By Kat Silverglate © 2026
"Within every heart there exists a special place, a place where the hopes and dreams of the soul soar, unchained by logical or physical entrapments. For some... this place becomes… where the spirit runs free… where the impossible flourishes, where dreams survive the inferno of Reality to become the miraculous wonders that draw us forward — it is the place where hope rises."
Hope Rising by Kim Meeder
When God asked Jeremiah -- "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?" -- Jeremiah had a fire in his bones; a calling he was answering with his life (Jer. 12:5). But the infernos of reality – doubts, trials, fears, exhaustion, obstacles – threatened to burn his resolve to go at full gallop where God continued to lead him. He felt less like a God-empowered specimen formed uniquely to run the race set before him and more like a world-weary, abused-by-fallen-humanity, emaciated nag in need of a rescue. Eugene Peterson sums up Jeremiah’s answer to God this way:
“The response when it came was not verbal but biographical. His life became his answer, ‘I’ll run with the horses.’”
Run With The Horses, Eugene Peterson
Born a year apart in the late 60's to separate families who moved more than they stayed put, neither Alison Boyd nor Heidi Newell knew the biography of their lives would intersect so profoundly through trauma, tragedy and temperament to a literal and spiritual running with horses. Before becoming near-instant middle school besties, each had repeatedly packed and unpacked their entire lives in major family moves. Heidi, a year older, moved with her military family from North Dakota to Texas to California (San Diego, then Redlands), across the ocean to Belgium, back across the ocean to California, and then to Minnesota where she started to unpack more than her physical life. Alison moved whenever the broadcasting company for which her dad worked acquired a new station – California to Texas to Chicago to Minnesota where she started to discover some of the “too much” that seemed to poke out of her carry-on.
Heidi’s childhood baggage arrived in Minnesota overstuffed with a mixture of the abruptly traumatic, the confusingly dark and the stunningly beautiful. The abruptly traumatic came at three and a half years old, on a drive with her family from San Diego to the Los Angeles Airport, when their car collided with a dump truck leaving her hospitalized with a broken leg and severely torn ligaments in her neck. Getting the other non-hospitalized family members home [two hours away] and cared-for left Heidi in the hospital without a parent some days. She remembers the feeling of great comfort from a family friend who brought her hand-made felt animals on those parentless days.
The confusingly dark came to her in foggy flashes: the weight of a full-grown man on top her, the smell of alcohol breath, a switch blade, feelings of fear.
The stunningly beautiful included parents and sibs who would, no doubt, have fiercely protected her if they had only known about the confusingly dark compartment in her carry-on; parents who supported her obsession with horses and, parents who chose to take her to a church in Belgium where she experienced the overwhelming love of God. “When I walked into that place, it was so different than the world outside. Like a compartment. When I was in it, I didn’t want to leave. It was overflowing with God’s unconditional love. When I walked out the door, I could feel the difference.” She still has the little green Bible where she, at 11 years old, recorded her decision to give her heart to Christ.
Alison’s carry-on also contained a loving family who took her on a horseback ride at three and then listened to her persistent unrelenting requests to ride and own a horse. She was invested in by her maternal grandparents who had fostered close to fifty children and adopted her mother as their only child. Born with a naturally encouraging high-energy temperament, then moving to the home of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders in the 70’s, she carried around a dream of becoming a professional cheerleader one day. But there were other things in her bag too… things she didn’t choose to put there… things that came with her to Minnesota. Like being identified as the member of the family that had an intense energy and persistence that sometimes wore people out. “I was a lot. Too much sometimes. When I wanted something, I bugged my parents until they were exhausted. So much so that when we moved, my family would arrange with friends to keep me for the weeks surrounding the move so they didn’t have to manage my too-much-ness and the move at the same time. I found this out later in life.” She also carried a good deal of confusion about the irreconcilable conflicts between her atheist father and Catholic mother’s views on death and the afterlife.
