We at Gold Monarch Healing Center believe that every individual is able to step into their inheritance of kingdom living—spirit, soul, and body. We are passionate to see the promise of abundant life alive within each person, and seek to equip believers to thrive in all circumstances through whole-hearted living and divine health.
Our Team
Amy & David Black // Gold Monarch Directors & HeartSync Ministers
Amy & David Black have served for over 40 years in the ministry with a passion to see people come into the fullness of healing, wholeness, and the abundant life offered with salvation. Together, they have served five churches in the West Texas area, as well as starting and directing various retreats, healing centers, and outreach ministries.
With a masters degree from Hardin-Simmons University in marriage and family therapy, Amy’s passion has always been to see healing flow into the brokenness of people’s lives, prompting her to begin and currently direct Gold Monarch Healing Center. She is a Certified HeartSync facilitator, trained under Father Andrew Miller of HeartSync Ministries, which helps to equip and release freedom ministers all over the world, as well as offer individual ministry to hearts dealing with trauma and pain.
With an undergraduate degree from McMurry University and a masters of divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary, David has always been a natural teacher, equipping churches in a head pastoral role with practical truth about the Father’s heart in an approachable, humorous, and powerful way. He is a true father and loves to teach and impart the Father-heart message to all he comes into contact with.
When they’re not traveling and ministering around the globe, they call Abilene, Texas, home where they oversee Gold Monarch Healing Center and act as Heart Sync Ministers. They have two children and six grandchildren.
Linda Walker // HeartSync Minister & Mentor
Linda is a graduate of Hardin-Simmons University with a teaching certification. She taught in Abilene ISD before serving in several non-profit organizations. She has worn many hats, including trainer, coach, administrator and principal of a Christian school. Linda also worked for a local CPA firm for three years. Today, Linda is involved in volunteer work, including her position of HeartSync Pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship and bookkeeper at Gold Monarch Healing Center.
Linda was drawn to HeartSync due to its gentleness and effectiveness ever since it was introduced to her by Amy Black in 2011. Her passion to see people set free from the pain of past trauma has kept her involved with Gold Monarch and every HeartSync Training they have conducted. Now she seeks to empower others to minister through HeartSync by leading Gold Monarch’s mentoring groups for those who have attended Basic Training.
Joyce McGlaun // HeartSync Minister
Joyce lives in the passion of music and beauty and lives life to the fullest from that place. She thrives in her ability to impart this wherever she goes – in teaching violin, playing with her grandkids, sharing funny stories and especially as she ministers to the brokenhearted. She became trained in HeartSync alongside Amy Black, Director of Gold Monarch, and has been vital to the process of equipping and ministering in this area since that time. Today, she not only ministers locally but Skypes with recipients throughout the world. She is a wife, mother and grandmother, and resides in Abilene, TX.
Sue Shudde // HeartSync Minister
Sue’s life was radically transformed 24 years ago when she learned the God of the Bible is still living and active. His voice, compassionate instead of condemning, changed everything. Sue loves to teach and longs for every client to grasp the same paradigm-shifting truths. She has ministered for twenty years, helping others walk in freedom, healing, and their true identity in Christ. She longs to see people fulfill the good and perfect works prepared for them. As Jesus begins to touch hidden or rejected parts of people’s lives, true, sustainable healing begins, and suddenly, their destinies are no longer denied. Watching this unfold is Sue’s favorite part of HeartSync. She regularly ministers at Immersive Retreats and oversees many Day Packages.
Sue is married to Captain America (known to commoners as Will) and they have five amazing and talented children.
Amy Paquette // Follow-up Coach
Amy Paquette is a passionate, dramatic lover of Jesus. She was kidnapped by Jesus in NYC while pursuing a professional acting career. She is now wife to Dave and mom to three boys.
