The “San Martín de Tours” Home is part of a greater project that organically includes the work of other Home: the “City of Charity”. As we said, this great work is one of the apostolates of the Institute of the Incarnate Word.
The “City of Charity”, which began on April 13, 1991, was conceived by our founder, Fr. Carlos M. Buela, IVE, as a place where all people in need can be served, without setting limits to the charity of Christ. That forced us to expand as much as possible to cover all the needs that Divine Providence presented to us. The need to care for men and women separately allowed the apostolate to multiply; the abandoned elderly needed their place, just as children and young people with family problems needed their own houses, different and separate, with beautiful gardens, etc.
Thus were the diverse needs that made us grow in the various charitable works that make up not one, but different Homes, but working together and unified in spirit and cooperation.
This made us eventually form our “Saint Martin of Tours Home”, the “Our Lady of the Divine Providence Home” for women and grandmothers with disabilities, the “Saint Gianna Beretta Molla Home” for boys and girls, the home for single mothers, the “Saint John Bosco Home” for adolescents and young men with family problems and its parallel for girls, the “Rosa Giannetti Home”, the “Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus Home” for guests and volunteers and the “Saints Karol and Emilia Home” for elderly parents of our religious. All of these are the Homes of the city of San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina. Approximately 170 people are beneficiaries of all these Homes.
But our Mercy Homes spread to countries all over the world! And with them, the City of Charity continues to grow:
In Peru
In Ecuador
In Chile
In Brazil
In Albania
In Ukraine
In Bethlehem
In Egypt
In Italy
In Spain
In Philippines
In Papua New Guinea
In Tanzania
Hundreds have benefited during these 30 years of existence: some have already left for the Father’s House; others continued their lives in other places. Some were able to form their own families. And, clearly, those who currently live with us benefit… but are although so many religious people, workers, volunteers and benefactors who were blessed so much by God have also benefited enormously. Only in Heaven will we know how many graces the prayers and offerings of our “children” won for us from God.
