Proctor Journal

Rev. James Crossman, spiritual director of the Blessed Nuno Society, and former St. Rose parish priest, maybe retired but he’s not slowing down. At 83, he plans to lead a mission to Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico to build an orphanage.

“I suppose it’s a bit ambitious to start such a project at my age, but after visiting the orphans of Agua Prieta, I am convinced that this new home is desperately needed,” Crossman said. “The Blessed Nuno Society brings 20 years of experience to this project, and we have the support of many dedicated and capable volunteers, both in the United States and Mexico.

In recent years, the city of Agua Prieta, located just across the Mexican Border from Douglas, Ariz., has become the focal point of migrants from throughout Central America and rural Mexico. As a result, there are more than 130 deaths from dehydration in the nearby desert each year.

“So many deaths it’s as if a jetliner crashed there every year,” Crossman explained. “The children tend to be the survivors, as their parents give them the last of the water.” Many others are separated from their families in the chaos of the border. Last year alone, border authorities brought over 6,200 unaccompanied minors to the existing children’s shelters in Sonora. Still more are brought to the three Agua Prieta orphanages which the Blessed Nuno Society already supports because their mothers simply cannot feed them or keep them warm. It is not uncommon for infants to be abandoned or for young girls to be turned out on the streets in their early teens.

“We can break this cycle of poverty through education,” says Crossman. The Blessed Nuno Society has initiated English as a second language program, built computer labs, and launched tutoring programs at the existing orphanages and in a new project for abandoned teens.

For more information, or to contribute, please write: The Blessed Nuno Society, P.O. Box 3484, Duluth, MN 55803.