Amy has a passion to see people walk out a life-changing journey of pursuing a whole heart. She loves the challenge of sitting with people in the hard places and helping them take the next steps toward wholehearted living. She serves as a follow-up coach for those desiring someone to walk with them on their continuing journey after Gold Monarch. She also loves teaching, performing, cooking, dancing, and being the only girl in a house of all boys!
Eddie Harrison // Organic Chef
As a native farm-raised Texan, Eddie Harrison grew up in a family who cooked, prepared, and ate real food from their land—fresh vegetables, fruits, grass-fed natural beef, lamb, chicken, eggs, milk, and butter. As a young man in the army eating out almost every meal, Eddie decided to go back to his food heritage, teaching himself not just how to cook, but to cook extremely well.
Year after year, Eddie’s passion to cook and entertain kept him happy in the kitchen preparing meals for his wife and three daughters, but also donating his time at church-wide dinners, eventually catering large events, weddings, and celebrations. He developed the menu and recipe for his 4.5-star traditional Texas cuisine restaurant serving the Abilene area.
As his daughters began raising their children, they started to discover health issues and illnesses that he never faced as a boy raised on a farm. Realizing that food today isn’t the healthy, fresh food he grew up with, he began to see that the mass commercial production of food in our nation has its fair share of problems, prompting him to return to his roots—real food.
Eddie’s heart is to cook in a way that returns to our Biblical roots, using food to nourish, energize, and heal our bodies from a very toxic Western dietary culture. He loves to show people that eating healthy and clean can be a lifestyle full of flavor, color, and laughter around a beautifully prepared table.
He lives in Abilene with his wife Becki, and has three daughters, Amy, Sarah and Marisa, and seven grandchildren.
Wiepie Cross // Nutrition
Wiepie Cross became a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner in June of 2016 and is thrilled to be able to serve people seeking freedom with food choices. With deep roots in farming, she’s always had a heart to connect people back to the soil and thus back to their food.
In her nutritional therapy she seeks to find the root of the issue, not affix bandages to symptoms. Her goal is to nourish, instead of deprive. You won’t find fad diets, a one-size-fits-all approach or a quick fix. What you will find is a holistic approach to deeply caring for your body by giving it the nourishment it needs to thrive, recognizing that our health cannot be separated from our spirit or soul.
When she’s not reading about nutrition and seeing clients, you can find her making a big mess in the kitchen with her latest creation, pulling weeds in the garden or hiking and biking her way around the world.
Amy Yates // Nutrition & Fitness
Amy has always had a passion to help others understand the connection between spiritual, emotional and physical health. She has spent over 15 years in the health and fitness industry, working in hospitals, schools, and churches.
Amy did her undergraduate work at ACU in Abilene, Graduate work at Baylor University, and just recently received her license to work as a Holistic Nutritionist and will complete her board certifications in the Spring. She has numerous group fitness certifications and serves as a health adviser on both local and state boards.
Amy currently lives in Clyde, Texas with her husband Jerod, and three children. She has dreamed of a healing center like Gold Monarch for many years, finding it an answer to prayer to be involved and minister through health and wholeness.
Lindsay Edwards // Nutrition & Fitness
Lindsay currently teaches at a local University in the College of Kinesiology, Health and Recreation. She completed her undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and holds a Ph.D in Kinesiology. She enjoys teaching others the importance of health and well-being and loves to encourage people to be active. She believes that wellness is more than just being physically well, but rather there are many dimensions to wellness, one being spiritual wellness. She desires for people to understand their identity in Christ and the importance of being healthy so that they can live out their purposes for God’s Kingdom.
Brittany Suell // Fitness
Brittany Suell is a wife and mom of 2 little ones. She is a health and fitness professional and is passionate about helping women live the healthy and fit lifestyle that they desire and deserve. She believes that as women change, they become a catalyst to change the health of their families. It is her passion to call out the giftings in others and to help them identify their destiny, so that they can live in the fullness that God has for them and leave a healthy legacy for generations to come!
