph as well. Like the Joseph kind of parallel with the Noah in the sense of like preparing, knowing when you look at history now, obviously, Joseph didn’t know at the time, but like now we do know in history, like even his own family who ridiculed and mocked him and I’m sure everyone here can testify to that. Darin and I can testify. We have been called all the names. And, you know, even they came down the road, and Joseph had to check his own heart that, like, you know, this is not just for me. And then as well as that, Darin did talk about this at the conference too, it’s like you also have to understand, you have to have the discernment as well to know that somebody else’s heart is actually right as well. And so there is a lot of wisdom and discernment, like you’re talking about, Amy, in this next season, knowing exactly what to do. But I mean, I will say, like, if people are willing to take this journey, and really the journey we’ve taken the last 10 years, which is just really a journey, and which is… I think the mantra for our life is we just pray that our life will give people permission to take their own journey. Like God will absolutely lead you. If you want to leave Egypt, he will split the Red Sea, but you’ve actually got to leave Egypt. And Darin and I are here on the other side to say, like, take the journey. He’ll split the sea, but you’ve got to leave Egypt. And we’re over here on the other side. And I’m going, like, I was once on SNAP benefits when my husband lost his job. I’m having my first baby. We have no job, no anything. You know what? The church should have filled in that gap. The church told me to go get SNAP benefits. Darin and I are on the other end of this thing, going, take away the SNAP benefits. The government shouldn’t even be in that place anyway. The government should be doing two things to ensure that our freedoms are in place and that our borders are secure. They have officially done everything else but those two things, and it’s because they’re no longer governed by the people. When you take your life back and you allow yourself to be reformed by God, the potter, he will absolutely answer you, “If you seek me, you will find me.” But you will find yourself crushed on the potter’s wheel, being reformed into a new vessel. But he’s faithful to do it. But when I see things now like…

Darin Strong Which he tested us in, you know, because right before our second baby, I lost my job again. Well, I got a company stolen. And we were like, “Okay, gotta get back on that again.” And then God was like, “Do you?” And we’re like, “Yeah, because the church is not helping us.” “Do you? Do you trust me? I’m the church. I’m your provider, you know? And if my body’s not acting, I will step in.” And so we had to have the faith to say, “No, we’re not gonna get that insurance to have this baby. We’ll somehow pay for it. And no, we’re not gonna take SNAP, food stamps, whatever the thing is.” And so yeah, it was a lot of toast and a lot of oatmeal. 

Monica Strong That’s a whole other live stream. Like how do you leave the systems of Egypt? 

Darin Strong But it was a total faith move, and God sustained us. And so, you know, I didn’t want to cut you off, but I wanted to say it’s one thing to just say, you know, don’t worry about the bit, but it’s like, yeah, trust God. That’s what he’s asking us to do throughout his whole Bible, is trust God. Yeah, you can keep going.

Monica Strong Yeah, I’m just saying, like, we are definitely in a new reformation period of time. That’s what I was saying earlier. We’re definitely in that. And what that is going to look like though is nothing like what we’re coming out of. To be reformed is to literally crush what was there before and form something new. It’s the same clay, it’s the same potter, it is in no way the same vessel. And that’s what allowing yourself to be in that reformation, like re-form-ation, it is to say, “Here I am, Lord, I’m yielded to you, I’m surrendered to you.” And there’s a group of people that are again going to want to exit the crazy cycle, the crazy system that we are in. And to encourage you, like I appreciate the country of origin labels—we’ll take that as an example. We lived in the District of Columbia. We lived in DC ten years ago on Capitol Hill. And we went to Whole Foods one night and I remember grabbing some ground beef and I looked on the back and it said, “Country of…” I don’t know if it said origin, but it basically was just like, “Australia.” It was from Australia. And I was like, what? I was appalled 10 years ago. And I’m like, I’m not buying beef from Australia. Like, how does that even like… How does that even compute? And so I remember putting it back so clearly. And I will just say today, like, I am either getting beef from my local farmer, Joel Salatin, or I’m not eating beef. And that’s where it’s like… 

Darin Strong Virtue. 

Monica Strong People are going to have to find themselves at this hard crossroads. You’re going to have to find yourself where you’re either going to stand on the rock of conviction or you’re going to fall for everything. And honestly, the writing has been on the wall for a long time about our government. And like Amy said, like 2020 was the exposing year of everything. Everybody should have 2020 vision after that as to where this country is. You’ve had five more years again to see it all. And the reality is nothing the government says governs my life. God in his kingdom has a government. I am not saying that to be lawless, but what I am saying is that when governments lose their way… It is written into our literal Declaration of Independence that we are to instill a new government. And in this next season, that new government is going to look like Ecclesia. And I am not referring to a building. I’m referring to a movement of people that are taking back their lives, their homes, their families and their land. And they’re going to say, “From us down, we will serve the Lord.” And our government in America has officially taken the Lord’s place in almost every area of our lives. They’re saying, “This is what you’re going to inject in your body, this is what kind of food you’re going to eat, this is what you are and aren’t allowed to do on your own land that you bought with your own money. And by the way, you’re also going to pay us the taxes for it. And you’re going to do all these things.” And there’s going to have to be a body of people that are only filled with the Spirit of God because only the Spirit of God can make a David stand up to a Goliath. But that’s absolutely what this next season is with this next move of people. And it is absolutely us that are saying, “We have slayed the lion in the wilderness. We have slain the bear in the wilderness. We have been tending to sheep. That’s what we’ve been doing.” But we will absolutely stand in the courts of Pharaoh and say, “Get thee behind me, Satan. We are no longer serving this government.” I mean we are in this period of time and people are going to have to build their faith now because if you don’t have the faith now and you’re building it now in the time we’re announcing it’s time to start building this kind of faith, you’re not gonna have it when the time comes. You’re gonna be like the army of Israel sitting on the sidelines going, “This guy is taunting us in the valley, and it is huge and it is mammoth and it is wrong.” Like it’s wrong. You know, what the government’s doing is wrong. But I’m telling you, when the CDC puts a schedule out and says this is our recommendation, I’m sorry, that is not for my family. None of this recommendation… it doesn’t even affect me. What you’re saying does not affect me. This is not anything God has told me to do. This is what the government is saying for our food system. No, I’m sorry. I have my milk source, I have my meat source, I can grow vegetables, herbs, and things in my yard, and I can go to Azure Standard for my bulk ordering. That is my decentralized food system, and it is in place. 

