Originally published June 26, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get weekly issues.
By Bill Collier, Publisher,
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1
This Final Thought is about faith and the testing of visions, new ones and those already established. While the financial foundation is showing signs of improvement, new challenges are here as well.
On the business front, things are getting back where they were before I essentially was reduced to a diminished capacity while being a caregiver to my wife before losing her. One element of the core business is growing because work I did to advocate for Alzheimer’s testing and early treatment, which gained me notice that has resulted in contracts.
But at the same time, we have some hard news about the Riqueday Castle project and we are appealing for help to the Asian-Pacific Children’s Fund founded by our founder, Don McAlvany, and operated by his son, Scott (and also former Editor of MIA).
The big news is about Riqueday Castle and the needs of the Asia-Pacific Children’s Fund.
Riqueday Castle is officially “organized” as an LLC jointly owned by us Principles. The intention of the LLC is to create a membership community centered around activities in the Castle that will support charitable services for the community.
We are acting as if this is a foregone outcome. This is faith.
What comes before destiny can be a process that tests that faith. It can be a time when, before the vision is made physical, the only thing driving you is what your spirit sees, and we see a thriving community of people using Riqueday Castle to enable and empower themselves to find and fulfill their own God-given scroll of destiny and purpose. We see a refuge and haven of abundance and peace that offers hope to all who see its banners flying.
The physical reality of today, which is, on the surface, not what we desire, does not tell us the ending of our story so much as it is the testing of a vision, which seems too often be the case. Many visions seem to require this testing.
We received news that will try this vision, and we ask for prayer. Our desire, which we believe is Godly, is to create a place that inspires and builds a sense of community through freewill association that has a Christian civilizational paradigm as its standard and foundation.
The news is this: According to an investigation by an HVAC professional, the entire heating system has damage from the winter deep freeze. During that deep freeze, the pump conked out, causing failure during a -10° cold snap that lasted for days. This cost water pipes to break at multiple locations.
While we were just a couple of weeks from an appointment to drain our pipes, fortunately, there was not a lot of water in the system, so there was minimal water damage. This was a godsend.
We are now considering converting to a forced air system and adding central AC, something we had already planned for the future. This was not our priority. Our first priorities were to make a bathroom with a shower in Paul’s quarters so he and his wife could move in. Also, we planned to create an office/quarters for me to use.
This damage, with a replacement system costing $50k to $80k, makes our current plans untenable before they begin. Additionally, there is a leak in the roof we must repair, probably not costing more than $1,000 dollars, as it’s a small area.
We estimated that we would need to spend over $200k over 5 years or so to fully transform this space to match our vision. This doesn’t increase our overall cost, but it changes the order of the major work we hoped to do.
We have also, as noted, organized as an LLC. This LLC will ultimately own the building and land and be the entity that runs the paid membership program. A non-profit may be created to do the benevolence and outreach, which will be funded by the paid memberships and any other services or products sold.
The for-profit will fund the non-profit using a marketplace approach.
We are all pilgrims in this life. This world is not our home, and for us it may seem our shared vision has taken a detour, but where God leads is never a true detour. It is not a detour or delay; it is an unexpected journey of faith tested through trials and tribulations lest we think that when it is fulfilled that we can claim the glory.
Please pray for wisdom on our part and supernatural provision so we can establish this space where we can operate the membership-based community and the non-profit outreach programs we have in mind to serve the people and represent Jesus Christ.
This will also be the home of our extended family, which will begin with my brother, his wife, and our mother.
We will be getting estimates and plans, while working on the funding mechanism for this work.
By living onsite, we can be effective stewards of the castle, while also assuring that there is always someone available to the members and those we serve through the benevolence and outreach programs.
We are leaning towards a blower system, removing the old system and selling the copper piping, and whatever else we can salvage, so we have a system that cools and warms every space separately. This will be built to be as winterproof as possible.
As we move in, with Paul’s household moving in first and then the rest of the family following, we will always have someone on site to monitor a critical failure before it becomes a disaster, like this one has become.
Riqueday Castle was a United Methodist Church back when that meant integrity to the Gospel. It was an important part of the community, as we have learned from many of our neighbors relating personal stories connected to our castle.
We are honoring and preserving that. The main chapel area, which is 2300 square feet of the 8500 square feet we are converting to a castle design, will be called St. Francis Chapel and will preserve this sacred space for the community at large.
Riqueday Castle is a vision of community building meant to restore a strong social fabric built on what we call a “Christian Civilizational Paradigm” or way of life. This “sense of community” creates a resilience in the face of any crisis that enables people to fulfill God’s best for their lives, which they themselves will define within the context of God’s will.
Often people create organizations that control or try to change people to fit some theory or design predetermined by those on top. Riqueday Castle will build a sense of community that supports and liberates people’s dreams through their own adaptation of a basically Christian worldview.
The idea is to free people to fulfill their own aspirations and potential, while supporting them through the building of a strong Christian worldview foundation.
We have seen that this vision is being tried and tested and we are up to it, by God’s grace and favor. We rely on Him alone.
Just as new visions are tested and tried, so too are old visions.
In that vein, please consider supporting the work of the Asian Pacific Children’s Fund, founded by our own founder and operated by his son, Scott McAlvany. They are in Indonesia now ministering to orphans and to poor and needy families, but funding is tight because of economic conditions. Generally, when gas prices rise too much, donations become smaller, but the work must go on.
You can’t donate to Riqueday Castle, it’s meant to self-fund through paid memberships and other business revenue, but you can support the work of our Founder and his son, which has served thousands of needy families and orphans in India, Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines, to name a few places.
The vision of APCF is something we strongly support. Scott entrusted us with continuing the vision of the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, which we renamed the Mindful Intelligence Advisor with their blessing. Scott even fought legally to secure the Mindful Intelligence trademark against a claim by the Federal government.
Scott is continuing the work of the APCF, which itself was initially funded by the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.
Whether it is new visions or continuing established visions, by faith we stand knowing that this is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Vision may be tested but God will always see us through to the end.