by Dana Taylor
She dreamt of a roller coaster and received a message from God.
When she was eight years old, my daughter, Cary, told me, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a missionary.”
I wasn’t surprised considering our faith-conscious household. My Oklahoma-born husband was a man of strong, sincere Christian belief and I openly pursued healing energy prayer and Christ-centered spirituality.
🌏After high school graduation in 2000, Cary flew off to Hawaii to experience the basic Discipleship Training School (DTS) at Youth With A Mission (YWAM), Honolulu base. Growing from “the Jesus movement” in Southern California in the 1960’s YWAM is a global movement of Christians from many cultures, age groups and Christian traditions throughout the world. YWAM is an all-volunteer organization that follows principles of caring for the needs of the world through Christ’s love in practical ways. With over three hundred YWAM bases around the world, they feed the hungry, care for the homeless, orphans and elderly. For young adults, YWAM offers an alternative lifestyle for youth bombarded by a modern selfish, materialist, culture. Cary’s six-month DTS program included three months of Biblical study at the Honolulu base, followed by three months ministry work in India.
🌴Afterwards Cary explored other avenues but ultimately returned to YWAM Honolulu in her early twenties, where she met her husband, Chris Solima. They married and traveled the globe doing mission work. By the time their first child arrived in 2014, they were the base leaders at YWAM Honolulu. By then, Cary’s mystical side often led their way through dreams.
One tropical Hawaiian morning, she awakened and told her husband, “God just told me I need to go to Asbury University in Kentucky to get my master’s degree.” And so they went. Needless to say, the two Kentucky winters were quite a shock from Hawaiian tropical warmth, but she earned her degree.
By 2019, Cary and Chris had three children, two boys and a girl, and headed to Chris’ hometown of San Jose, California, waiting for further Divine direction. When covid shut down the world in 2020, I joined them in San Jose. Through God’s grace, housing and financial needs were met, even as a fourth baby (another boy) was born.
Then came another dream. At the height the pandemic Cary dreamt of the roller coaster on the Santa Cruz boardwalk, and she understood the next mission. God’s next direction was clear: take Youth With a Mission to Santa Cruz. She sensed the roller coaster was a metaphor for the ups and downs of beginning a whole new ministry.
🏄♂️Santa Cruz lies on the California coast, a place of windswept beauty, where monarch butterflies migrate every fall. The protected waters include a kelp forest visited by whales, dolphins, sea lions and thousands of birds feast along the shore. A few miles inland begin the stands of beloved redwood trees. The human population is a mix of wealthy tech workers from the Silicon Valley, long term descendants of characters captured in tales by John Steinbeck, off-the-grid free thinkers, artists of all types, druggies, surfers, and lost souls.
🙏How could she and Chris possibly begin such an undertaking? No one receives a salary in YWAM. Full-time YWAM staff need to raise funds from monthly donors and earn money in traditional ways. Cary and Chris had little money and four children to support. But, as the scripture goes, With God All Things Are Possible.
With the generosity of spirit-led donors and churches, YWAM Santa Cruz was founded. In 2021, we all moved to the Santa Cruz mountains. Recently completed duplexes nestled on the banks of the San Lorenzo River in Ben Lomond became the first YWAM Santa Cruz base, surely a miracle in a tight real estate market. One by one, staff to teach and lead outreach trips signed on. By the middle of 2022, the need for more housing and teaching space became clear. How would God provide?
Through local church leaders, Cary and Chris met a man connected to the Asbury University. That man was a board member of the Redwood Christian Park (RCP) in Boulder Creek, three miles up the mountain from Ben Lomond.
The RCP had been founded in the 1950’s by families affiliated with Asbury University. The master’s degree Cary earned at Asbury gave her credibility and connection with the RCP board during a time of difficult transition for the Redwood Christian Park. Between the lightning strike-caused CZU complex fire of 2019 and the pandemic shutdown, three seasons of lost church camp summer revenue had reduced the RCP to a skeleton staff waiting for better times. The RCP board of directors invited Cary and Chris and other YWAM families to move into vacant houses at the RCP in December of 2022. It has been a blessed and mutually beneficial relationship between the two organizations now thriving on the sprawling property.
We still marvel at the divine plan revealed through Cary’s dream to attend Asbury in 2017 that opened a vital door five years later in 2022 for the future of the YWAM Santa Cruz ministry. In the summer of 2023, a cottage on the RCP was provided to me. Currently, I live in the Asbury House.😊 My role in supporting YWAM Santa Cruz is primarily providing childcare and carpooling, for two more sons were born. Cary and Chris now have six children, five boys and one girl. There’s also Leroy the cat, Ollie the golden retriever, a snake named Paris, plus chickens and even quail!🤩
🎉In November of 2026, YWAM Santa Cruz celebrates its 5th anniversary. Through a ministry begun with a prophetic dream, students now take a deep dive into Biblical literacy and discover the joy of fellowship under the redwood trees. They participate in local ministry to the Santa Cruz community through youth programs and engaging with the unhoused. They travel to foreign lands, teaching in places like Cambodia and Nepal. And this is just the beginning.
I wonder what the next dream will reveal?
