On the edge of Mexico City, a vast landfill known as El Bordo has become a place of survival. Among mountains of discarded plastic and metal, families search for recyclables they can sell. Street children battle addiction. Many live without running water or electricity, in conditions few can imagine.
For Craig Johring, Danny Leger, and the team at Hope of the Poor, these men, women, and children are not statistics. They are family.
Founded by Johring, who spent eight years working in the dumps himself, Hope of the Poor exists for a simple purpose: to bring hope to those who feel forgotten — feeding families, helping children go to school, supporting rehabilitation, and creating a path out of the landfill. More than 120 families have been helped so far, and every day the mission serves over 250 homeless people outside the Basilica of Guadalupe.
During a recent General Audience in Rome, the team shared their mission with Pope Leo XIV.
Reflecting on how it all began, Johring said, “I would spend part of my day helping the kids on the street. Eventually I moved to being full-time and just doing that full-time. But the first group of street kids that I was able to make contact with, I was able to be accepted into their community, and they began to trust me and I brought food to them. And I just cared for them and just loved them unconditionally. It was an amazing experience.”
Education, he explained, is key to breaking the cycle. “What I’ve done over the years is to help the kids to start to go to school and to give them school uniforms, school supplies, and so that they could go to school and have everything they needed to get an education. Because the way out of the landfill is for the kids to get an education. And then eventually they’ll get a job and then they’ll be able to support their family to leave the dump.”
For Johring, transformation begins with dignity. “When people are valued, they’re loved, and they’re appreciated. And they’re given a place to live out their life with dignity. They begin to believe in themselves and begin to think that they can do something more than what they’re doing. I think that people change when they’re believed in, and that is just fertile ground for people to just be all that God is making them to be. And today many are working full-time jobs after just a year, after starting, being on the street and today they’re out of the street out of drugs and working a full-time job.”
The Gospel Given Away
When asked whether those helped by the mission return to change their communities, Johring did not hesitate. “Oh, absolutely. Because I believe the gospel works when people give it away.”
He pointed out that much of the staff are former street children and recovering addicts themselves. “Almost all of my staff are former drug users. They’re people who grew up as Street kids on the street. They survived and now they’ve left their addictions. And they and their families are off the street and now working for Hope of the Poor to help other people.”
Because outreach workers share the same background, trust forms quickly. “In the past it would take me a year or two years to build trust with someone. Very quickly we build trust because the people who are doing outreach are people that were on the street and they speak the language of a person who’s on the street and they can give a testimony of their life change and really give hope to someone on the street that they can change.”
Each year, about 450 volunteers from the United States travel to Mexico to serve alongside the mission. Among them is Danny Leger, director of Hope of the Poor in Omaha, who describes the work as both practical and deeply spiritual.
“It was so powerful for me to just walk with him to the poor and to see, as people walked by on the street, they would look at us like we were crazy because we’re just there with the street kids at an intersection. And we’re just there with two chickens and some hot sauce and some tortillas and just hanging out with them, sharing a meal. But really what we’re doing is building trust with them so then we could help them have a new life.”
He added, “I think a lot of people want to serve the poor and they don’t know how. We want to build trust and then we become friends and then really we become a family.”
A Life Transformed
For Leger, one story stands out — a young man named Luis.
“I think the first person that comes to mind is Luis. He’s one of our street kids. And I remember…I am not down working with Craig full-time in Mexico. I go down periodically. And so all of a sudden I go down and there’s this scary looking guy with face tattoos and he’s hanging around. And I look at Craig and I’m like, who’s this guy? And he goes, it’s okay, he works for us now. And you know, as he was working with us, he started to have like a deep conversion and came into the church and as I go down, I see his spiritual growth and now he’s leading all these other street guys and helping other people get off the street.”
The transformation did not stop there. “And one of the most, one of the things that inspired me most is I was down there just a few weeks ago and he had started a Bible study in the rehab center with the people that we had taken off the street and brought into the rehab center. He’s there every day leading a Bible study with his other guys that work on his team for Hope of the Poor. And it’s just so beautiful to see his transformation and growth.”
For Leger, the heart of the mission is simple: “I don’t think there’s anything more powerful, though, than bringing people to encounter Christ in the poor.”
Adapted by Jacob Stein
