Mexican Orphanage Ninos de Mexico Closes Due to Abuse of Children

It shut down in November 2025. There were twenty abusers and an estimated amount of  victims of 150!!!!

See the GRACE report here.

With deep ties to Missouri Christian churches,  Ninos de Mexico operated eight different homes-Genesis, Agape, Bethel, Esperanza, Emanuel, Jireh, New Beginnings, and New Life.

Niños de México operated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

“Niños de México had been operating for almost 60 years, until now.

The founders are from Franklin County and created the Christian-based group in 1967. It established an office in Union, Missouri, in 1978. A report said the office was “supporting churches in the United States to manage the administrative and donor-related aspects of the expanding ministry.”

“It conducted mobile mountain medical outreach and church planting initiatives in and around Mexico City.

The plan was to provide children with food, shelter, and educational care. It also provided housing for young adults attending university. It provided internships and a child sponsorship program of $25 a month.

The mission for Niños de México was, “Niños exists to share the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ with as many people as possible by raising at-risk children in Mexico to love God and grow to be mature educated Spirit-filled Christians with the ability and passion to evangelize their culture.”

There were “family-styled homes with two house parents and 10 to 13 children. He noted house parents were constantly changing.

In 2015, a minor told Miller [a mission trip intern] they were being physically mistreated by the house parents.

“This shocked me because I knew this man and his wife and I thought… on the outside everything was good,” said Miller .

Miller shared those concerns with one of the board members.

Then in 2018, another person came forward.

“I was approached by one of the young men, a minor, who told me that one of the house moms had a sexual relationship or was having a sexual relationship with one of the young men at Niños. Now he was a legal adult at the time, but he mentioned that the abuse started when he was a minor, so this was something that had happened years back and had continued through the years,” said Miller.

“In 2022, a former house parent, Javier Colosia, was arrested and charged for sex crimes in Mexico. In 2023, he was convicted of raping two teenage girls. He was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months of prison. He has reportedly received additional sentences since.

“After 2018, my eyes were opened and I started talking to a lot of the children hearing different stories. I connected with a whistleblower in Mexico, right before I contacted the board in 2022. This was with the Javier Colosia case,” added Miller.”

Franklin County-based religious nonprofit closes after report alleges decades of child abuse in Mexico
[KSDK 11/19/2025 by Justina Coronel]

Former supporters of the orphanage say that former Niños de México Executive Director Steve Ross “ignored reports of abuse over many years.”

“A spiral of separate child sexual abuse cases stretching back to the late 1960s” is what Ninos had become.

“The number of perpetrators over a half-century of abuse named in the report… The investigation had been a key demand echoed by survivors of abuse at Niños, along with other whistleblowers and former supporters — but the full picture of that abuse remains difficult to comprehend.

“There was so much that I learned in that report about what leadership knew, when they knew it, how many other people were reporting at the same time,” Heifner [a volunteer] said. “Other employees, people in the community, people in the churches — when you see it in its totality, it’s shocking. But it was also incredibly validating to read.”

Heifner also noted that the GRACE report included recommendations for change. The list includes items like cooperating with police and supporting survivors in legal proceedings. Instead, “they chose to close,” she said.

The closure leaves open the question of accountability. Steve Ross, the former executive director of Niños, appears in the GRACE report nearly 400 times”

“A scathing, anonymous advertisement in the Jan. 8 [2026] edition of the Washington Missourian blasted “58 Years of Abuse” and named Ross, as well as Niños’ current and former board of directors.

Beneath the list of names, the advertisement concluded two, brief lines in bold print:

“Christians protect the children, NOT the predators.”

“Christians fight for children. Cowards walk away.””

Critics of orphanage with Missouri ties say leaders shirked answering for abuse
[St. Louis on the Air 1/15/26 by Danny Wicentowski]

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