A Cracker Barrel Christmas ornament and church in Roanoke VA

My name is Marlene Ferreira, and I am the founding pastor of Walking On Water.  This is the extraordinary story of God and a Cracker Barrel Vision and a church plant.  Yes indeed, what does Cracker Barrel have to do with starting a church?  Below is the story in orderly sequence.  (Acts 11:4)

In 2004, I was praying at an altar in Fredericksburg VA, during a healing conference, hosted by a local church. The conference itself was led by Randy Clark from Global Awakening.

I was praying alone at the altar, worshiping . . . when, all of a sudden, I saw this long rectangular light colored metal building in front of me. It had a roof over the porch and I was looking from the side all the way down the porch.

I had only been in the United States for about 4 yrs at that point in time, and the only thing I could associate the vision with, was a Cracker Barrel restaurant building. Granted, Cracker Barrel is dark brown and this building was a light cream color, but it's the shape that grabbed me. Cracker Barrel was the only building I knew that looked like that.

While I was looking at the building, I heard the Lord say (like an impression in my head), "That's your church".

I had just come out of a very painful ministry in South Africa where, as a Pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, I had stood up against "apartheid"/segregation, which led to persecution and my eventual resignation and painful transition to America.

Emotions were still raw and in the midst of the vision, I got very emotional and told God I would never pastor a church again.  I ran out of the church, flooded with grief. After the conference, I was home and having great difficulty processing the "Cracker Barrel vision".  I was determined to say no!  Not gonna happen!!!

Well, come Christmas, one of my friends gave me a Cracker Barrel Christmas ornament.  She assured me she did not know about my vision when she bought it.  It's the one in the picture.  Has been traveling with me for the past 18yrs.  Over the years, I have looked at it often, trying to figure out what it meant. By that time Cracker Barrel had become synonymous with the vision.  

It took me a while, but I eventually apologized to God for saying no.  I told Him I wanted whatever He wanted although I still felt trepidation in my heart.  

As I started meditating on the whole vision scenario and the fact that it happened during a healing conference, I became convinced that the Lord was calling me into some kind of healing ministry, which added more layers of questions and frustrations.  It was difficult enough trying to figure out what Cracker Barrel and Church had to do with each other, but now I was also asking God, "If I'm really called to a healing ministry, why don't people get healed when I pray for them?" 

Prayer became intense.  I made up my mind to pursue God with everything that I had.  David talks about panting for God like a deer pants for water in the desert.  I understand that now.  Somebody who does not understand, will call it striving without even thinking, because if you haven't been there, pursuit can look like striving.   It's not!!!! 

As I pursued God, I started learning about reckless abandonment and total surrender to God and in my pursuit, God took Cracker Barrel to a whole different level. Cracker Barrel became a symbolic theme in my pursuit and it started popping up in my life in hilarious ways. Every pop up was like a bread crumb leading me into deeper encounters with the Lord. 

Folowing are a few of these hilarious Cracker Barrel "pop ups".

Sometime after I got the Cracker Barrel Christmas ornament for a present,  friends and I decided to go into business.   We drove to Danville VA to a bank one day and would you know, one of the branches of this bank was in a Cracker Barrel Restaurant.   The bank had bought the restaurant, left the outside of the building original, but changed the inside into a bank.  You can't make stuff like this up!!! 

I was struggling financially,  living with friends, needing an income, not understanding how God was going to make this so called "Cracker Barrel Vision" happen, thinking I was silly to even entertain a vision like that and there I was, looking at a "Cracker Barrel" bank?????  I went home in turmoil.  On the one hand excited about a business venture and the prospect of generating an income, on the other completely blown away ...  "God, what are you saying?"  

My life was so far removed from pastoring a church,  it wasn't even funny.  As a matter of fact, it almost felt cruel.  I actually considered myself a complete failure at ministry.   My stand against segregation in South Africa, cost me everything, including my confidence and this Cracker Barrel vision made me acutely aware of  "failure" and my lack of confidence.  I was still trying to pick up the pieces of what seemed like a broken calling and a broken me.

To make matters worse, in spite of putting all my best efforts into this business venture, after about 2 years, it failed miserably.  Another failure!!!!  And then I tried another business venture and it generated some income but nothing sustainable.  I was learning that when God calls, forget about trying your own thing . . .  In the mean time, the friends I lived with were aging and I had gradually become a care giver which I considered an honor.  They were deteriorating in health, and in spite of all my prayers,  they eventually passed away.  So much for a healing anointing!!!! 