Hannah Jowers // Massage Therapy
Hannah has trained and practiced massage for over 14 years, using a combination of Swedish, deep tissue, and trigger point release methods.
She feels the Lord has called her to use her physical and spiritual gifts through massage to allow others to encounter the Lord by being still and soaking in His presence. She desires to release hope and healing to those trapped in physical and emotional pain, and to see God’s love poured out over those whom He places in her path.
She lives in Abilene, Texas, with her husband, Clay, and her four children.
Worship Leaders
Michelle Ellis // Worship Leader
Michelle has been leading worship since she was 15 years old. She enjoyed leading alongside and under the direction of gifted worship leaders for the past 17 years, including her husband, Matt Ellis. In May of 2016, the Lord told Michelle to pick up her guitar and not put it back down. Despite her imperfections and messy beginnings, the Holy Spirit took her small offering of love and made it flourish. As she began leading worship at Gold Monarch in the fall of 2016, the center became a safe place for her to spread her wings as a worship leader and grow in her gifts.
Michelle’s greatest desire is for the secret place she enjoys with Jesus to become an open invitation for others. She welcomes everyone into that place through vulnerability and an openness to the songs and sounds of heaven. More than anything, she desires worshippers to come away refreshed and nearer to the heart of God.
Michelle resides in Abilene, Texas, with her husband, Matt, and their three precious children.
Paul McClendon // Worship Leader
Paul loves to adorn the King with his worship, but also loves to unveil what God is saying about you. One of his greatest joys is for each person to leave an Encounter with the Father full, fun and free. He believes that where God is, healing is close at hand. Deep healing from the Spirit of God falls during the worship encounters at Gold Monarch.
Paul has led worship all over the world… from the Southern steps in Jerusalem, the streets of Galway, the mountains of Guatemala… to local Sunday mornings and National conferences and camps. Having been a full-time worship leader for almost a decade, Paul currently works as a business consultant in the oilfield and helps lead a city-wide expression of worship, encounter and song writing in Abilene and beyond.
Paul lives south of Abilene with the love of his life, Tai. They have three incredible children and as a family they look to see the Kingdom of God manifest on the earth.
Art Ministers & Prophetic Artists
David & Denae Wood // Art Ministers
David and Denae Wood have been happily married for 26 years. Denae loves ministering through relationship, sitting around her table with a cup of coffee or through leading art ministry sessions. Denae is an ordained minister and served as a hospice chaplain and minister for over 30 years, which led her to seek the Lord as to how to better minister to children. Holy Spirit began teaching her about art ministry and showed her how easily children were able to respond and share their hearts through art. As she saw the fruit of this, God impressed it on her heart to try the same method with adults! David and Denae consider the Gold Monarch Team as their family and have been leading art ministry sessions with their friend, Danny Snook, as part of the Healing Retreats from Gold Monarch’s beginning.
Anita Crim // Prophetic Artist
Anita Crim has lived in the “Big Country” most of her life! She began painting from the moment she was old enough to pick up a brush. As she grew older, she drifted from painting towards photography. After a bout with intestinal cancer, and a two-month stay in MD Anderson, she knew she had to make some changes and told God she would do whatever He wanted. That evening, Anita received a prophecy that she would be “doing something she’d been created to do – something that she had not done in a long time.” She said, “Yes,” to God’s word and during her recovery, God opened doors for her to paint again! It felt very risky, but exciting at the same time. As He began to give her visions and words, she sought to capture what He was showing her through prophetic art.
Her paintings currently hang at her church where she paints prophetically during the worship services. She and her husband, James, have a motorcycle ministry, which takes them all over the nation. Anita is currently working on a book of encouraging art for everyone to enjoy and is the curator of a local prophetic art studio. She has been creating prophetic paintings for Gold Monarch attendees since 2015.
