The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
Lifting Up Single Mothers: Inside New Beginnings with Ruth Westphal
Stepping through the doors of New Beginnings, single mothers find more than just shelter—they discover family. Case Manager Ruth Westfall shares her passionate journey of guiding these women from survival mode to stability through a comprehensive five-year program designed to break cycles of generational poverty.
"Every single girl is a success," Ruth explains, describing how each resident receives God's Word regardless of how long they stay. With daily devotions, weekly church attendance, and constant conversations about grace and forgiveness, faith forms the foundation of a program that transforms lives through six essential pillars: faith, parenting skills, education, vocation, personal development, and social skills.
The challenges are immense. Most residents arrive having never experienced trustworthy relationships, sleeping on floors with cockroaches crawling over them while pregnant, and developing survival mechanisms that initially make building trust difficult. Yet through patience, structure, and genuine love, Ruth and her team help these women recalibrate their lives. "These things that they have grown up with for years don't take just days," she notes. "It's years to break those cycles."
Success stories abound—graduates finding well-paying careers in IT, welding, and cybersecurity. But perhaps the most touching transformation is when a resident who initially responds with skepticism to expressions of love eventually whispers back "I love you too." These relationships continue even after residents leave, providing the supportive family many never had.
New Beginnings now hopes to expand their impact through their Heart Campaign, raising funds for a new facility that will allow them to serve mothers with multiple children. Learn how you can help break the cycle of generational poverty and give these families a fresh start at homeformothers.com.
Find strength and courage in your faith at this year’s FEARLESS FAITH Conference. Inspired by Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous,” join us Saturday, September 13, at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin, for presentations on navigating life’s storms, understanding God’s peace, and engaging in crucial conversations about euthanasia, anorexia, abortion, prenatal genetic testing, and more. Hear powerful journeys of faith through loss and hope. Don’t miss this empowering event! $50 in person or $40 virtual. Register now: https://christianliferesources.com/resources/events/2025-conference/
On today's episode that it's always successful, right? Because every single one of those girls comes in and, for at least a couple months, gets God's Word and the Holy Spirit, hopefully, will plant a seed. So I won't know how successful we are until we get to heaven, but to me every single girl is a success in that building. They come in but they always leave, no matter if they graduate or whether they leave on their own or whether we unfortunately have to ask them to leave. They get God's Word.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastor Bob Fleischman, and we have a special guest with us today, Ruth Westfall. Welcome, Ruth, Thank you for having me. Well, Ruth joins us today from New Beginnings and we'll talk a little bit about New Beginnings and what they do, and in our introduction.
Ruth Westphal:First, I would just love it, Ruth, if you would tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the position that you currently hold with New Beacon teacher in the inner city, and I just felt like I needed to do something different. I felt like God was calling me but I just felt like I wasn't being called to teach anymore. So I had peacefully resigned my position and was looking and praying and I literally, I tell people, kind of like Jacob wrestled God, I was wrestling with him. I'm like, listen, this is what I want. I want to work with children and parents. Still, I want to serve you. And so the first position I looked at was at Wisco. They were doing like a international, they had an international liaison position and I thought, well, this is perfect because it's working with parents and children from another country to its mission work. Bring them to Wisco. And I love mission work too.
Bob Fleischmann:Just for everybody's information, Wisco is Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
Ruth Westphal:Yes, it sure is. Thank you for saying that. So I thought this would be good for me and I applied. But then the president decided at the time to call somebody officially, and when you receive a divine call, that means that they're not going to hire outside of, it's not going to be a public position. So that was out. I was really disappointed, but I kept wrestling and asking God to give me what I needed, to give me what I needed.
Ruth Westphal:Ironically, kingdom Workers had a position for a foster care liaison, working with foster parents and volunteers to give them respite so that they would be able to be better foster parents. And I had gone through all the levels of the interview phone call for an hour with one person, another phone call for 45 minutes with a second person, then coming into Kingdom Workers for a panel interview. And so I'm thinking, man, I got it, I got the job. And then, two weeks later, I didn't get the job and I was crushed because I really thought I had it.