My prayers became heart wrenching cries and my worship went deep into the night, sometimes leading me into some very special encounters with the Lord.  Those encounters and a Cracker Barrel Christmas ornament, served as reminders that God sees and God hears.

Even when life is difficult and we don't understand, even when there are more questions than answers, even when tears are constant companions . . .  He is right there!!!  Take courage my friend.  Wait on the Lord.  And yes, waiting can be excruciating!!!!  But waiting is the way to total surrender and reckless abandonment and wholeness.

I found myself alone and very ill in an apartment mid 2016, mourning their death, wondering about the future, looking at a Cracker Barrel ornament, fasting and praying,  seeking Him, having encounters with Him, wondering if I would ever be able to function again . . .  God never leaves us nor forsakes us!

It is at this point that God started ramping up the Cracker Barrel theme.  Today I can laugh about it but at the time . . .  not so funny . . .  I had not yet figured out what Cracker Barrel and church had in common, but God was bent on showing me.

2016 was a difficult year full of sickness and isolation and grief.  At the time I was unaware that I had a very serious Vit b12 and D deficiency that was affecting me neurologically and also didn't realize that deficiencies were just symptoms of something else that we still haven't figured out at the time of this writing.  Bottom line, I was severely compromised and unable to work. 

Come 2017, I was forced to enter the work place irrespective of health problems.  So, needless to say, I was at some of the lowest of lowest times in my life.  Besides pursuing the Lord, survival was the ONLY thing on my mind.  Sometimes we just live to survive one moment at a time.  We've all been there.  Needless to say, Cracker Barrel was buried deep underneath all of it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Survive baby!  Survive!  That's all! Cracker barrel forgotten.

So, I'm working in the bakery in Kroger.  Physically I'm struggling because my body is neurologically compromised and I am fighting depression and grief.  On the outside I'm laughing, supposedly living, but on the inside I'm dying.  Anybody been there?  Too many tears when nobody is looking.

At this point I am also Director of Pastoral Care at Grace Covenant Church (GCC) in Roanoke VA.  I'm loving on other people, encouraging them but struggling to encourage myself.   Holding onto Jesus with every ounce of my being, because without Him I know I am NOTHING.

One afternoon, I came rushing out of the bakery, my shift was done and I was so ready to go home and crash.  I took off out of the bakery onto the floor area of Kroger, and almost rushed slap bam into a big display someone had erected, right at the entrance of the bakery. It brought me to a shocking halt, because I was not expecting anything there.  I literally almost body slammed it, because I was on the verge of running and not really looking.

In front of me was a big Cracker Barrel display with cold meats.  Would you know. Cracker Barrel had started selling their own brand of cold meats, and had gotten permission to put a great big life-sized Cracker Barrel cardboard display up with samples of their meats on it.  I stood there in absolute disbelief.  

"God.  Not now!!!!  You cannot seriously want to have this discussion when I'm 'dying' and life has been reduced to one excruciating moment at a time."  I went home bawling!  Truth was, I needed hope and that display was the epitome of hope.  God had not forgotten me.  God still loved me.  God still remembered!

I want to encourage somebody.  No matter how discouraged you are, there is hope in Jesus.  He will find you and He will strengthen you.  He loves you.  I was dying, but I was also learning how to live absolutely immersed in the love of the Lord.  I was learning that Jesus is more than enough.  He really is amazing!!!

In 2019 I was working for Carilion, still struggling with major neurological issues, involved with pastoral ministry at GCC, teaching, occasionally preaching,  feeling frustrated at times.  "Lord, what does Cracker Barrel mean?"  I could still see the long light colored rectangular building with a roof over the porch in my mindseye.  "Lord, am I supposed to be looking for a building like that or is it just symbolic?"

As a matter of fact,  during the COVID lock down, I was sitting on a picnic table at GCC looking at the building and it suddenly hit me that over the years, GCC had evolved into a long rectangular light colored building.  BUT, it did not have a roof over the porch.

So, somewhere in 2019/2020 I got to church early one Sunday morning.  The worship team had just finished practicing for the morning service that would start later.   The doors to the sanctuary were still closed and I went in to greet everybody.  The team was scattered throughout the sanctuary, off the stage, except the worship leader.  The tech team was doing their wrap ups before the service started.

I was greeting everybody and eventually found myself standing in the middle of the sanctuary.  The doors were closed.  It was just me and the worship and tech teams . . . Suddenly the worship leader who was still on the stage, took his guitar and started fooling around making up a song . . .  drum roll please . . . He started singing, "Lord, here we come to Cracker Barrel ..."  ??????  He did not  know anything about my Cracker Barrel vision!!!!!  As I stood there, a strange sensation went through me.  I don't have words to describe that moment.  It was a Divine Encounter.

