Children are a precious gift.
The people at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in Minot, N.D., deeply treasure the gift of the children in their care and, in return, gift the children with a future centered on the love of God.
The Ranch, a Christ-centered residential treatment and educational center for children and their families, gives children a safe place to live, learn and heal from trauma.
From Trauma to Triumph
After enduring years of neglect and abandonment, Ariel Borgen came to the Ranch, where she stayed for nearly four years.
“The Ranch took me in at 14 years old,” Borgen said. “During my time at the Ranch, I experienced love, kindness and much-needed guidance while [there]. I would consider myself a well-adjusted adult because of the Ranch.”
Joy Ryan, president and CEO of the Ranch, said that stories that start like Borgen’s are unfortunately common at The Ranch. But when the children receive the loving care and treatment they need, a miracle takes place.
“Our chaplain, Rev. Rick Jones, often tells the story of one of the first children he encountered after accepting his call to Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch,” said Ryan. “This young girl was abused and tormented and often half-starved. When she came to the Ranch, she was underweight, virtually non-verbal and scared. After many months of care, love, treatment and peace, she was ready for discharge. Her last request on her final day at the Ranch was to be baptized because she recognized that it was Jesus’ love that had allowed her to survive her trauma.”
Miracles like that are possible because of the incredible, transformative work that the Ranch has carried out year after year—for over 70 years. The stories of healing and hope that emerge from the Ranch’s work are a testament to the power of love and faith in overcoming even the most profound trauma.
A Legacy of Compassion and Generosity
The Ranch has been around since the early 1950s when the work of a group of North Dakota Lutheran churches collided with the generosity of Louis and Ida Butt, a couple from Tolley, N.D., who donated their farm to serve as the first home of the ministry.
“Dakota Boys Ranch started with the women’s group of a small Lutheran church outside of Mapleton, North Dakota. They recognized that a large number of boys, many of whose fathers had died in World War II, had lost their childhood,” Ryan said. “Boys as young as 10 years old were living on the streets in larger cities, working as farm labor or fending for themselves. The good people of the Mapleton congregation started recruiting host families, what we would now call foster families, to bring boys into their families to recapture childhood.”
The Butt’s farm allowed the Ranch to expand to serve countless boys. Eventually, there was a significant waiting list, so the Ranch board sold the original home and used the funds to purchase land outside of Minot, N.D., where the larger community could help meet the needs of the increasing number of children.
Life Together: A Community of Care
Today, the Ranch is a Recognized Service Organization (RSO) of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. It serves both boys and girls on three campuses across North Dakota. Each campus has school facilities, private living spaces, dining areas, recreational spaces, a chapel and office space. The Ranch also has outpatient clinics on two campuses to help meet the mental health needs of the community.
Each child follows a highly individualized schedule that includes schoolwork, meals, wellness activities, quiet time, various therapies, spiritual life activities and playtime.
“The kids are usually with us residentially for about three to four months,” said Tina DeGree, superintendent and vice president of education at the Ranch. “Some stay longer, some shorter, but we collaborate to support the kids residentially, clinically and educationally.”
While at the Ranch, the children receive the “highest level of psychiatric care for children and youth outside of a psychiatric hospital,” Ryan said.
“Through our Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities, we help those who have experienced unimaginable trauma develop coping strategies and leverage therapeutic care to move toward healing. At the same time, we do it in a faith-based organization that provides hope, which is the most powerful motivator toward healing.”
The Staff’s Role in Healing
One constant is the staff—ever attentive and compassionate.
“The staff really immerse themselves in where kids are at right in the moment, right now, in their lives,” DeGree said.
Borgen, who now works at the Ranch as a marketing and content specialist, had exactly that experience as a resident.
“The Ranch uniquely serves children and families by meeting them where they are,” she said. “That’s where the work starts. The Ranch then supports them, allowing each child to have a unique journey to success. Our commitment to trauma-informed care, while also teaching the children the love of Christ, is what makes the Ranch special.”
Faith as a Foundation for Healing
The love of Christ is what compels the Ranch to serve children in the exceptional way that they do, and they do so with the whole family in mind.
