Catholic Extension Society / Facebook
CV NEWS FEED // Latin American religious sisters are working with the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, to launch an outreach center for families in need just north of Donna, Texas.
According to the Catholic Extension Society, which helped bring several religious Sisters of the Lumen Christi Missionary Catechists to the area to help those in need, the center will be called “Plaza Amistad.”
The three the religious sisters arrived in 2021 to serve those in the area, where almost 40,000 residents live, but many lack basic necessities. In some cases, residents do not have safe drinking water or indoor plumbing. Their arrival has since offered the community newfound opportunities for resources both material and immaterial.
“The people are happy to be part of this growing community of mutual care, compassion and faith,” the Catholic Extension Society reported:
All of it began because these sisters were brave enough to come to this country, courageous enough to knock on the doors of strangers and skilled enough to know that if their efforts were to bear fruit, it would require them to find many partners and co-workers in this sprawling mission.
In May of this year, the three religious sisters earned master’s degrees in health care and human services from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota through the Catholic Extension Society.
Due to the sisters’ outreach efforts in the Donna area, the Diocese is creating the new 10,000-square-foot center on a 15-acre piece of land. The Catholic Extension Society reported that “[t]he vision is to create a place where local families can go for company with one another, worship, health screenings, prenatal care, counseling and children’s academic tutoring.”
Moreover, the center will have a garden, laundry services, and clean drinking water. The Diocese is also looking to build a church in the area in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. Mass is celebrated once a month outside of two portable buildings that were constructed in 2022 to serve the community.
Sister Maria Jesus Martinez Perez, one of the sisters who came to Texas through the Catholic Extension Society’s U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program, said in the article that residents “feel that the Church has come to them.”
“Seeing them grow as a community has impacted me a lot,” she added. “I can say that I’m growing with the people.”
