What We’re Really Building
By now, you may have received our spring newsletter in the mail — introducing Anchor Partners and inviting you into a new kind of commitment to Ruth Harbor's mission. If you haven't seen it yet, keep an eye on your mailbox.
But we wanted to write you a more personal note. Because there's more to the story than a newsletter can hold.
God sets the lonely in families.
That's Psalm 68:6 — and for us at Ruth Harbor, it's not just a verse. It's a description of what we're trying to build.
When a mom comes through our doors, she arrives in crisis. What she needs in that moment is safety, stability, and time. Over the months she's with us, she finds those things — a consistent home, a caring community, the slow work of healing. She learns what it means to be a mother. She begins to believe that her child's story can be different from her own.
And then she graduates. And she faces something we've come to call the gap.
The gap is the relational vacuum that opens up when a mom leaves Ruth Harbor. The structure she leaned on is no longer there. The staff who walked with her every day are no longer next door. And if she doesn't have a community waiting for her — a family of friends who know her name, who celebrate her milestones, who model what a healthy home looks like — the gains she made are at risk.
We've always known the gap exists. What we're building now is the bridge.
The Circle of Hope is our vision for that bridge.
It's a community — individuals, families, churches, and businesses — who surround a mom and her child not just during her time at Ruth Harbor, but through the full journey of her becoming. People who understand the mission deeply enough to engage it wisely. Who know that genuine love for a vulnerable family is not the same as charity. Who have been formed — by Scripture, by experience, and by one another — to stand in the gap with steadiness and hope.
Anchor Partners — our community of monthly givers — are the Circle of Hope. Your financial commitment is the foundation that keeps Ruth Harbor ready. But we believe that commitment is only the beginning of what you can be.
This summer, we're going to invite you deeper.
Starting in June, Anchor Partners will receive a monthly letter from me—in the mail. But alongside each letter, something we've never offered before — a story. A composite portrait drawn from the real women we serve, told one chapter at a time. Their childhoods. The choices that seemed like the only choices available. The long roads that brought them to our door. By the time you've walked alongside them through a full year of letters, you'll understand this mission from the inside in a way no statistic can give you.
In June, you'll understand what the journey at Ruth Harbor actually looks like — the four phases between arriving in crisis and walking out ready for something new.
In July, you'll hear what it looks like when that journey goes all the way.
In August, you'll begin to understand what trauma does to a family, and why the patience this work requires isn't just a virtue. It's the whole point.
We want Anchor Partners to be people who don't just give faithfully — they see. They see what God is doing through Ruth Harbor, and they understand their own irreplaceable place in it. That's what's coming. Not a newsletter. Letters between people who share a calling.
If you've been considering becoming an Anchor Partner, now is the time.
These monthly letters go to Anchor Partners only — they're part of what it means to be inside the Circle of Hope. The first letter arrives in June, and we want you to receive it from the beginning. Join at ruthharbor.org/anchor-partners.
And if you're already an Anchor Partner — thank you. What you're a part of is more than a budget line, it's a family that hasn't arrived yet. It's a mom who doesn't know your name but will one day walk into a home that was ready because you said yes.
You offer something we can’t put a price on—hope.
Chris Eller
Executive Director
Ruth Harbor Ministries