Stay under the starry heavens and help angels watch over a little church
“Home, home on the range!”
Bring your RV. Stay in our spacious, grassy church parking area, which has a great panoramic view of mountains. It’s in a beautiful rural valley beneath the Dripping Springs Mountains, south of Globe and north of Winkelman, Arizona. (That’s about 100 miles east of Phoenix and 70 miles north of Tucson.) Pinal Peak stands just 20 miles north in the Tonto National Forest. Hiking trails abound in both mountain ranges.
You can work-camp part-time (10–15 hours/week) or volunteer/donate $150/month to the church and park for free. If there’s more than one person or outdoor pets let’s negotiate what’s fair. (Electricity is available in addition, if you pay for your monthly electric use.)
This is a peaceful, rural setting.
People love the beautiful Dripping Springs mountains panorama, with many places to hike, and the peaceful spiritual presence on the 1.1-acre church property.
This is our third year to offer our beautiful location to stay. Those who came before said they loved it.
Although this is a “boondocking” experience, we installed two new RV electrical hookups. If you want electricity, please reimburse us promptly each month. A $100 security or utilities deposit is asked ($200 in summer), which will be refunded to you promptly when you leave your parking spot clean and your optional electricity is paid.
If you want to use an extension cord to park further from the outlet than the usual 50-foot trailer cord reaches, it must be a 30-Amp Extension Cord for RV and Auto, (50-Feet) 3-Prong 125-Volt 10/3 STW 10AWG Gauge, 3 Wire, NEMA TT-30P to TT-30R, Outdoor Camper Power Cord. Here are two examples: (1) and (2).
We can provide free clean drinking water from our well for you. Our aquifer has some of the best quality water in Arizona, a hydrogeologist who tested the water tells us. (If you’d like to plant a large garden or use a lot of water, you might make a donation.)
The church is closed except for services.
That’s why we’d like someone just to be on the property.
Unfortunately, neighbors ruined our septic system by holding workshops with large crowds on weekdays when we weren’t there. Since we don’t have a septic holding tank to hookup, the church toilets cannot be used, so you’ll need to be self-contained.
For “boondocking,” perhaps you could use your camping potty, a composting toilet, or use the composting outhouses at the community across the street. You might like to use biodegradable bags that fit your toilet, and later bury them. Or you could sign up for trash pickup to dispose of bagged waste. You can suggest how you’d like to do this. We can discuss these possibilities.
There are also facilities for RV black water dumping at the Apache Gold casino, 24.2 miles north of the church, near the town, Globe, where you can shop, etc. There is another casino, Apache Sky, 27.8 miles to the south, past the little town of Winkelman that is just 18.1 miles from the church. Another 10 miles west of Winkelman is the small town of Kearny, where more shopping is available.
These maps will show you Winkelman, Kearny, and the bigger city of Globe, Arizona, where the nearest shopping is.
Just 1/3 mile from the church is a good, strong cell phone signal for calls, downloading videos, or checking email. Or you might like to subscribe to Starlink mobile service and have internet in your own RV home. Other satellite services, such as Hughsnet, are also available in this area. Or you might want a satellite phone, or a “Bivy stick” for text messaging only, available with monthly service from the Satellite Phone store on-line.
UPS regularly delivers packages to you in the yard. Mail delivery is available if you’d like us to use our mailbox. Just let the Winkelman postmaster know to deliver your mail to the church.
Please, no smoking, drinking or drugs on the church property.
Fires must be in a designated area and special precautions taken during months when fire risk is high. You can use our burn barrel depending on the season, or subscribe to trash delivery. We have to be very cautious about fire hazards during the fire season when grass is dry.
We hope you’ll be courteous and respectful of our simple honest values.
You can choose to work 10–15 hours per week in exchange for free parking (and basic water). If you’re a couple or a family rather than one person, we can negotiate work hours and/or donations so that it’s fair to both of us.
References will be appreciated.
Honesty, caring and integrity are the most important gifts you can bring.
God will provide His angels!
Some who wish, may feel this as a peaceful, loving presence or a deepening in the sky and all around.
It brings these words to mind:
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit,” Jesus said. (John 3:8)
That may be why neighbors chose the land across the street a year after the church was built in 1982 and dedicated to God on the first day of the Advent season. They call their community, Wind Spirit.
Regular church services are not being offered due to coronavirus, but a small Sunday service may be held just for us.
Although it’s not every Sunday, we ask you a favor —
Please be on the property on the Sundays (usually from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or later near sunset in the summer)
whenever the minister is present to give a service, since it’s a rural setting. We’ll do a work project or visit in the afternoon. We appreciate this and ask you to please honor this commitment to be on the property on these Sundays.
Please join the Association by becoming a subscribing member to the newsletter. Members are allowed to be on the property anytime throughout the year, rather than just come as a guest for Sunday services. Come and go as often as you wish. You can stay and camp a few weeks or months, then come back again in the Spring, if you’d like. A subscribing membership donation is $35/year (or $25 for seniors or the disabled).
Make this your home on the range!
We hope you’ll enjoy your stay on our beautiful, rural church property on the former Christmas Star Route beneath Christmas, Arizona, and the Dripping Springs Mountains in central Arizona.
The church, the land and the valley have a wonderful history.
After Ray Elkins built the church in 1982, he dedicated it simply to God and said, “This organization is designed not as a religion, each of you have your own and that is as it should be. This is a philosophy.”
Come where all faiths are welcome.
For more information, call the office landline phone (520) 742–0911 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Arizona time. (Sorry, we don’t have text messaging.)
Or you can E-mail us at AUP@earthlink.net or AUniversalPhilosophy@gmail.com.
Or message us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AUniversalPhilosophy/.
We’ll be glad to answer your questions. Let us know you’re interested and how we can talk with you.
Hope to see you soon!
