ESTEVAN - The past few years brought challenges for the Broken Arrow Youth Ranch, the ministry has emerged from the difficulties and continues to help young people and families.
Broken Arrow is a project of former Estevan resident Todd Moroz and his wife Lara. Located in the Wood Mountain area of south-central Saskatchewan, the ranch is a home for children under the age of 18 years for at least a year. The children learn and experience life on a fully-functioning and working ranch with faith-based values.
Joining the couple during a visit to Estevan last week were a couple of their youths, Keagan Haug, who first came to Broken Arrow at the age of three months and has been "part of the family ever since", Todd said, and Emily Lygouriatis, who has been there for about 2 1/2 months.
Todd and Lara were in Estevan as part of the Estevan Strippers' Molson Spring Bust recreation hockey tournament. Todd joined the Broken Arrow Bruins team that entered an over-30 division.
They also hosted a fundraising luncheon Saturday at the Estevan Leisure Centre's multi-purpose room.
The couple shared their story and how they wound up at Broken Arrow. A former student, who lived at the ranch with his brother in 2013, shared how his life has changed due to the ranch.
"The tournament is a fun event for the guys to get together, but then they also get to hear what Broken Arrow is all about and why we are doing this," said Moroz.
The Strippers have been wonderful to work with, he said, not only for allowing them to enter a team in the popular tournament, but for allowing the ranch to have an item in the tournament's silent auction. Broken Arrow also sold tickets for a raffle that will wrap up in June.
The ranch also held a fundraiser involving one of its animals, Dwight the Goat. People could purchase tickets for Dwight and put their name down on the ticket, or they could jot down the name of someone they know.
"More often than not, people are choosing a friend that they want to bless with this [goat], but there are some people that are putting their own names down, believe it or not," said Todd.
The last time they had the draw for a goat named Billy in 2019, the family that won kept him.
"Billy the Goat is living south of Lampman right now on an acreage," said Todd.
This year's winner, Hailey Tangjerd of Estevan, decided not to keep Dwight and donated it to the ranch to take him back to Wood Mountain.
"Dwight is very friendly. He's been walking around town," said Lara.
"He's been quite the conversation piece. There have been quite a number of businesses that said 'Bring him right on in,'" said Todd.
Three young people are currently staying at the ranch, Todd said. The livestock is doing well. Emily noted Broken Arrow has 14 cats, two dogs, one llama, two sheep, three bulls, eight heifers, 17 chickens, six horses and two pot-bellied pigs. Todd added they're about to calve out about 30 head.
And, of course, there's Dwight.
They're happy to be out in different communities to spread awareness of the ranch.
Todd noted they have new ranch parents, Howard and Karen Floyd, at Broken Arrow, which he said is a big answer to their prayers.
"They've been a wonderful addition, a blessing, to the Broken Arrow family," said Todd.
During the pandemic restrictions, they were able to turn a log house into a retreat centre. Individuals, couples and families who wanted to get out of the city and into a rural setting used the log cabin, and Broken Arrow continued what they do with students and livestock.
But the ministry couldn't be out in the community to promote Broken Arrow and fundraise.
"And yet throughout it all, we had a lot of people that continued to give money to the ministry, so that we were able to continue functioning, even though we couldn't do any fundraisers per se," said Lara.
One farmer asked if they could use a semi-load of barley. There has been a drought in the area the past couple of years, and the contribution helped Broken Arrow feed its cattle.
"A couple of farmers in this area helped us out by giving us straw bales and then this barley as well," said Lara.
Todd said the community has blessed and supported Broken Arrow over the years, and they couldn't offer these programs without the people of Estevan.