Ruth Westphal:And I was sitting at a graduation party with another pastor's wife and she said you know, I think there's a position open at New Beginnings. And I said well, what's that? See, I knew about New Beginnings when it was in Colorado, but I also had heard it closed so I didn't realize it would be opened in Milwaukee. She said, well, it's a home for single mothers. I was like, oh, I didn't even know that was Milwaukee. So I looked online and I thought I looked at the qualifications and expectations, I'm like I can do that. So I applied and interviewed with Chelsea and then Maddie and Bob said, sure, hire her.
Christa Potratz:And the rest is history. It's neat to hear a story too, just about how God brought you to the. He definitely did.
Ruth Westphal:Honestly, I am uniquely qualified to serve the Lord in this way for many reasons. But I look at the path that God has put me on in my entire life has led me to this, every single thing. I look back, I'm like holy cow. Even I did a stint selling spices for 12 years with Wildtree and you would think, well, how does that apply to being at New Beginnings? But you have to set goals. You have to coach others, mentor others, and I did a lot of speaking because I planned events. I was a big trainer. So because I present, also for New Beginnings everything in my life teaching, being a mother myself, like all of it has really given me the qualifications to be a case manager and also to speak on behalf of New Beginnings all over the country.
Christa Potratz:And we were talking before we started recording too, that it's been probably about two years at least since we've done an episode on New Beginnings, and so if somebody asked you like, just in a nutshell, to describe New Beginnings and then also like your role as a case manager, what would you say?
Ruth Westphal:So New Beginnings. It's home for single mothers. We take mothers that are pregnant with their first child or who have a child under the age of two, mostly because we just don't have the space at this time to accommodate a mom with more than one child. We're working to change that. But I work with the moms directly. I am their case manager. I work with the girls through goal setting, through a lot of ups and downs. We celebrate with them, we work with their children. So it's a lot of educating them as far as how to be a good mom Also. Basically, I'm just a huge support person for them.
Ruth Westphal:I come in. I have an office. I've created it to be like a safe space for them. I've made it kind of warm and cozy so that when they need to come and talk to me, they can shut the door and it's a safe space. I want them to know that I love them and I tell them that all the time, even if they're brand new. I tell them you know you don't ever have to say it back to me, I don't expect it, but I want you to know that I love you and I'm here for you. And it's interesting, it's such a beautiful, it's a beautiful thing. Actually, when they first hear me say that to them, you can see that they're like oh, this is weird, like what are you doing? And after a time it takes a few months all of a sudden you get this quiet. I love you too back. It's really special for me because they come to us in fight or flight, they come to us in survival mode.
Ruth Westphal:Every single one of them. They're scared and they have a good reason to be. They haven't had anybody they can trust in years, sometimes their entire life. So they don't in years, sometimes their entire life. So they don't believe that this is going to be safe for them. They're just, they're kind of in. It's a shock, right. So then realizing hey, wow, she really means what she says. It's really important. You know, I have one gal who we had to write up recently and she's lovely, really, really good girl, but she hasn't had the best experience with being forgiven and loved through the forgiveness, right, like doing something wrong. It was just anger in response and then that's it and a lot of just lashing out. So when we had to discipline her, you could see the fear she didn't understand. She's like wow, ruth is really mad at me.
Paul Snamiska:She's angry.
Ruth Westphal:I said you know I need to be honest with you. I've never had to discipline you before, but it's out of love. I said I think the reason you're so upset is because I've never had to before and also because you're afraid of what my response is going to be going forward because you've never had anybody give you grace before. And I said but I'm here to tell you that I still love you and you're forgiven. And she started crying. So I have to be very hyper-aware. I'm dealing with very different personalities and I have to work individually in such different ways, but always with all of them. Forgiveness is theirs, and being able to share the gospel with them and show them what God's love looks like is very important and it is very healing for them.
Christa Potratz:LESLIE KENDRICK. Yeah, I wanted to kind of talk to a little bit about the girls generally too. Bob, maybe you can kind of chime in too. What is the average stay of an individual that comes to New Beginnings?
