Today we’d like to introduce you to Angie Stryker.
Hi Angie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Creating hospitable spaces, indoors or out, where people are seen and known and loved has been the common thread of my whole life.
When I was little, our home was chaotic for various reasons. It wasn’t a safe space for little girls.
I felt a call from the outdoors. I would take my barefoot self into the soft pine trails of our land with my two dogs and two cats, and we would make our way to the Sandy Creek, to the Small Crawfish to the Carved Oak, the Sunshine Canopy of the trees. There God met me regularly with Love and Comfort. I can still hear the creek and the crunch of the pine straw. There I was grounded.
I felt a call to my grandmother’s home. There we played, drew lines in the plush carpet, played with biscuit dough, painted with oil at her kitchen table. I can still hear the landline ringtone of that pale yellow kitchen. There I was beloved (and well fed!).
As I went off to college at Georgia Tech, recently returning from a 7 week mission trip to the east coast of Africa, I took an understanding of God and the hurt of the world with me. I longed to be back on the mission field, far away. Then I met the kindest, goofiest, smartest man and we married quickly. With him I was seen and known for just being me.
I found a space on the campus that was called CCF (Christian Campus Fellowship) led by Rick Harper. There I met other believers who were ready to take Love to the whole planet via campus ministry. We were vulnerable and fun. There I felt alive and empowered.
Since then every chapter of my life has been about re-creating those spaces where God is close, whether it’s indoors or outside.
We planted a college ministry in Puebla, Mexico called el Pozo with Globalscope CMF. A place of hospitality and light and Love for wealthy college students.
We birthed children in Mexico and started to create a space in our home where children are beloved and empowered to change the world with Love.
Back in the U.S. in Charlotte, we created a small space called Cafe Breakaway for women of young children to gather for breath, muffins, quiet, deeper learning about ourselves and about God. A place full of Love for one another and for our children.
As the kids started elementary school, now in Atlanta, we relaunched the campus ministry at Emory University known as Bread Coffeehouse. We resurrected the Love by homemade bread and live music and free coffee. We then multiplied to three other campuses.
Moving to rural Alabama, we were called to lead a nonprofit that trains and gives hospitality to missionaries from all over the world. We infused grace with technical training as we developed a deep love for the outdoors on the trails and the hills and the rivers of the almost 200 acre retreat center.
As the children were in high school, we stepped out in faith and began our own slow and small work to inspire women leaders with a life full of delight (soul, body, heart, and mind) through retreats, one on one spiritual direction, leadership training, yoga and paddle boarding – longing once again for a physical space to curate the relationships that had been developed.
In 2025, as we dreamed and prayed around a town with only 800 people in it, knowing that available property was scarce, we had a list of desires for this special place:
On the lake (so very few properties meet this one!)
Room for a yoga studio
Extra rooms to incubate other business women
Close to town
God had a place in mind and as we asked around town, everyone said, “Oh that place, no one will ever let you utilize that space, everyone has tried.”
A beautiful stone lodge type neighborhood clubhouse, with a fitness room, on the water, with over 2 acres, a boat ramp, a dock and a boardwalk, in the city limits, had been empty and overgrown for years.
One January day we called the owner, shared the vision and dream. He asked if we wanted to see it that week. As we walked the inside, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Yes, the spiderwebs were legion and hanging from the ceiling like ropes, but oh the possibilities.
We walked out and he said, “Well, do you want part of it or the whole thing?” Our little business is small, making very little revenue. I reached out my hand and shook his and said what felt like in slow motion, “I would be stupid not to take the whole thing.” Not having a clue how we would make it work or what it would cost us!
His response, “You can’t afford this space (true) so I’ll let you rent it every month for what it costs me to run it. You’d have to keep up the yard though, I’m tired of people calling me to complain about the grass.”
In April of 2025, Four Winds, a collective of women entrepreneurs, was born. We cleaned it up inside and out, with an amazing amount of help from campus ministry teams from Georgia Tech to Auburn to local friends. We prayed through the space. We turned it into a hospitality driven space where kindness, generosity, creativity abounds and where we believe everyone has a story. It’s so much more than an incubator for women business owners.
Today we house a fitness trainer and nutrition coach, pontoon and jet ski and kayak rentals and outings, paddle board sessions, yoga classes, pole fitness classes, art class, a startup book store and a counselor. We say we are a “movement for movement.” And we have big dreams moving forward as well.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When I write the story out the way I did, it sounds like I had a very clear plan at every step of the way. False.
