God's Divine Wisdom and Myla's Mission: Mystic Grace Podcast #12

“Howdy!” from the Bitterroot Valley of Stevensville in Western Montana and the Fort Owen Ranch. It is Thanksgiving week and we are in great preparation for a crowd of family and friends that will descend on the ranch in the next few days.

It is so much fun for me to visit here and to be a part of Myla’s First Thanksgiving in her “new” historic home on a live working cattle ranch.

It’s also a beautiful time to be in Montana as this good friend of mine, Myla Yahraus, is taking me on a Sunday drive right through her 600+ acre property down to the sparkling Bitterroot River.

For my twelfth podcast, I have invited Myla to talk about her plans for the ranch, her vision quest and what has happened since she bought the ranch one year ago.

We open gates and close them and watch white tailed deer sprinting across the fields, cattle and horses grazing out in the pastures and the snow covered Bitterroot Mountain Range glittering a short distance away.

The tallest peak is called St. Mary’s Peak by the Salish Indians who have considered it a sacred place for vision quests. According to historical documents and journals, these peaceful interactive Indians were the Bitterroot Valley’s “first people” who invited the “black robes” the Jesuits, to come to their homeland and teach them about the salvation of God.

It took many years and four emissaries for that to happen, but finally in 1841, the first white settlement was built and established as the first Christian/Catholic missionary in Montana. It lasted 9 years before its abandonment and sale to Maj. John Owen who bought the property in 1850 and renamed it after himself. ** See story below.

Maj. Owen had quite the entrepreneurial spirit and ethics to develop the region and make Ft. Owen a successful trading post. He proved to be an outstanding trader/ pioneer, master builder and friend to all. Trusted by the Indians as well as the whites, his word was always good. John Owen was also married to a Shoshone Indian woman known as “Nancy” whom he cherished all of his life.

A well respected negotiator and Indian agent, he was famous for his philosophy, hospitality and holiday feasts.

And here we are, 168 years later, preparing for another thanksgiving feast!

Driving through the river bottom to get to the edge of the river, we are wondering if we are going to get stuck. But Myla’s big diesel F-350 truck and our laughter should see us to our destination. Besides, there’s always Kent, her devoted ranch manager and quite the entrepreneur himself, who would come to pull us out.

I record the sound of the rushing creek and we sit in her truck by the river honoring the vision of what we see before us, God’s Love, for her dream.

As her story begins, she reminds me of Mark Batterson’s book, “Chase the Lion” in which he proclaims “If your dream doesn’t scare you, it isn’t big enough!”

After the death of her beloved husband of 37 years in Las Vegas, Nevada, Myla undergoes eye surgery and contemplates what she is going to do for the next twenty years. She wants to “do something for God.” As her eyes are wrapped in bandages, listening to her dear friend Jackie read to her, she yearns to find a peaceful place for her soul to live and teach. Resting in the darkness, she begins to “see” and feel what God is envisioning for her. She is going to build a trade/vocational school for young adults. She will find the place, the teachers, the tinkerers and the students. She will be happy to start with just 12 young adults.

Joined by other spirited pioneers who feel called into her vision as well, Myla forms a mission statement based on the principles of “Faith, Family, Freedom, & Free Enterprise.” Soon, the Fort Owen Foundation will be set up and a trade school established especially for the youth of America who seem really lost out there on the trail.

Myla feels that America’s soul is on “life support” these days and feels strongly in her need to share her confidence and conviction that when we find ourselves in the darkness, lost and sometimes utterly despondent, we just have to ask God to help us. The truth is that we are not alone and never will be. If you follow your heart & follow your dreams, it opens the mountains and the streams, it opens the windows to the Light of God’s promise for US.

Thank you Myla, “first lady of the fort” for your great vision quest and Kent, for his God-given talent and heart’s desire to run a ranch; for their family and friends who are helping now and for those who will pick up the trail for this great mission in the near future.

You have answered God’s call from the sacred Bitterroot mountains and that of St. Mary’s Peak. The new missionaries have arrived and the vision quest begun. See you at the ranch!

**The story of St. Mary's Mission begins in 1823, when twelve Iroquois, employed as trappers by the Hudson's Bay Company, remained with th