Bob Fleischmann:Well, and that has changed dramatically from when we started it in 93 in Denver. A lot of them were staying three months, six months, and what Ruth was just describing was kind of touching on the thing that sets New Beginnings apart from other maybe similar homes and so forth, and that is, you know, initially, and most people, or a lot of people that we deal with, still think of New Beginnings more like a housing situation or temporary housing or something like that. And we had that in Denver. We had where they just they needed a place to stay. They got thrown out, they got whatever was happening in their world.
Bob Fleischmann:And then, with New Beginnings, our goal was that this is a Christ-based, faith-based program. Well, ruth's description of forgiveness is probably a very unique experience for a lot of them, because one of the distinguishing hallmarks of being a Christian is you forgive and you move on. And they don't understand that because that's not the way society works. Society doesn't work with that kind of forgiveness, and yet we know it from Christ. New Beginnings really was our ultimate bridge ministry. It was creating a bridge so that we could build a relationship, so that we could talk to them about even however important your relationship is with us. We're trying to forge a relationship, a vertical relationship with God, which is where we came up with the six pillars, where we came up with—it's a program, what we have.
Bob Fleischmann:So it started off with just staying three months, six months and so forth. Then we started getting residents in Denver staying a year, a little over a year maybe, getting close to two years. But then when we got to Milwaukee, then we tried to take it to the next level, and so Ruth and Chelsea have been working in that regard and I think that's where we came up with the kind of articulating the six pillars, the six areas we work on, and the way that we present it to people. And this is, if you aren't familiar with New Beginnings and you're listening to this podcast, keep this in mind.
Bob Fleischmann:New Beginnings is designed to lift generationally poor single mothers, not only to raise them up in a level of being responsible, but also to raise them out of generational poverty. And, quite honestly, the very definition of generational poverty, which means, by the time you come to us at New Beginnings, you're at least the third generation of living off of welfare and so forth, and you're not going to turn that around in a few weeks, a few months, sometimes not even in a couple of years. We're in it for the long haul and that's why I love listening to Ruth talk about it, because she clearly is committed for the long haul, I am God willing.
Ruth Westphal:and the kicks don't rise right.
Paul Snamiska:It's a challenge too.
Ruth Westphal:It is, it is. It is such a joy though I try to explain to people, I love it so much. I love serving these women and that's what it is. I'm serving them, we have so much fun together. We are a family and that's what I tell people. What I'm trying to cultivate there, and Chelsea too, is family. We're a family. It's not you. It's not you. It's not you, it's all. When we cultivate, that we are together in this and that we can lift each other up, it goes so much better. I've learned so much in a year. Think about where I was last year compared to now, and I'm telling you like my whole mentality has shifted to cultivate that oneness with us, so that security comes a little bit quicker, because they realize, okay, we're in this together and Chelsea and Ruth are a team. We're a team. They know that they can't play us against each other. That's something we had established very quickly. Yeah, and they try.
Christa Potratz:Oh, 100%, if you can't get from mom go to dad. That's something we had established very quickly and they try Mom and dad role. Oh, 100%, they're from mom go to dad.
Ruth Westphal:Yeah, absolutely. But that also creates security for them, right, like when you have structure. Like any child, they need that structure, they need rules and expectations, right, because that gives them they know what to expect. When these girls come to us, they've never been taught what to expect. They're living on the fly all the time.
Bob Fleischmann:To give you a great example of that when we were in Denver the first resident we had who stayed longer than a year we had not structured to handle you longer than a year because we didn't know what we were doing. We were starting off new. She really had embraced the program. Part of the issue with her is that I had thrown her out 12 years earlier because she was doing drugs and selling drugs and then, sure enough, she lost that child was taken from her and she got pregnant again and she came back in and I really wrestled with whether to accept her and so forth. And we did. We accepted her and she ended up staying for over a year and then we got to the point where we were trying to get her to start looking for a place outside of New Beginnings and she was really dragging her feet and I said to Heidi at the time—Heidi was our home manager in Colorado and I said to Heidi you got to sit down with her.