Even in the reflection, I can for the first time perhaps see that the longing in my heart for a space to be known and loved and cherished was so important to me that it never left me. And it drove me. So when faced with a decision to take a new role or to step out on my own, I ultimately was just going to recreate the same space just in different places with different groups of people. That was not clear in the journey. I have notes and notes of dreams and drawings and desires at every new chapter hoping/wishing/praying that I would again have a space to freely create.
Being a mom in every season of their growth also meant that to be a present mom, my roles needed to be flexible and/or a place where they were welcome as well. That hasn’t been easy to flesh out. It was however incredibly important to me. It also meant that I had to say no to things that I would have loved to do.
And mercifully, I have a husband who loves me and has an amazing job that he can do most anywhere. At times he has joined me in the day to day and at times he has not. Navigating my desires and opportunities alongside his opportunities has always been a beautiful give and take that has never been an “easy decision.”
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Wildflowers?
As an ordained woman raising children, being an engaged spouse and working in meaningful contexts, I saw pretty quickly (and experienced it myself) how easy it is to work in something you love but to the detriment of you and the people around you whom you love most. Hyper productivity is our god in this culture. And as a driven woman who loves the accolades, producing with great results can be a nasty elixir. It feels good going down, but it can and will destroy our bodies and our relationships.
I noticed too that I never had to tell my young staff to “work more” or “do more.” In fact, I had to tell them to work less. To play some. To go outside. To find a hobby. To hang out with their friends. It wasn’t working. I had created Fill Up Fridays for myself and then extended it to my staff. We don’t work on Fridays. I never will again, frankly. On that day there was a goal, not just a lay around day for Netflix. We had to find creative ways to fill our souls, bodies, hearts and minds, in that order. I called it the delight framework. It comes from scripture. The most important thing we can do on earth according to God is love God with all of ourselves – our souls, bodies, hearts and minds and we are to love our neighbors AS WE LOVE OURSELVES. How can we love others if we don’t actively love ourselves?
With the delight framework, we seek ways to fill up with Love in our souls. If there is a part of us that is eternal, what do we do with that little soul? That little beautiful unique part of us that is pure and childlike? Well, that is up to each individual. For me it means adventure and grounding/connection. I need to travel to new places, explore, be in new situations AND I need to get in the trees or in the water.
If our bodies are a temple then how do we nourish this temple with Love? What goodness needs to go into it so that it is strong and ready for the world? What strengthening needs to happen so that we can do the mission we are given? I even refer to my body as a she so that I remember to cultivate the relationship with my body. She loves 8 hours of sleep. She loves a good protein bowl full of fruits and vegetables. She absolutely needs yoga strengthening and yoga breath. She thrives when she experiences all of these.
For the heart, I see that as relationships. As women we tend to care for everyone else around us before we care for ourselves. That is why the heart comes after the soul and body in the framework. But it also means that we need to look around and find the she-roes in our lives and actively spend time with them. Maybe even have a little fun just for fun sake. Who inspires us? Who lifts us up with encouragement? Who sees us and knows and loves us and speaks life into us? That’s who we need to be intentional about time with – a meal, a coffee, a weekend away, a Facetime.
And lastly, our brains are supercomputers. We can do so much with them, multitask, solve huge world problems. Then what is going into them? What does Loving our minds look like? How much noise do they hear? When do they get quiet? When do they listen to the birds chirp? What books and music and art are they taking in? How much scrolling is helping our minds?
When we get really grounded in these areas and are intentional in planning the delight in our week, then what comes out of our minds is miraculous – that’s when books are written, nonprofits are created, art is birthed, businesses are born. When we operate out of a fountain of delight – the world changes with Love.
In The Wildflowers we utilize the delight framework in:
– Leadership Coaching (one on one or in groups, workshop style or monthly, in person or virtual)
– Spiritual Direction (one on one, in person or virtual)
– Yoga Classes of all levels
– Paddle Board Classes and Excursions (come to us or we can come to you)
– Lake House Retreats at Lake Wedowee, Alabama (90 minutes from Atlanta and Birmingham)
– Retreats (where we come to you)
– Culture Architecting (How a Culture of Delight Starts with You is our book on Amazon. Let us work with your organization to be the values driven organization that you have always wanted)
We simply believe that the delight framework is the answer to what women are looking for as they lead their children and their teams and their organizations and their communities.
What does success mean to you?
My favorite professor Wye Huxford once said there is a difference between successful and fruitful. You can be successful with lots of revenue and lots of employees and lots of growth but if there is no fruit (changed lives with Love, changed communities with Love) then what are we doing?
Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
So while it is countercultural I believe being fruitful is more important than being successful and that most likely means smaller numbers across the board. And that’s not just ok, that’s amazing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.soulbodyheartmind.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/wild.flowers.yall
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wild.flowers.yall
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-wildflowers-yall
