I’m Serra!
My family and I continue to strive for a natural living lifestyle. I’m an RN with a love for herbal medicine, natural birth, homebirth, and homesteading.
Welcome to Pioneer Health Ministry! This isn’t your typical natural living resource. I’m passionate about natural living, natural birth, homebirth, and homesteading. As a registered nurse, I’ve seen and learned a lot about what true health entails. I’ve come to recognize how our medical and food systems are broken.
Here, I’m sharing these lessons with all of you who are searching for answers. This has been a long journey for myself and my family. I continue to learn new things every day and how to implement changes in our lives. It’s not always easy, but I hope that by creating Pioneer Health Ministry, I can help others along this journey to better health.
My Background
Many years ago, I entered the medical field as a medical assistant and quickly went into the United States Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. In the Navy, I served on the labor and delivery and the medical/surgical units for several years. It was while in the Navy that I challenged the LVN board and obtained my LVN license in California. Once I was a civilian again, I was able to continue my education in the nursing field. I went to California State University of Sacramento (CSUS) and completed the LVN to RN program. Shortly after that I finished my RN to BSN program.
I’ve held a multitude of different jobs, such as a nurse at the Folsom State Prison, working in skilled and assisted nursing facilities, managing dementia facilities, and hospice teams. Most recently, I was working in hospitals for bedside patient care. I was working on different adult units such as cardiac, neurology, orthopedic, medical and surgical, and others.
I’ve held a multitude of different jobs such as a nurse at the Folsom State Prison, working in skilled and assisted nursing facilities, managing dementia facilities and hospice teams. Most recently, I was working in hospitals for bedside patient care. I was working on different adult units such as cardiac, neurology, orthopedic, medical and surgical, and some others.
Journey to Natural Living
During these different jobs, I was seeing the medical system up close and personal. I was noticing that there wasn’t much healing happening but Band-Aids being put in place and the revolving door kept moving. In my eyes, this was not how the medical system should operate.
I was also battling personal health issues, migraines and infertility. I was barely functioning a lot of the time and constantly in and out of the emergency room for the migraines. Doctors could not tell me why I was having fertility issues or the inability to lose weight. Finally, with no medical explanation or medication that could be given to help, I turned to “alternative medicine” such as essential oils. From there it was one thing after another: changing the foods we ate, learning about fragrances and other chemicals in our everyday lives, and herbal medicines.
This has been a long journey, and I’m still not where I want to be, but it does take time. It’s not something that can happen overnight, unfortunately. I am still making swaps here and there as I can.
I have a passion for educating others on how they can make small changes to further their journey into natural living.
Natural Living, Birth and Homesteading Advocate
I am a huge advocate for homebirth and natural birth in general. Of our five children, our first two were born in the hospital, and the rest were homebirths. If you’re interested in my birth experiences, watch the video HERE, where I discuss those first two hospital births and what led us to choose homebirth for the rest.
I also have a blog post on homebirth to help encourage and empower women. You can find that post HERE. Please comment with your own experiences or hesitations so I can get to know my readers.
Homesteading Journey
Right before 2020 lockdowns hit, I was already planning my first ever backyard garden. From there it was chickens and then goats for a short time. I have over a 2000 sq ft raised bed garden on our 0.36-acre home in Paradise, California. We are still raising chickens and one day would love to have more property for livestock again. However, I am learning all I can about food sustainability and preserving. Along with continuing my gardening skills for the day I can have a large-scale farm.
My YouTube channel shows my progress in learning to homestead over the past several years. Please follow me there and let me know what you think.
We also homeschool our children. I love bringing them alongside me as I’m learning so that they can grow up learning healthier lifestyle habits.