So, as I'm meditating on all of this later during the COVID lock down, I find myself asking God, "Are you referring to GCC?  Am I already doing what you called me to do as Director of Pastoral Care?"  I mean, the building is almost identical to the vision and what about the sanctuary episode with the worship leader and his crazy Cracker Barrel song?   That didn't sit right though.  In that deep place where Holy Spirit and my spirit commune,  I knew I was not.  Plus, the GCC building did not have a roof over the porch.  That's if the building in the vision was actually pointing to a physical building in the natural.  "God, what does Cracker Barrel mean?  This is killing me!"

Physically I was still fighting an upward battle, so I had another question, "Lord, If You are calling me to pastor,  how could I even do that physically?  I am barely operating physically."  My emotions and thoughts were all over the place, but God was not deterred.  He was bent on keeping Cracker Barrel alive.

In 2014/15, I started writing a book about my journey into and from the heart of God during my stance against "apartheid"/segregation, and in 2019, it was ready to be edited and published.   It is called "The Great I Am and I".  God provided in wonderful ways.  One person paid for the editing and another for the publishing without either of them reading the manuscript!   They both told me that God told them to do it.  Amazing!!!

Here comes another Cracker Barrel story...  Once the book was edited (miracle #1), I was waiting on God to provide for the publishing.   So, one morning, while sitting on my couch praying, I got a text from a friend.   She had told me the night before that she thought God was asking her to pay for the publishing of my book, and now she was texting, asking me to meet her at Cracker Barrel.  You guessed it, She did not know my Cracker Barrel story!!!!

I met her and felt compelled to tell her my story.   It seemed so fitting that we would be discussing the publishing of my book, which was in part about my ministry as a pastor in South Africa, in Cracker Barrel, which seemed to represent a calling back into the ministry as a pastor.  Does God have a sense of humor or what?

At the end of October 2021, on a Friday afternoon, I was driving home from work.  I was working for Vistar as an Ophthalmic Assistant a the time, and still fighting an uphill battle physically.   I stopped at a light, and while waiting, I heard this impression in my head, "I want you to give a month's notice at work."  It shocked me.

Saturday morning I took my Bible and a jug of water and plonked myself on the couch, ready to talk to God.  I did not even play worship music.  Total silence.  I did not want any distractions because I needed to be sure that I was hearing Him.  I spent the day reading the Bible, praying, worshiping, listening in silence.  At some point, I found myself reading the story in Matthew of the disciples in the boat and Jesus walking on the water towards them and Peter asking Him to tell him to get out of the boat and come to Him.

I told God that asking me to quit my job felt like getting out of the boat and walking on water.  If this was really Him, I needed to hear Him clearly telling me to get out of the boat just like Peter did.  The next morning I went to church.  We had adult Sunday School at 9am and while there, one of the leaders started prophesying about the fact that sometimes God calls us out without specific details and we have to just be obedient in stepping out.  I was so alarmed that I asked him to please stop and then I proceeded to tell the entire Sunday School class of God asking me to quit my job.

After Sunday School, we went into the sanctuary for church and lo and behold, the pastor starts preaching and says that sometimes God calls us out without specific details and we just have to be obedient and in his sermon even mentions "quitting our jobs" as a possibility.  As soon as he mentioned "quitting our jobs", I felt a heat go down from my head all the way to my toes and I felt several Sunday School eye balls looking at me with big grins on their faces.  

God confirmed it in such a clear and public way, that I knew that I knew it was God.  It was clear, He was calling me into full-time ministry.  But what did that look like, and how would I support myself?  I gave a months' notice and stopped working the end of November 2021.  It is March 2023 at the time of this writing and He has miraculously provided every month!!!!  I don't now how because very few people really knew.  I told God I was not advertising it until He revealed what we were doing.  For over a year He provided month after month, revealing one little piece at a time in the direction that we were heading.   

The first revelation was the name and emblem of the ministry.  I was praying in tongues one day in December 2021, when all of a sudden I saw an emblem in the spirit with the name, "Walking On Water".  I grabbed a pen and drew the emblem.  Remarkable!!!!!  It's the one on the home page of this website.  My drawing was a simple stick like drawing, but God sent an artist, Robin Neyer, to Walking On Water, who drew a beautiful animated version of the original drawing which now proudly poses on our home page. 