Bob Fleischmann:Something else is going on, something's brewing behind the scenes. And so she sat down with her and she said this she said New Beginnings has come to be my family. And she said before my family was out there. And so she said, whenever I would go to that family, they would get me back in the drugs, they would get me back in the trouble. She said, whereas this is my family and I'm afraid to leave my family. And just that conversation was very formative, as we, you know, kept maturing the program at New Beginnings, because we recognize that a lot of us, when we imagine New Beginnings, we imagine it based on the context of our own families. So, you know, we make mistakes. We, you know, we have conflicts in our families, but we get over them, you know, and so forth. They don't know that and so for them, they have to learn it. Once they learn it, they love it, and that's what we're trying to nurture.
Ruth Westphal:And I think that we've gotten to a place. We've got a. Really right now we're able to house four moms at this time. Currently we have three and it's such a joy to say this. We've got this groove. It started with one of our OG. I call her. She's been with us for over a year and because she loves us so much and she's established, then people coming in, she's the strong support for them but also can say, hey, hang in there. That is crucial, I believe, to why things are going so well. Also because Chelsea and I have this groove now.
Ruth Westphal:I didn't know what. I didn't know when we were bringing people in and they're applying for being here with us. But what I've come to realize is that they have to be ready and I'm starting to get pretty good at seeing whether that's the case with them when I'm going through their informational meeting, when I'm going through their application, and I've started to be very real with them and raw, even at the informational meeting. Like, this is a program. If there's anything in this program that you're reading that you don't think aligns with what you want right now, then this is not for you. So just establishing that right away has been crucial.
Ruth Westphal:I didn't use to do that. They'd come in, I just read, you know, give them a tour, send them on their way, and now I sit down and I get to know them. I ask them questions even before the application process because I want to see if they're ready. And you know what? Guess what? I might think that they're ready and when they get to us they're not. Okay, it's not a there's no, there's no perfect science to it, right, but just discernment. But, interestingly enough, some of the girls you know they're so good at just surviving that they will say whatever you want in order to get in the program. And that's hard because, like I said, they're good at it. So sometimes they get in and they're like, and the process is not easy. So the fact that they are so good at getting in and then they get in and they just don't want to do anything, I'm like, wow, like I thought you really wanted to be here.
Ruth Westphal:Yeah, how did you do that?
Christa Potratz:That's impressive. You know you've referred to it as a program too, and so really trying to get these girls I mean it is about taking care of mom and baby, but also I mean probably we'll kind of talk too about some of those other goals that there also are as well, and I think maybe that is kind of a good segue into these six pillars too, to really talk about the program goals of New Beginnings. Correct yeah.
Ruth Westphal:Well, our first pillar is faith. That is priority one. That's the mission and ministry of New Beginnings. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that they're getting God's Word right off the bat. I've been asked how do you define success with your program? And I've only been here a year. Okay, I don't have this long litmus of experience with longevity, right. But I tell them, you know, success to me is that it's always successful because every single one of those girls comes in and, for at least a couple months, gets God's Word and the Holy Spirit, hopefully, will plant a seed. So I won't know how successful we are until we get to heaven, but to me every single girl is a success in that building.
Ruth Westphal:They come in but they always leave, no matter if they graduate or whether they leave on their own or whether we unfortunately have to ask them to leave. They get God's word and that pillar is so crucial. They're required to go to church every Sunday. There is devotion every day at 9.30 that they are required to be at every day at 9.30 that they are required to be at. They do a Bible study with Chelsea. We talk about God all the time when we have our goal meetings, when sometimes have to discipline, god is always right at the forefront, because they need to know that they are loved and forgiven and that there is grace, and grace is used. That word is used very heavily in our home, and it has to be because most of these girls, if not all of them, haven't received a whole lot of that in their life. So faith is the first and most important pillar for us Parental.