Candy Gilbert // Prophetic Artist
Candy Gilbert is the wife of an incredible guy named Geoff, mom to their amazing son, Max, mother-in-love to his precious Kristy and most recently, grandmother to a peaceful, joyful bundle of love named Sunny. There is so much love in that one sentence and that is how Candy’s life is lived. She is surrounded by love and light and she is full of gratitude. It hasn’t always been this way, but Jesus has healed her heart in unimaginable ways through the fullness of His goodness and grace. She, in turn, pours out this incredible love connection in her art as a prophetic artist at Gold Monarch. Candy is also a member of the Gold Monarch board and is on the intercessory prayer team. She is most likely one of the first smiling faces you’ll meet if you attend a Gold Monarch Immersive Retreat, as she joyfully welcomes each guest!
Jennifer Jones // Prophetic Artist
Jennifer Jones is a trained artist, worshipper, and lover of the One who created heaven and earth! She married her high school sweetheart in 1981. They have an ever-growing, incredible family whom they LOVE! Jennifer attended Hardin Simmons University, where she majored in Art. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, and an artist who longs to live a life in awe of her Heavenly Father, whose art is so influenced by the Holy Spirit that each piece opens a window from heaven to earth, revealing heaven’s mysteries and the beauty of Jesus!
The kingdom of Heaven invaded her world in 2000, and intercession and creative expressions were entwined! Jennifer believes that as an artist collaborates with the Holy Spirit in this dance of Kingdom creativity, His power, His Life and His Light merge with our faith, creative thoughts, imaginations, desires and skill into artistic expressions that carry the literal presence and power of God. One of the many ways in which she partners with Him in this way is to paint His promises for those receiving HeartSync ministry sessions at Gold Monarch’s Immersive Retreats.
Latimer Bowen // Prophetic Artist
Latimer Bowen paints, speaks and teaches out of her relationship with our Father, King Jesus and the Holy Spirit. She is a revivalist and lives to see our Father’s Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. She has aligned herself with God’s mission and vision statements through creativity for the display of His splendor.
Moved to paint what God is releasing on earth, Latimer was excited to see prophetic artists co-create with God for individuals as they receive inner-healing prayer and HeartSync ministry. Latimer served as a board member on the Gold Monarch inaugural Board of Directors. She is proud to continue in partnership with Gold Monarch in seeing people set free to walk in divine health and loves to create unique prophetic paintings for individuals who attend Gold Monarch’s Immersive Retreats.
Yippee, Amen and Hallelujah!!!
Lillian Neal // Prophetic Artist
Lillian and her husband have three sons, a daughter and six grandchildren. They live on the edge of Sweetwater, Texas. Lillian is a retired school teacher, now enjoying life as an associate pastor, pipeline patrol pilot, missionary, artist and entrepreneur. Her spare minutes are often spent in her back room studio, drawing in His Presence!
Lillian’s journey as an artist began ten years ago with a watercolor class. Doors opened for her spiritually and artistically as she began to probe into the prophetic art world. Now she finds herself in a love relationship with the Trinity, finding ways to connect and worship through her painting. No matter what she’s working on, Lillian is always seeking the Lord in it, through it, and as a part of it. Her finished work has opened many doors for testifying to the goodness of God. She continues to rely and trust God to teach her and show her things of the Spirit. Her hope is that with each painting, you are drawn into a time of connection with the Creator.
Molly Jones // Prophetic Artist
Molly lives in Abilene, Texas. She is involved with the youth at her church, enjoys missions and the freedom of being homeschooled. She loves expressing her artistic side through musical theater and painting. She has been mentored in painting by Nancy Capra since 2013, and within the last year she discovered her passion for creating prophetic art, led by Holy Spirit! Painting for Gold Monarch has opened a door for her to continue to use her gifting in this area and she has been amazed by the testimonies of how God has ministered to participants through the pictures that He gives her to paint!