After that a friend pushed me into establishing a 501(C) (3).  I reluctantly did it.  I had no idea what it all meant.   Before December 2021 was over, I had the EIN of a non profit called Walking On Water and by June 2022, I had the 501 (C) (3) in place.  "Gosh Lord!  What are we doing?  Am I going to be some kind of traveling evangelist?"  God told me He would be teaching me how to walk on water with Him.  WOW!!!,  He really meant it.  Faith requires risk which means getting out of the boat and following Him one step at a time without knowing the destination.  

The year of 2022 was full of His provision and revelation.   However, the forces of darkness also tried to throw everything at me, including the proverbial kitchen sink.  There was not an aspect of my life that was not shaken and turned upside down.  In the process, my health deteriorated some more, and I ended up in hospital as a result of falling down stairs because of orthostatic hypotension, a complication from the neurological stuff. .  (That's also a whole story on its own).

When I came out of the hospital,  I was not allowed to drive for a while because of dizziness.  A friend of mine drove me to my Dr for a follow-up.  My Dr is in Daleville, and while my friend was driving on the interstate,  she informed me that since we were going to Daleville, she was taking you to Cracker Barrel in Troutville for lunch!  Yes, you guessed it, she did NOT know my Cracker Barrel story. 

While sitting in Cracker Barrel with her, waiting on our lunch, I looked around.  I felt so low and ill and discouraged.  Everything that Cracker Barrel represented felt so far removed from my reality.   What a contradiction!!!!

And as I was looking around, bewildered about the fact that I'm sitting in a Cracker Barrel Restaurant, I heard another impression in my head, "I have not forgotten.   We are still right on target".  "On target for what Lord?  What does Cracker Barrel mean?"  Emotions just flooded me and I blurted my whole Cracker Barrel story out to my friend. 

Towards the end of 2022, I found myself sitting on my couch again, worshiping the Lord like I often do, when I started thinking about a church model I had been part of 24 some years ago in South Africa and for a little bit in America when I first came here.

As the memory came, I heard an impression in my head, "Go to your study and get that model out ".  I had no idea why and I had no idea where that information was in my study.  I had moved quite a bit and a lot of my library was still in boxes.  Where do I even start looking?  I went to my study and it took a while, but I found the model.  I took the info to the couch and started perusing through it, reading bits and pieces and oh my gosh, a fire, a Holy Spirit fire started burning in me!!!

So, I started from the beginning and read and read and at one point,  I felt like the Lord was telling me that He wanted me to launch and establish an Ekklesia movement in Roanoke VA based on that specific model.  I almost choked.  "Lord, you do realize that I have never planted a church before."  There was no answer and I knew down there where my spirit and Holy Spirit commune that we were launching an Ekklesia (church) movement.  GULP!!!  This was exciting and terrifying!!!!  And the question still remained, what did Cracker Barrel have to do with any of this?

A few weeks later, I was worshiping at church during our Sunday morning service, and all of a sudden God downloaded into my mindseye how Cracker Barrel fitted into the model.  Oh my gosh!!!!  I almost started shouting in church, but managed to restrain myself.   I did not hear a word of the sermon that day.  As I sat in that service, my whole being was electrified and my thoughts consumed with Cracker Barrel and church planting and raising and deploying a movement called Ekklesia who will bring His transformational, Holy Spirit inspired, Agape Love, to a city called Roanoke and beyond.

I had no idea how He was going to do it,  but I didn't need to.  All God wanted from me was my yes.  I felt His assurance that He would gather leaders around me, He would supply all the resources necessary and the Divine appointments and He would make the inroads into communities. After all, He is the one who had been keeping this Cracker Barrel dream alive for the past 18 years.

There are many many lost souls in Roanoke waiting to be touched by the Great I Am, waiting to be transformed by the gift of His resurrection life, waiting to be set free from deathly bondages and led into new futures of His transformational LOVE.  I believe Roanoke is called to be an Apostolic city with Jesus at the helm and Walking On Water will play her part in this along with others.

So. in April 2023 I left my beloved church of 22years, called GCC, to become fully immersed in God's Cracker Barrel dream for Roanoke and beyond, called Walking On Water.  It will be multi ethnic, multi generational, Biblical, Spirit filled . . . an Ekklesia movement in and from Gods heart.  Trusting God for the people (Holy Spirit led team) and the resources to make it happen.

This model is not a one person model.  It will require many people called of the Lord to step out in obedience and say Yes to the upward call of Jesus.  I will be casting the vision, but Holy Spirt will be leading it in the name and character of Jesus, through the transformative love of Father God and a community of fully surrendered believers.

And by the way, I am NOT dismissing any other church in Roanoke as God's instruments.  I am just saying Yes to God's calling.  We are ALL His instruments.