Ruth Westphal:They themselves haven't really had good parenting growing up very rarely. Now there are always exceptions, and we certainly have that going on. Right now we have a resident who has a mom. That's wonderful, but for the most part they don't have good experience with that. So we help them with learning how to discipline when they are brand new moms, helping them learn how to even like swaddle their baby, or right now, currently we're working with a mom on how to switch the baby's nights and days right, because she's feeling a little overwhelmed about that. So it's just nurturing them and teaching them how to be a good Christian mama and just also like taking them to appointments that are really crucial for their baby and being a support for them and talking about that.
Ruth Westphal:As a case manager, I work with them weekly on goals. We have a goal meeting that they're required to be at as part of our programming and we talk about how they're feeling as parents and we set some goals like tummy time if it's a newborn, or exercise for the toddler, or diet for the children, just healthy choices, that kind of thing. The third pillar is educational. So we do require them to go back to school and or get a trade of some sort or find a position that's a livable wage and there are definitely those out there. Right Back 20 years ago college was it right? That was the expectation. But things have changed and now you can find a job that's a livable wage. So they're required to do that and we talk about goals and setting that up for them. So if they, for example, don't have their high school degree yet, we make sure that they get their GED or their HSED so they can have that crucial piece to move forward and what are some of the jobs that people do?
Ruth Westphal:Well, one of our graduates has a really well-paying job as an IT person for computers. Another gal that just graduated or not just, but graduated a couple years ago is a welder. She's making very, very good money. We actually have a gal, current resident starting a program called I See Stars. It is an incredible program that works with the underprivileged or generationally poor youth to get them into really great positions. It's mostly a computer-based like cybersecurity or medical transcripts or web design that kind of thing, but it's a very intense program 14 weeks long, 12-hour days, and they at the end of it get 24 credits and a lot of them not all, but most get very good paying jobs when they leave, and so she's doing that to set herself up going forward.
Christa Potratz:And does New Beginnings cover the educational costs? We do not, oh okay.
Ruth Westphal:We encourage them to get loans or grants. We also do encourage them to use W-2, which is a Wisconsin Works program. It's a two-year program where when they go to school, they are paid to go to school as an income. So we encourage them to get signed up with that. We encourage them to take advantage of all of the things that the government has to offer them to assist them while they're living with us so that by the time they graduate they're good to go and they don't have to rely on the government anymore. Right, so we're not a handout, we're a handout.
Ruth Westphal:Yeah, is what we are really truly, and I think that's so important.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, that's great to hear. Well, the fourth pillar, then, I believe, is the vocation, and it goes hand in hand really.
Ruth Westphal:They both kind of go together, depending on the situation, and they're working and or they're going to school at the same time. So it's a balance and it's always different. Every situation is different, right, right? So, then, and personal, how are they taking care of themselves, emotionally, mentally, physically? We require them to have a therapist. We're actually working with one right now. She used to actually work at New Beginnings, it was Carmelita and she's awesome. We require them to get hooked up with her right away. And then she sees them To start it seems like it's been once a week, once every other week, depending on the situation and then we sees them To start. It seems like it's been once a week, once every other week, depending on the situation and then we encourage them to be working out, exercising, just getting out of the house, because the temptation for just about all of them, especially when they first come to us, is to stay in their room and to not come out, and that's understandable, but it's not healthy.
Bob Fleischmann:When we had the program in Denver, we had a lot of residents who just had bad health habits. We had trouble. We had a bunch of them that were smoking. We had a bunch of them that were just not eating right and not taking care of themselves poor hygiene, all those kinds of things and so part of it, in terms of them forging their way into life, is to kind of help them kind of get up and get their life kind of under control.
Ruth Westphal:And that's where grace comes in. I mean, we really work very closely with them to get them in a healthy way, and sometimes that takes a long time. Sometimes we have to work with them on managing medication or getting them to see the therapist because they don't want to talk. That's not how they were raised, right. It's just shove it all down and so it's just. It's a process. And then so the last pillar is social and, quite frankly, a lot of times these girls don't come from healthy social environments. They're living day to day in horrible housing conditions. I mean, for example, one gal tell me that she was sleeping on the floor. She was very pregnant at the time and a cockroach crawled over her belly. Like they're not. That's the kind of stuff they're coming from. Okay, so we want to create healthy social experiences for them that are going to teach them what that looks like, rather than living in a really bad environment where people are partying all the time and smoking around the babies and doing things they shouldn't be doing.