Amy Fewell And the reality is, you know, Azure Standard’s great, but even in certain areas, there’s even more local stores. Like here in Virginia, we have bulk food stores or even feed, you know, Sunrise Farms here in Virginia is our local source for chicken feed. And so I would say decentralize even more instead of, you know, depending on a company based in Oregon or wherever they’re at. But you know, there are even more… And if you don’t have one, build one. You know, like that’s what I tell people all the time. Like, they always say to me, “I don’t have community here.” Okay, so build it. Like create it. And if you can’t create it, then move. Ooh, we’ve already had an hour, I could do another hour on this topic, but I just want to say this: like, you know, there are so many people who are looking for community right now. And they either don’t have it or they don’t want to build it, and they’re like, “Well, maybe if I move to this state, it’ll be better. Maybe if I move to that state, it’ll be better.” After some time, it’s gonna be like this everywhere. And that’s what we all need to just come to terms with. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better. And if we are not active where we are right now or wherever God is, you know, placing us, now is the time to build. It’s time to stop talking about it and it’s time to just move on with it. And you know, so many people have been sitting on visions and ideas and creations, things they can create in their community. And it’s I just want you guys that are listening to hear this right now, like do it. Now is the time to sit down with other people in your community or your family or your church, whatever it is, and start putting it on paper and building what you know God’s calling you to build in the homesteading community, in your region, wherever it is. And so, again, we could talk about that a whole lot, but I’ve kept you for an hour. 

Darin Strong No it’s good, this was amazing. Hey, I know you gotta go but I want to close with, I read this this morning and I think it’s applicable to end what Monica was saying with everything. In Proverbs 28:1-2, it says, “The wicked run away when no one is chasing them. But the godly are as bold as lions.” I think about when they crossed over and Jericho was the first city and Rahab was there and she was telling the spies, like, “I know y’all are coming. We’ve heard about your God and we are literally trembling. So if I help you, save my family. Like there’s nothing to be afraid of when you serve God in this country. The wicked are the ones trembling because they know. They know what’s on the horizon and they know what’s happening. And then verse two says, “When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily. But with wise and knowledgeable leaders, there is stability.” This government, if they’re just poked slightly, they’re gonna fall over. We’re just not willing to poke them. We’re just letting them push us, push us, push us. So it’s just the word of God, it’s wisdom. And God is establishing knowledgeable, wise leaders to provide stability because when the storm comes and there is famine or there is whatever, the knowledgeable wise leaders that establish these regions are gonna feast in the famine. I believe we’re not gonna actually experience what the nation as a whole experiences if we’re willing to just listen to what God says, build his blueprints, be around knowledgeable wise leaders, and just push back a little bit on the government, and you’ll realize they’ll actually just topple right over. So yeah.

Amy Fewell Oh yeah, we’ve seen it time and time again. Okay. 

Darin Strong Yes. Thanks for having us.

Amy Fewell So at the end, or that could have been it, what you wanted to share. But at the end, I do give everyone a chance: if you have something like burning inside of you that you want to share with our HOA audience, although it could have been this whole episode maybe. Is there anything you would add to close this out that you guys have just had on your hearts recently? 

Darin Strong Yeah, I would just say get in your word. I mean, you can listen to every podcast, you can listen to every person, you can be around the best leaders, you can have the best church in your whole life. But honestly, it wasn’t until Monica and I prayed the prayer, “God,” because we grew up Christians, “erase everything we’ve ever been taught.” And we literally just opened our Bible for ourselves. Literally. We listen to other people, but we listen to them for confirmation, not revelation. And we said, “God teach us.” We just got in the word. And I don’t want to go too deep into this, but just five minutes a day, an hour a day. The time is irrelevant. Just commit to reading the word of God and it’s gonna transform your life. 

Monica Strong Yeah. And with that, you know, we thought he was going to teach us some deeper theological revelation. And he started teaching us about permaculture, a word we didn’t even know what the word was. And really he was just teaching us about his permanent culture he’s already established on the earth. And it’s just waiting for us, all of us, to realize who we are, like who we truly are as sons and daughters. And you know, the Bible shows us time and time again, it just takes a small group of people. I mean, Gideon had thousands and God was like, “You have too many.” So you get the small group of people that are not afraid and, you know, that can save a nation. 

Darin Strong Yep. So get in your word. Thank you. 

Monica Strong Did we just have church or a podcast? 

Amy Fewell We did. I told AJ Richards last week on the podcast, I was like, “Man, I love it when our podcasts turn into church.” It’s the best thing. So alright, guys. Thank you for listening this week. Until next time, happy homesteading. 

Amy Fewell Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s Homesteaders of America episode. We really enjoyed having you here. We welcome questions and you can find the transcript and all the show notes below or on our Homesteaders of America blog post that we have up for this podcast episode. Don’t forget to join us online with a membership or just to read blog posts and find out more information about our events at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. We also have a YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media accounts to find out more about homesteading during this time in American history. All right, have a great day and happy homesteading.