The days begin early at Morning Star Ranch, where residents rise before dawn to pick their crops before a single leaf can wilt in the rising sun.

Then there are prayers at 7 a.m., followed by more planting, plowing or packing under the Valley Center sun.

At day's end, there is no TV to watch, no games to play and not even a dog to pet.

And at the end of the week, as every week, there is no pay for all the work.

For the residents who call the ranch their home, though, it's paradise on Earth.

"It's what I dreamed life could be like," said David Alexander about life in the Twelve Tribes, the Commonwealth of Israel, a Christian community where he has lived six years and is known by his Hebrew name David Derush.

He's not alone.

"You can be real," said Heather Ostrom, known as Simchah Ostrom, a community member for 18 years. "There's no trying to be something that you're not. My friends love me when I'm doing good and love me when I'm not doing good."

The Valley Center farm and a Vista house are among 25 Twelve Tribe communities in the United States listed on TwelveTribes.com, which also lists communities in Italy, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Spain, Argentina and the United Kingdom.

Community members follow a strict interpretation of the Bible, with special emphasis on passages about sharing and giving up possessions.

"It's a trite saying that what you possess also possesses you, but it's a truism," said Soreph Gamaliel, originally named Kevin Carlin.

A path of their own

Like many community members, Gamaliel, 53, said he was drawn to the Twelve Tribes because he found other spiritual paths unfulfilling.

Growing up Roman Catholic in Illinois, he said, he was agnostic by the time he was in college but became an evangelical Christian after meeting his future wife, Miriam.

But even as an active Christian, Gamaliel said he felt something was missing.

"It seemed to me as though I were already dead," he said. "In terms of my life having meaning, I had come to the conclusion that nothing I did would really matter."

Among the things eating at him was his belief that if the Bible were true, followers would be living together and sharing, something he did not see in the one-day-a-week churchgoers around him.

Lev Rock, 24, who has lived in Twelve Tribes communities for four years, said he also was seeking spiritual fulfilment when he found the group.

"I got to a really needy place," he said about a time when he had little money. "But spiritually, I was also seeking something."

Rock said he remembered that the happiest time of his life had been when he worked briefly on a farm in northern Michigan.

It was work, he said, that made him feel like he had a purpose.

The Twelve Tribes caught his eye while he was searching an online directory for farming opportunities.

A 20-hour bus ride later, Rock arrived at a community that immediately put him to work on the farm.

"It spoke to me that they put me to work right away," he said. "I saw it as more than a religion, but as a life. I wondered, 'What if all the world was like this?' It would be such a better place."

On the Sabbath, which begins at sundown Friday and ends at sundown Saturday, Twelve Tribes members may play volleyball, but children do not have toys or other "useless things," as Gamaliel referred to them.

Even the animals on the land must have a purpose, which means cats are allowed because they catch mice, but dogs are not.

Friends and forgiveness

Derush said he was earning about $200,000 a year running his own auto upholstery business in Maine when he realized he miserable.

"I didn't have any real friends," said Derush, 54.

As a "child of the '60s," he said, he thought his life would be like the Beatles song "All You Need is Love," but that instead it was full of emptiness.

"I wanted my life to be about more than just making money and surviving," he said. "I wanted it to be about love."

At 48, his marriage was failing, his children were grown and he couldn't think of anyone he trusted or who trusted him.

"I would just cry out to God and say, 'I don't know how long I can go on like this,'" Derush said.

Like Rock, Derush also found the Twelve Tribes online.

After making the commitment to join, he gave most of his money to his ex-wife, loaded his remaining possessions into a school bus and drove to a community in New Hampshire.

Working without a paycheck and giving up possessions was not as challenging as surrendering his personal autonomy, he said.

But today, Derush half-jokingly compares life in the community to life in the Army, with no worries about what to do at the start of the day because everything is planned.

He also said he is not lacking anything, including health care.

The community paid for his recent hernia operation, he said, and all clothes and personal items such as toothpaste are available at a "free store" at the ranch.

Derush met his second wife, Leonie ---- known to fellow followers as Shelem ---- at Morning Star Ranch.

An Australian native who had lived two years in London on an unfulfilled quest to change her life, Shelem Derush said she learned about the Twelve Tribes in western Australia.

"Now I know what I was looking for was forgiveness," she said of the group she joined 16 years ago. "I had a bad conscience."

Twelve Tribe followers are taught that men are the heads of households and women are there to support them.

Shelem Derush said she is comfortable with the teaching, but sees her role as part of a team.

Her husband agreed.

"If I don't bring her alongside me, I consider myself a failure," he said.

Gamaliel said that while followers are sincere in their beliefs that they are on the right path, he knows their lifestyle is a commitment not everybody is comfortable making.

He said he hopes, however, that more people will see the Twelve Tribes as an option to live differently from how they do today.

"We don't seek to influence society," he said. "We only hope to be a witness to what a just society can be like."

Call staff writer Gary Warth at 760-740-5410.