Welcome!

This is the official web site of the Franciscan Missions, Inc., a fund-raising office of the Order of friars Minor, headquartered in Rome, Italy. Fr. Jose Carballo, OFM is the Minister General of the OFM Franciscans.

Click here to enter the store

Children Without Parents …

Big Brother …

It isn’t easy for an orphan to find a home in a country that’s already poor.  David was orphaned by his mother.  When I try to imagine this little boy, five years old, living on the streets, begging for food with no home to go to, it causes me to shudder.  The story gets worse.  David was also taking care of his little brother who is two years old.  Whne a nun discovered the two little boys, they were starving, cold, and their only clothes were the ones they were wearing.  The five year old wasn’t sure how many days he and his little brother had been wandering the streets, trying to survive on their own.  Thank God they are now under the care of a community of nuns in Ecuador. Maybe little David promised his mother before she died that he would take care of his little brother, because the nuns cannot separate the two boys.  It’s not unusual in any country for an older brother or sister to help care for younger siblings, but only God knows how this five year old big brother did it even for days, or possibly weeks.

Fr. Sereno Baiardi, OFM

St. Mary of the Angels

Poverty is what often causes parents to abandon their children. However,  at St. Mry of the Angels, a Franciscan Orphanage in Ecuador, the main reason the children had been abandoned is because they are HIV positive.  Mothers and fathers have died from AIDS leaving their children homeless.  When the Franciscan friars discovered a little baby on their door steps five years ago, a baby who was HIV positive, there was no place to take the baby.  So, the friars decided from that moment on that God would have to help them with this little life that was in their care. An old convent has become an orphanage and benefactors from the United States have built a clinic where the children can receive medical care.  There are many expenses in operating an orphanage, especially for children who have such special needs at St. Mary of the Angels.

Little Hands Reaching Out …
God works one moment, one person, one prayer, one miracle at a time …  that’s how God changes the world.  You can change the world for the children at St. Mary of the Angels by being a Godparent for them. The Franciscans will be happy to send you a progress report every six months on the children or specific child that you sponsor.  These are precious children who have been rejected by society because of an illness that was transmitted to them at birth.  These are precious children who heed someone to reach out a hand and lift them up.  There is a little hand that’s reaching out to yours.

Being Happy
Is it possible to be HIV positive and still be happy?  The children at St. Mary of the Angls are very happy.  For the first time in their little lives there are people, like you, who give them a reason to keep hoping and dreaming of a future.  They are happy for the opportunity to go to school like everyone else their age, and especially to have a place that they call home.  Home is more thn having a house to live in, it’s a place where they are taken care of, a place where they can laugh and cry, a place where they are accepted and loved, a place where they are a real family.

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

Thumbnail panels:

Our Missionaries

The Franciscans have 5,400 missionaries and 800 missions throughout the world. They serve the poor in every continent, following in the steps of St. Francis, with a special ministry to people with leprosy, many of whom are children.

In Need of Prayer