Christa Potratz:Yeah Well, even too, when you were talking about the lying as well. I mean, that usually is from the social environment where they have picked that up because people have lied to them, or that's how the interactions have worked. It's a survival skill.
Ruth Westphal:I mean to them it's not a good one but it's what they've had to do to get by and sometimes it's just they lie out of fear, right, it's not even because they want to, they're scared. One of the things like, for example, we have group nights, group days it depends where. For example, monday we're going to the Shedd Aquarium, getting them to get out and do something fun but also educational. Sometimes we have, for example, in January I had a local artist come and we did mocktails and moms and we painted. Then another day we might go to the zoo. Or we recently had firefighters come and teach us CPR All of these healthy things to give them comfort and security and know that there are better ways to live.
Bob Fleischmann:And to some degree, what we're doing is recalibrating, because where this came from the social pillar which is probably the one whenever I've talked about New Beginnings has always raised the most questions is that where it came from is job interview.
Bob Fleischmann:We would have trouble where we would have residents who would do just very nicely in the program and then they would finally have an opportunity to apply for a position and we'd try to put them in touch with a company that we knew, and so I would talk to the after their interview. I would get a chance to talk to the person who interviewed them and they just said ah, they're just not going to be able to mix. Well, they're still taking that old social environment with them. And you know, here we've offered them a position in an office and either they're using poor language, they came dressed sloppy and that kind of thing, and so social is trying to raise them up to a different level so that when you're going to apply you know you're not applying to flip burgers anymore, you're applying to programming or you're applying to be an office receptionist or something, and they're just a different level.
Ruth Westphal:Yeah, and it's a gentle process too. You know we can't. When they first get to us, we can't be like what are you wearing? You know, I mean we. For example, if a girl comes down and they're wearing something that is maybe being too revealing in the first couple months, I don't draw attention to it, because if I were to say something at that moment, done At this point, I get a good feeling where I can say and I've had to do that now with some of the girls that have lived with us or live with us I'm like do you really think that's something you should be wearing? It's not really doing it for you. And I can say it in a kind of like lighthearted way right, when it's not shaming, because, again, they haven't been raised. It's a very cultural thing. Right To wear things that aren't appropriate.
Bob Fleischmann:So it's again teaching them how to do better, kind of an ongoing mantra that we've really emphasized for years, for decades, at New Beginnings. And it's hard because the staff has to make the adjustment. And that is you take them where they're at, they're never where you want them to be Correct, but you is. You take them where they're at, they're never where you want them to be.
Bob Fleischmann:But you have to take them where they're at. So you know, sometimes, even with the way they dress or the way they talk, that's not the time to come in heavy-handed or anything. Yes, you just got to start there.
Ruth Westphal:Yeah for sure, absolutely, bob. I agree with that 100%. We really give so much grace and patience. Both of those are the two big words I use a lot because it takes time and that's why we're a five-year program. Bob had mentioned earlier. These things that they have grown up with for years don't take just days. It's years to break those cycles. And also it takes years to get that degree or figure out that trade. We can't expect them to come to us and in three months have a job with a livable wage. Girls the leg up and I want them to know when they leave that they can always come back to me and they do, even if they leave without graduating. And that is what's crucial. They need to know that they have a healthy they've built a healthy relationship with people that they can feel safe to come home to, even if it's just a healthy. They've built a healthy relationship with people that they can feel safe to come home to, even if it's just a visit, even if it's a phone call. Beth.
Christa Potratz:Dombkowski. Bob, you know where did the six pillars come from. Was that just trial and error over the years?
Bob Fleischmann:Bob, I would say that you know.
