A safe home can be the foundation on which a family builds a brighter future. It can provide blessings for years and even generations to come — and its positive impact starts right away.
“Without this home, my miracle child wouldn’t be alive today,” Carlos shared during our recent visit with his family in El Remolino, Guatemala. His younger daughter, Virginia, was born with tremendous health challenges that required multiple surgeries. Thanks to the generosity of U.S. Catholics, the little girl was able to recover in her family’s clean new home. Just a short time earlier, they lived in a dirt-floor shack and the family suffered from near-constant pests and illnesses, so Carlos credits Cross Catholic Outreach supporters for saving his daughter’s life and transforming their family’s future.
In the nearby village of Laguna Seca, sisters Mishel and Melany pray for a similar blessing in their lives. These precious girls have grown up in a cramped one-room dwelling made from scrap metal, wood and bits of plastic tarp. Every time it rains, Mishel and Melany help their parents and other sisters gather the family’s belongings into garbage bags to protect what little they have from the streams of water that pour in through holes in the roof and walls. Then they all huddle together in the driest spot in the house until they fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.
The damp dwelling affects the family’s health too, and the living conditions make it difficult for the children to study and succeed in the classroom. Recently, the girls contracted a fungal infection and suffered the embarrassment of going to school with red, itchy rashes on their faces.
Stories like these are a sobering reminder that miracles are still greatly needed in our world today — and oftentimes the Lord chooses to work through his Church’s compassion to set his divine plans in motion.
Working together as the universal Church, we can end the hardships that unsafe housing imposes on children like Mishel and Melany in rural Guatemala. Cross Catholic Outreach is linking arms with three impoverished dioceses in that country to build safe, sturdy homes for 224 families in 15 remote villages. In 2013, Cross Catholic Outreach initiated its first homebuilding project in Guatemala. That year, U.S. donors helped fund homes for 17 families displaced after a devastating earthquake. During a visit to monitor the project, we learned that the diocese had great potential to help the poor but lacked the financial resources to accomplish its goals. We made a pledge that day to the people — and to God — and the impact has been incredible! Since then, we have built an additional 671 homes in the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima and have expanded our homebuilding efforts into the nearby dioceses of Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu and Sololá-Chimaltenango.
Throughout the 2025 Advent season, Cross Catholic Outreach is inviting U.S. parishes to participate in our “Be Someone’s Miracle” outreach to bless 1,164 people with safe shelter. By engaging your parishioners in this campaign, you will enable children like Mishel and Melany to grow up in a simple yet comfortable environment. All homes will include concrete-block walls, solid concrete flooring, galvanized metal roofs, locking doors, shuttered windows and a sanitary latrine and washbasin. If you’d like to order free resources for your parish, visit CrossCatholic.org/Advent-parishes and fill out our online interest form. In addition to materials such as bulletin inserts, collection brochures and our family Advent activity guide, you can invite a speaker or outreach priest to share about the Church’s efforts in Guatemala.
Donations from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures for this project incurred through June 30, 2027, the close of our ministry’s fiscal year. In the event that more funds are raised than needed to fully fund the project, the excess funds, if any, will be used to meet the most urgent needs of the ministry.