Shortly before they met, each girl had managed to work hard enough to earn enough to buy or lease a horse. Heidi babysat for a year, and Alison started her own candy company - Alison’s Chocolate Factory. Heidi bought Monica, a mounted police and rescue horse. “Monica was bomb proof. Compared to me, she was massive and so safe. She knew everything about me: my fears, the things I was confused about, the dreams I had. That horse held the buckets of tears that leaked out of me when I spent time with her.” Alison’s parents decided that a lease would be the best place to start for her, so she first leased Becky and then bought Kody and a saddle that she still has today. “Kody had been abandoned by her owner. She stood in her stall every day all day. Someone at the barn told me, ‘this horse needs a person’ and that became me. She was barn sour – afraid to leave her stall. I had to contain all my get-what-I-want-right-now energy and build slow trust with her. Not push too hard or be too much. It was good for both of us. We did it slowly, one step forward two steps back, but eventually we got out of the barn - together.”
Since they were the only kids at the 60-stall facility where their horses lived, it wasn’t long before they spent every waking moment there. Alison remembers it this way: “One mother would drop us off early in the morning and the other would pick us up at sundown. We’d ride all day long, sing songs, plan the details of the horse camp we wanted to run when we grew up, agree to marry guys who were also best friends and loved horses. It was idyllic. I never had a friend like that in my life. She never seemed to get tired of my energy.”
Heidi remembers it this way: “I had so many things inside me that I didn’t understand and hadn’t told anybody. There was something about how safe we felt together, about the rhythmic rocking of this massive horse on long rides, that allowed memories to come up. Alison and my horse were the only beings in the world that knew things I couldn’t make sense of."
Alison eventually convinced Heidi to try out for the cheer squad, which they both joined after she energetically led her friend through relentless training: “jump, clap, turn, split.” And while they generally thrived socially at school, Heidi experienced some triggering moments that made her an oddity to some. The standout memory for her was walking into a party, smelling beer and seeing a knife in the hand of one of the boys. “I froze with unexplainable fear, made myself as small as possible, forced myself under a chair and stayed there shaking while kids ridiculed me.”
Alison never left her side.
When her BFF and horse Kody moved to Connecticut the year before Heidi graduated from high school, dark places inside had no place to find air, so she began coping through disordered eating toggling between bulimia and anorexia. In her second year of college, a friend invited her to a bible study and the scales fell from her eyes -- the Lord was her rescuer. He’d been there all along. It was time to trust Him. Her slow messy road to recovery included a break from college, a six-month stint as a flight attendant, time in therapy and Bible study and $8 flights to visit her bestie who was now in college in Virginia.
Alison who was studying psychology to figure herself out and religion to figure out her unresolved questions about death, was dating the man she would eventually marry, Charlie. Just as they’d dreamt, one of Charlie’s best buds, Mike, fell head over heels in love with Heidi. That relationship gave Heidi a major perspective shift: “When I was with Mike, I was filled with a deep desire to be well so I could be a healthy wife and mother one day. We broke up for a while. I saw the inconsistency between the life of God in me and my destructive eating disorder. I went deep in therapy. In Bible study. God sent me three women to affirm my dream to become a vet. I got in. Mike and I were married during my last year of vet school.”
Alison, now a gym owner, and Charlie, a golf pro, had three boys in four years. All her religious studies in college left her without satisfactory answers. She was still carrying the same questions about life after death. She didn’t want her kids to be confused like she was. So, she started to go to church where they gave a clear message about heaven at every service. What did she need to do? Give up! See grace as a gift. Stop striving. Forget performing her way into heaven. Christ was the gift her striving could never earn. She continued to resist.
Her friend Heidi was sharing her faith with Alison in the middle of bringing 4 kids into the world. At the same time, she was learning details that confirmed the sexual abuse she’d experienced as a child. She was angry and very vocal about it to Alison, her lifelong confidant. She knew Alison was seeking answers about God at the time, and she was terrified this would turn her away from faith. But it didn’t. Instead, Alison saw Heidi’s heart to forgive.
