Open Arms is a 501(c)3, non-profit organization that provides no-cost childcare to the most vulnerable and in-need families in Mexico. Our hope and prayer is to keep families together by providing children with a safe refuge during the day while their parents or guardians are at work. Our goal is to keep children out of orphanages and off the streets, and to bring them into the loving arms of Jesus. The care and assistance we provide for these families extends beyond just basic wellbeing; it encompasses all facets of a productive lifestyle, including academic, religious, and life education.
Our work includes children's centers to care for children while their parents are at work, an after-school junior high/high school program, youth ministry, mandatory parenting classes, and medical and dental outreach. Additionally, we have planted churches at each campus, which provide men's, women's, youth, young adult, and marriage ministries; evangelism; community outreach; and much more. Everything we do is focused around preaching the gospel and keeping families together.
In Mexico, we are battling a global poverty-driven orphan crisis. By some estimates, there are 153 million orphans throughout the world. In Mexico, many of those orphans are “economic” or “poverty” orphans. They have parents, but their parents are unable to care for them financially.
With the dramatic decline of the peso, families are not able to survive on one salary alone. In many families the father is absent, which leaves mothers vulnerable as they try to raise their children while working and without support. Many mothers and families are forced to leave their children home alone or on the streets while they work long and tiring hours. These children are left to fend for themselves. They attempt to survive each day on their own while their parents work to provide their most basic needs of food and shelter. Older siblings are forfeiting their education to stay at home and take care of their younger siblings while their parents go to work.
While the children are left at home, they are tragically left vulnerable to predators and traffickers. Almost all of our children at Open Arms come with a history of trauma. Many have suffered physical and sexual abuse, neglect, hunger, illness, abandonment, and exposure to illegal drug use and its many repercussions.
Many families are faced with the heart-wrenching decision to voluntary drop off their children at an orphanage because there are no daycare options available to help keep families together. This is where we come in. God has called us to open our arms to these families and to fight to keep them together.
Our hope and prayer is to keep families together by providing them with a safe refuge during the day. Our goal is to keep children out of orphanages and off the streets, and bring them into the loving and open arms of Jesus Christ. We are called to do the preventative work. We want to fight for families before they are abused, abandoned, or neglected. We want to prevent children from going to orphanages, being trafficked, or falling to addiction.
We believe God has ordained the family, and we believe families are worth fighting for. We know that the children we fight for are the future leaders and change-makers of Mexico, and they have the potential to completely shift the trajectory of this country. We believe and know that God has a great and beautiful plan of hope for what many have called hopeless. We will not stop fighting and proclaiming the goodness of God until we see that plan come to pass.