Nancy Capra // Prophetic Artist
Nancy Capra is an artist and teacher. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Texas in Austin, where she met her husband, Jay. Together they raised three children, all delightful adults, now with added spouses and grandchildren. During Nancy’s life, there have been countless opportunities to walk through trauma and experience healing. She believes that trauma memories are sensory memories. Words can tell our stories, but art makes it possible to bear witness to them.
Nancy is a prophetic painter able to serve in others’ healing process. She is intrigued by the idea of color, light and movement, combined with the power and authority of God. As a HeartSync painter, she seeks God’s voice and wisdom to “see” what to create. Her greatest desire is for people to be restored to their wholehearted self, so that they can bring their intellect, emotional life, dreams, intuitions, and deepest longings before God.
Raindrop Practitioners
Dianne Bennett // Raindrop Practitioner
Dianne Bennett is a Certified Raindrop Technique Specialist through Natural Therapies Certification Board. She loves to minister through the Raindrop Technique at Gold Monarch. Her passion is to see others healed and walking in their Kingdom identity. While receiving her training in Raindrop Technique, Healing Oils of the Bible, and Emotional Release, she saw the common thread connecting every method of inner healing and physical healing and she learned about the power of essential oils to unlock cellular memory housing traumas and to help break negative emotional patterns and self-sabotaging thoughts. Raindrop is not only effective for relieving stress and uplifting the mood, but also restoring health and wellness and detoxing the body. Her passion for this ministry is to see every level of healing come, be it physical, emotional or spiritual. The most important thing about the healing that God does through Raindrop, is that it can help to bring the receiver into a deeper intimate relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Dianne loves to prayerfully partner with God in this process.
Tamenie Gilliam // Raindrop Practitioner in Training
Tamenie Gilliam is a wife to Casey, a mom to three amazing kids, and a true friend to many. Tamenie takes great pleasure in creating atmospheres for people to encounter God and to encounter each other. Passionate, exuberant and full of life, Tamenie is a raindrop facilitator at Gold Monarch. After seeing the true transformation of her own family by the use of essential oils, she became passionate about not just medicating conditions, but truly healing them. She believes that for optimal health, we need to pursue our physical healing by partnering with God in our healing. She knows that essential oils are a vital way to do this and loves ministering in this way!
Our Story
Taking her undergraduate degree in interior design that cultivates great pleasure in creating beauty in the home, and combining it with her masters degree in marriage and family therapy with years of work in inner healing ministries, Amy Black always held an impossible dream tucked deep within her heart to start a beautiful healing center for the brokenhearted. But as a pastors’ wife of forty years on a wonderful, but very reasonable salary, the lavish and expensive dream of a center was just that—a dream.
When Amy’s daughter, Christa Black Gifford, moved to Abilene, Texas, in January 2014 with her husband, Lucas, and their son, Moses, to receive personal HeartSync ministry, Christa began hopping online in her spare time to search for properties that fit her mother’s longing for a healing center. She and Lucas had experienced incredible breakthrough while receiving ministry from Amy and David and knew there was great need for healing of this caliber in the church. They had no extra money to spend. The search wasn’t logical. But they felt a pull on their hearts to dream. And dream big.
When God got ahold of that impossible dream in January of 2014 and breathed life on it, the dream turned to substance as the first large donation was handed to Amy’s non-profit organization with one condition: “You’ve got to start a healing center to help the brokenhearted.” But a couple of months later on March 5, 2014, as Christa gave birth to a baby girl named Luca Gold, who passed away from a condition called anencephaly, the search for a healing center screeched to a halt as the entire family took their own personal time to heal from the shattering pain of trauma and loss. To wade through the fog of her own grieving and healing journey, Christa began to write about the process of heart-healing after tragedy, encouraging hundreds of thousands of readers to look at their own brokenness and begin their own story of wholeness. As her number of readers grew daily, sharing their own personal stories of loss, tragedy, and deep pain, the need for a healing center became more and more apparent.