An unexpected storm at Alison’s gym finally brought her to the end of herself. She was now running a 10,000 square foot fitness facility that she and her husband built. An employee named Jeremy was the bright light of the place. A servant. A joy. And a rock-solid follower of Jesus. When the two of them couldn’t stop the rain from getting into the building, Jeremy told Alison to go home. That he’d lock up and leave right behind her. His car hydroplaned leaving him with permanent brain injuries. That was the end of Alison. She gave up. She asked the Lord to take the reins. He did. Four years later, her husband found himself being loved into a relationship with Jesus.
Heidi and Mike moved to Georgia where they were able to have horses again. She stumbled on a book about a horse rescue ministry in Oregon – Hope Rising by Kim Meeder. It was filled with stories of how God uses rescue horses in ministry to reach children of abuse, trauma, and other struggles. She bought it for Alison who was equally swept away by it. The book explains why children with various challenges can relate spiritually and emotionally to abandoned and abused rescue horses. In the horse, the child can see themselves, hurt but beautiful. In the massive animal the child can glimpse the power of God brought to a place of safe interaction and love. The relationship is one of mutual responsiveness. The horse responds to the child’s emotions and the child responds to the actions and reactions of the horse. They are experiencing a safe, trusting, loving relationship - some for the very first time.
Alison and Charlie move to Virgina. Her gym days are clearly over. She’s figuring out what to do next. She invites a boy and his mom for a play date with her son at her house. She and Jane, the mom, don’t know each other. Literally, the conversation goes like this.
Jane: “so what do you do?” Alison: “I ran a gym for 12 years. I’m trying to figure out what to do next.” Jane: “if you could do anything, what would you do?” Alison: “I read a book about an organization in Oregon who rescues horses and uses them to minister to struggling kids. I would do that.” Jane: “I’m in, let’s do it!”
Alison hadn’t owned a horse in 20 years.
They go to the author of the equine ministry book and ask, “where do we start?” She tells them about free conferences they give at her farm, Crystal Peaks. They go. Get overloaded with information. Poured into. Prayed over. And sent home overpacked with more than they can process. At home, they share the story with some horse people at their church. One says: “you can do it at my house and start with my two horses.” The other says: “I’ll be on your board.” They call it Wings of Hope. It really was that ridiculous.
The ministry starts to grow fast and fruitfully. When they need to expand, they meet a woman with more land who has also read Hope Rising. For four years, they use her land for free for the horses and trailer them to use with the kids off site. Once they get up to 10 rescue horses, Betty, the generous landowner, invites them to run the whole operation there. Again, all for free. So many people want to learn from the mission that Alison begins a yearly conference to bring people together to share what they know. To unpack what is overflowing from the abundance of God.
Meanwhile, Heidi and Mike feel a deep calling to adopt. They are blessed with Amelia Grace, a six-year-old from China who has suffered a blunt force trauma to the head. She arrives with scars and bug bites all over her body. She has surgery to repair her skull. Heidi and Mike allow her to buy a rescue horse named Prince. Like her, he’s covered in bug bites from head to toe. He’s malnourished. Amelia Grace nurses him back to health. He gains 200 pounds. Turns out, he’s a pure-bred Arabian, not a nag; Amelia Grace is the adopted daughter of the highest King, not an orphan. They learn this together. The experience is transformative for the whole family. They pray for and support Alison and Charlie and Wings of Hope. Heidi sees her ministry to her adopted child as her equine ministry to one. They are doing the same thing, just on a different scale.
