About Amor Ministries
Sometimes showing someone the love of Jesus looks incredibly practical.
It looks like a roof over a family's head.
Amor Ministries is a Christian missions organization that brings people together to build homes alongside families in need. Through short-term mission trips and partnerships with local pastors, Amor gives churches, families, individuals, and other groups an opportunity to put their faith into action while meeting a need that can completely change a family's future.
The name "Amor" means love.
And that's exactly what the ministry wants people to experience—not simply love talked about, but love made tangible.
It Started With Children in an Orphanage
Amor's story began when Gayla Cooper visited an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico.
She hadn't expected the experience to change the direction of her life.
It did.
After meeting the children, Gayla eventually moved to Mexico to serve full-time. Around the same time, college student Scott Congdon visited the same orphanage and returned home deeply affected by what he had seen.
He began collecting food and clothing and bringing those resources back to the children.
Scott and Gayla eventually discovered they shared the same desire to serve families experiencing poverty in Mexico.
In March 1980, they founded Amor Ministries.
Later that year, Amor brought its first mission team to participate in a building project at an orphanage in Tecate.
But as the ministry continued, they began recognizing something important about why some children were ending up in orphanages in the first place.
What If You Could Keep the Family Together?
Some parents weren't sending their children away because they didn't love them.
They simply couldn't provide what their children needed.
Amor began responding by helping families build something that could create greater stability at home.
A house.
Having adequate housing can mean a parent has less money going toward rent and more available for everyday family needs. Children can have a safer place to sleep. A family that has been living with tremendous uncertainty can finally have something permanent.
That's why Amor says building a house does more than provide shelter.
It creates a foundation for the future.
Building Alongside the Community
Amor doesn't simply arrive in a community and decide who needs help.
Local relationships guide the process.
The ministry partners with pastors who already live and serve in the areas where homes are being built. Because those pastors know their communities personally, they help identify families who need housing and continue relationships with them after a mission team goes home.
That changes the dynamic of the trip.
Volunteers aren't arriving as outsiders with all the answers.
They're coming alongside people who are already serving their neighbors.
And when construction begins, the family receiving the home isn't meant to disappear into the background. Amor encourages teams to spend time talking with the family, getting to know people in the community, and remembering that the relationship matters just as much as the construction project.
You Don't Have to Be a Builder
One of the beautiful things about an Amor trip is that you don't have to arrive knowing how to build a house.
Amor prepares the worksite and provides guidance throughout the building process.
That opens the experience to people who might never consider themselves missionaries or construction workers.
Church groups can come together. Parents can bring their children. Someone can participate individually and serve alongside people they've just met.
A few days later, there's a house standing where there wasn't one before.
But something can change in the volunteers too.
Serving face-to-face with another family has a way of changing how you think about poverty, generosity, faith, and what it means to love your neighbor.
Come. Build. Hope.
Amor describes its mission simply: "Bring people together to manifest Jesus."
House building is one way it does that.
The ministry has also responded to community needs through food, clothing, school supplies, winter relief, and other forms of practical support.
But the house remains at the center because of what it can represent for a family.
Safety.
Stability.
A place to stay together.
And behind the construction is the Christian conviction that serving someone in a tangible way can become an expression of the grace believers themselves have received through Jesus.
At the heart of Amor Ministries is a simple picture of Christian service: people crossing borders and stepping outside their ordinary routines to build alongside another family—not merely leaving behind a house, but demonstrating the love of Jesus in a way that family can see, touch, and call home.
