Our Story
Tijuana Christian Mission started in 1965 as a church plant in Tijuana, Mexico. At the request of a church in the San Diego area, Sergio and Martha Gomez moved from further south in Mexico to serve as pastors of a church plant in Tijuana. It soon became apparent that there was a need for a children’s home in the neighborhood in which they were living. Before the opening of the children’s home, the Gomez family would often have ten or more extra children staying in their home. In many instances these were the children of prostitutes or of families who worked as scavengers in the city dump.
Regardless of the children’s backgrounds, without the help that Martha and Sergio offered them the children would have been locked in their homes for hours at a time while their mothers went out searching for a way to feed their families. After opening their own home and hearts for several years, in 1972 Martha and Sergio were able to open our Tijuana campus, City of Refuge Children’s Home (“Cuidad de Refugio”). Since that time City of Refuge has truly been a refuge for the needy children of Tijuana.
In 2006, we opened the doors of the Rosarito campus, Hacienda Victoria, a second children’s home located on 7 acres of land just south of Rosarito. Now we are able to house and help even more children from even more cities in Mexico. We now average around 75 children living with us, and this number will grow as as we continue to add more dormitories in Rosarito.