“The purpose of the Ranch is to provide both hope and healing to kids and their families,” said Tim Gienger, senior director for the Ranch. “What’s unique is that we meet the family and the child where they are at and help them build hope for a future. When the child is with us, we are constantly communicating with the family, encouraging visits and off-campus passes, and providing family therapy so that they can also heal alongside their child.”
Because families are important to God, they are important to the Ranch.
Ryan explained that the Ranch makes a “commitment to be fully present to each other, to the children and families we serve, and to our Lord. We look each child in the eye and walk side by side with them on their journey to healing. Being fully present allows us to combine the very best of scientific approaches to mental health care with the beauty of faith in the Risen Lord.”
The hope of Christ instilled in the hearts of the children served at the Ranch doesn’t affect only the child but also impacts everyone in that child’s circle—both generations before and generations after.
“One boy I got to know was incredibly smart,” Ryan said. “He had a high IQ and an almost photographic memory. He, too, had survived horrible trauma in the form of sexual abuse. Even worse, his abuser had told him that he deserved what he got because he was a ‘devil child.’ He dove into the spiritual life activities and chapel services at the Ranch. His faith question, as it is for many of our children, was, ‘If God loves me and is always with me, why did He let this happen to me?’”
“As he read about Christ and His stories and work, he accepted Chaplain Rick’s answer that ‘God was with you through it all. He brought you through it to survive and thrive.’ After going to live with his grandmother, he continued coming to the Ranch for day school. He told me, ‘Guess what, Joy? I am going to church, and I got my grandma to go with me.’”
Expanding Without Debt
The impact the Ranch makes on children and families is priceless, but there is a price to pay to carry out this significant ministry. While the Ranch occasionally takes on operating debt, it makes an intentional effort to expand where needed without taking on special project-related debt.
“We made a commitment to always ‘have the money in the bank’ for any building or rehabbing projects,” said Ryan. “We just completed Hope Chapel on our Bismarck campus without a dollar of debt because of the generosity of donors who understood the need for a dedicated spiritual place for the children served there. We are also just starting construction on a new cottage on our Minot campus to replace the 60-year-old facilities there. That cottage is being built in phases as the money is given by donors who understand the need. It will also be completed without debt.”
Stewarding the gift of money well is only part of the story—the Ranch’s board of directors faithfully stewards their time and talent in support of the children and families that the Ranch serves. Bart Day, president and CEO of Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF), serves on the board for the Ranch “because of the transformational impact the Ranch is making in the lives of children.”
“They’re working with some of the most troubled youth who have faced unspeakable trauma,” Day said. “They provide exceptional treatment wrapped in the Gospel. I serve because the love and forgiveness of Jesus are at the heart of all they do, and when you know about the life-changing care they provide, you cannot help but want to be involved. I find great joy in serving and supporting the Ranch, knowing my investment is making a difference in the lives of children.”
The Heart Behind the Mission
So it all comes down to serving and loving one of God’s greatest gifts – children, made in His image and loved unconditionally. God entrusts the Ranch with these children and provides the resources, people and wisdom needed to steward these gifts well—including an incredibly loving staff of people who care for them.
“Helping at-risk children and their families through the love of Christ is what everyone is about here,” DeGree said. “We have so many staff members who feel it is their calling to do this work. It’s tough work and emotionally taxing. But we all know that helping kids work through complex behaviors and emotions takes more than just human strength—it takes God’s strength.”
It is in just this kind of environment, at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, that the gift of children can be tended to and kept safe—and God is pleased when His gifts are treasured so highly.
Bringing light into the lives of children and families wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of so many—the couple that first donated the property, the women’s group that had a heart for troubled youth, the staff who serve day in and day out and the board who helps to guide the organization wisely.
“The Ranch blessed me by taking me in as a child and helped me grow into a functioning, considerate, confident young lady,” Borgen said. “Now I feel blessed every day to work with the Ranch, continuing to share about the amazing work we do. It breaks my heart to even think about the Ranch not existing. Countless lives would remain unchanged, unaltered, continuing down the dark paths they started on.”
But the Ranch does exist, and because it does, lives like Ariel Borgen’s are forever changed—and the gift keeps giving.