As the months slowly passed and the family began to return back to life after death, Christa relaunched her search for properties in Abilene, Texas, that fit the dream, knowing a place like that would need specific qualifications to be used as a healing center. They needed land that felt like a country retreat away from the city and beautiful housing with master suites for each of their guests. They needed space for spa treatments and a large area to host bigger gatherings and conferences. They needed a gourmet kitchen where their chef could prepare organic meals and rooms for personal ministry times. But as their search went on, the only property that fit their list perfectly was far out of their price range. In fact, it was double the amount of what they had been given. At Amy’s urging, Christa picked up the phone to call the realtor, wanting to tour the property anyway, knowing that impossibility was God’s specialty. If He wanted this place to happen, then it most definitely would.
And as they all stepped onto the land and heard the story of the breathtaking 10,000-square-foot white stone house that was first built by a heart doctor, then sold to an incredible Christian family who had moved in to heal after the loss of their infant daughter, everyone knew. This was land ordained by God for healing far before they had been there. And this property was it—the healing center.
No great story is told without a few bumps in the road, and the rather large bump was, they only had half the money they needed to put an offer on the property. As Amy headed on a pre-scheduled trip to Pemba, Mozambique in August to minister HeartSync, Christa texted her mother an unfortunate message:
“Hey, mom. I just talked to the realtor, and the property had an offer and they’ve taken it off of the market. I’m so sorry, mom—we’ll find the right place!” With their dream property gone and no funds to purchase it anyway, they began praying, asking God to be crystal clear. Should Amy give the money back?
Should they move to Nashville to be around other family members and try to start the center there? Were they supposed to wait and see if another miracle property came on the market in Abilene? Maybe it just wasn’t the right timing? One night, Amy lay her head on her pillow in Pemba after a long day of ministering. She woke up the next morning with a very clear and vivid dream. In the dream, the property in Abilene had been given to them, and it was open as a healing center. She returned from Africa and after three months emailed the realtor, letting her know she had a dream and needed to make sure the place had really sold before her heart moved on.
The realtor responded, in complete shock. That exact day, the original buyer had backed out, unable to get his funding to purchase the property. The realtor encouraged Amy to get an offer submitted as quickly as possible and that she would get it to the owners.
Fueled by a dream and a promise from God, Amy put a crazy bid on a dream property that she didn’t have the money for, believing that in the ninety days they had before closing on the center, the remaining money would miraculously surface.
Day after day, God showed off as new miracles appeared out of thin air. The doorbell would ring with acquaintances, family members and friends feeling led to drop off checks containing thousands of dollars. Friends and church members would donate pieces of land to sell or sign over stock to Amy’s non-profit to cash in. Random and unsolicited donations would come into the Luca Gold Healing Fund online, checks would arrive in the mail, and cards with cash were given at church gatherings.
At a conference in North Carolina, the speaker (who knew nothing about them) stopped to point at Amy and David in the crowd, declaring that they were an Abraham and Sarah—and that high-dollar real estate followed Abraham and Sarah. “Not just any real estate,” he went on to say. “Property that overlooks the city—lavish, expensive, and beautiful real estate.”
Everyone sat back and watched as God did what He does best—turn the desert of impossibility into the Promised Land of rest and inheritance. The days and weeks crept closer to the November 21, 2014, closing date. Even with all the extravagant donations coming in, there still wasn’t enough money to purchase the property. Amy and David still needed to sell their own home, planning on downsizing to buy a small guest house where they would live on the back of the healing center property, and a few key donations were yet to come through.
But the family kept returning to the dream, and to the words God had spoken—knowing He would come through. Down to the wire on the day of November 21st, just hours before closing, the last $25,000 was donated, and the non-profit organization Undivided Heart Inc. purchased the property, immediately naming it Gold Monarch Healing Center in honor of their little Luca Gold “Goldie” Gifford.
Amy and David live in a home on the property, and every day, they step on this miracle land, thanking God and believing for heaven to come to earth in the hearts of His children.