Heidi eventually tells God, “When I’m done with my car pool season, I want to spend one hour a week with horses and ministering to kids.” She’s very clear, “one hour.” God responds with a vision of a large ranch with a giant oak tree and kids with horses running free. She tells Him that isn’t possible. By now they have moved to Orange County California to a place with no land, no horses, no barn, no trails. Nothing. God prompts her to ask her zero-lot line neighbor for a walk. She resists because they are strangers. Finally, she does it. Within 10 minutes, they share their faith stories and their love of the Lord. This woman’s heart is ginormous. When Heidi shares her dream of starting an equine ministry program, she offers to do all the nonprofit paperwork. “I love that stuff. I do it all the time.” She got it done in record time, for free. And off they went to Alison’s yearly conference overpacked with questions and desire and empty space to bring back the overflow from God’s great abundance in others.
The rest came into place almost as ridiculously as the Genesis creation story. God said, let there be a facility with ample land and along came a huge horse facility that the owners allowed them to use for free, a huge park behind the facility that they were allowed to use for free with shade trees and tables and bathrooms, an arena, and horses that they could “borrow.” It was like having a huge ranch. God said, let there be volunteers and along came Christian therapists and people trained in equine assisted learning and volunteers largely through their church’s foster and adopt ministry and small group. Their church provided resources to “trauma inform” volunteers at all levels, finger printing, and the like. And then, a women who ran a group home for survivors of sex trafficking said, “here’s your first group. Let’s giddy up!” And while all of that sounds overly simplistic and ridiculous, the way Heidi describes it is pretty straight forward: “We kept arguing with God about the obstacles to the needs and He kept knocking them down and providing. There was no question that He was behind all of the miracles that had to happen for this to function.”
Through another miracle, Alison’s ministry finally moved to a 50-acre parcel that God brought through impossible circumstances. A large donor made possible the construction of all that was needed to run the mission in one location. Heidi and Mike found land in San Diego in a fertile river basin. They call it Amelia Grace Farm. They are amazed by what God has done – horses, volunteers, donors, kids, and more – and what He continues to do there and in Orange County. All of it, absurd!
The Mystical Minimum
G. K. Chesterton calls the gratitude that swells from the human realization that God is always creating something from nothing “the Mystical Minimum.” It is the bedrock of hope. God’s provision. In The Ballad of the White Horse, Chesterton describes God as a secret personal gardener in service to his soul planting oak trees high where we aim and thickets low where bodies come to rest. With stunning relatability to the vision Heidi and Alison saw in childhood, Chesterton writes: “For was not God my gardener, and silent like a slave; that opened oak on the uplands, or thicket in graveyard gave?” Hadn’t God already secretly provided, silently in servanthood to His plan, all that would be needed for the seed He deliberately chose to lodge in two besties? And not just place but place for the purpose of bringing order from the chaos of their lives, and the countless lives of volunteers, participants and future seed incubators? For hearts that hold Eden’s wholeness in the rubble of a broken world?
Becoming Overpackers - September's Mobile Mission
In your Mobile Mission Pack, you have a separate 'Packing Essentials' insert. Inside that, you'll find a giant OVERPACKED sticker and three sticky notes that say “I Love This: ● for me ● for you ● for us.” Whether we realize it or not, we are becoming healthy overpackers when we more clearly see all that is stuffed into our carry on… the things we take everywhere we go… our story so far, gifts, resources, ideas, questions, doubts, hopes, prayers, space to receive whatever God will bring our way… all of it IS for you, yes. But, isn't it also for the people He prompts you to share it with? Isn't it also for the community of faith running with horses in His strength?
Consider putting that OVERPACKED sticker in a place you can see it all month long. Spend one month looking at your life. What’s in your carry on? Find three reasons to give those sticky notes away to someone who needs what is already overstuffed in your bag.
-Becoming a better Overpacker for yourself: Consider writing a piece of your God story so you will see God's hand on you with clarity. This will prepare you to give it in appropriate ways.
-Becoming a better Overpacker for others: Consider asking God to poke you and show you who needs something you have. It may seem insignificant, but not to them!
-Becoming a better Overpacker for the community of faith: Consider where you might join God where His people are gathering and ask what He’s up to! Something already in your overpacked bag might be an answer to prayer for them. Something in their overpacked bag might be an answer to prayer for you!
Amen? Amen!