Bob Fleischmann:I mean the obvious one, which is where Ruth started off with is the spiritual or the faith pillar. That was obvious. You know, when we started we wanted everything to be Christ-centered, but we realized that there also is a practical level to living. And so, you know, we just kind of as we started going through and you've heard me say this before there are no original ideas, everything is plagiarized. You know, and I went up at the old Rawhide Boys Ranch it's now just called Rawhide Ranch a youth ranch up in New London, wisconsin. I spent a full day there to learn how they operated at the time. That's where I got a lot of it, you know, because they were trying to teach them trades. So there was the vocational end and the educational end. Those were. And then, you know, experiences of sending them to be interviewed, getting things back. So a lot of trial and error. So the six pillars are the result of since 1993, learning from our mistakes, even.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, it really does seem, you know, even as you're going through the pillars, kind of good for everybody to have all those areas you know. And so really kind of a concept that is probably even beyond New Beginnings too.
Ruth Westphal:Well, I don't think for a second that I don't ask myself how I'm doing with these pillars. You know I do and actually as a parent, I have a 19-year-old and I have a 13-year-old and they're both girls. My personal life and my work life parallel. They're very similar, and so I kind of take home with me and work home with me if that makes sense, and my girls and my husband are a big part of what I do there and to create that family. My husband is a really wonderful example of what a father figure should be and the babies, the toddlers, love him. My girls babysit for the girls. My oldest will give them rides, cultivating that trust as well. They know that it's not just me. Yeah, I work there but I don't really consider it. It doesn't feel like a job to me. But thank you for paying me. I appreciate that.
Bob Fleischmann:Our privilege.
Ruth Westphal:It's wonderful how I'm able to have that, that my girls can come to work with me and that they're also building relationships with these moms that will last a lifetime, right, right.
Bob Fleischmann:And these pillars really are. If you think about it, they're just the logical way all of us do our lives. You know all six elements come into play. You know when your mother told you, you know this is you don't. You know you always say please or thank you. That's a social pillar, you know. A personal pillar. You know take a shower.
Ruth Westphal:Yeah, and you would think that's obvious, right? You'd think that's obvious, you know? Oh well, geez, that's obvious, ruth, but it's not obvious to them, right? Yeah, I know, I can see that, especially after hearing you talk and everything. Well, why didn't you know that it's very important we treat them with the respect that they deserve, we don't shame them, we don't make them feel less than they have to know that they are worthy, and it's important because Christ tells them they are. So who am I to say that they're not?
Bob Fleischmann:And so when we're, working with them on these pillars. They need to know that they are valued, because society doesn't value them. One last thing we want to say is that New Beginnings you know we own land up around 107th and Good Hope in Milwaukee those of you who are aware of that. It's going to cost us about $6.7 million to build the building that we want to build, and the building is going to enable us to take mothers who have more than one child and it's going to allow us to do things with the program we can't do and where we're at. So so far we have about $2 million collected. We need to get two more million dollars collected before we could break ground in the spring of 2026. And then we'd like to have it paid off by the time we move in.
Ruth Westphal:It's my secondary passion project, the girls are my first but I am on fire for this.
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah, ruth has been out. We've sent her all over the United States talking about it. Yeah, that's wonderful yeah.
Ruth Westphal:I'll be heading to Michigan in October.
Christa Potratz:Arizona, minnesota, well then, for all of our listeners, can you just encourage people to give, or what would you say to people, our listeners?
Ruth Westphal:I would say, please, it's called our Heart Campaign, if you go to homefromotherscom, you'll see a Heart Campaign tab.
Christa Potratz:You can click on that and donate directly.
Paul Snamiska:whether it's a one-time offering or you want to give every month.
Christa Potratz:But, yes, please help us to make this dream a reality so that we can serve even more mothers and babies. Well, that's a great way to end. Thank you, you're welcome. No, no, well, that's all really wonderful, and thank you so much for being here today and describing all of this for us, because it really does give us a glimpse into what New Beginnings does and all the great work that you guys are doing over there.
Ruth Westphal:That's a privilege. Thank you for having me.
Christa Potratz:And we thank all of our listeners, too, for joining us today, and if you have any questions on this episode, you can reach us at lifechallengesus. We'll see you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
