Some 20 years later, her work came to be guided by a local Catholic priest, the Abbé André Coindre, who was committed to establishing institutions to educate and help the children of the poor in the city.

With the members of the society she had founded who also wished to follow that path, she established a small convent in the working-class neighborhood of La Croix-Rousse.

By the middle of the 19th century, poor harvests sent many French Canadians to emigrate south to find work in the industrialized towns of the United States.

The RJM established the former Villa Augustana in Goffstown and sisters continue to minister in Warwick, Lincoln, and Exeter, Rhode Island.

As they explored how exactly to minister in New York City at the turn of the century, the high cost of housing and an admonition from the bishop to find sources of income led them to open a unique residence for young working women in lower Manhattan called Our Lady of Peace.

The residence proved to be a powerful ministry that provided safety and community for young women coming from around the US and around the world to work or go to school in New York.

Our Lady of Peace, played a role in the formation and vocational discernment of Blessed Dina Bélanger who is the first person born in Quebec to be beatified.

While isolated and suffering from TB, Dina wrote about her interior world, her mystical writings were eventually published and became popular.

The Family of Jesus and Mary also raises money for the RJM mission in Haiti by holding a monthly flea market in PS 207 (the former Godwin Terrace building of St. John's Kingsbridge).

[11] In the Southwestern United States, Religious of Jesus and Mary who had been expelled from Mexico due to the repression of the Catholic Church there during the early 20th century began to settle and open new centers of service.

In 1938, Bishop Buddy welcomed the sisters to San Diego, wanting them to open an affordable residence for working women, similar to one they operated in El Paso, Texas.

Until its closure in 2022, sisters from the Religious of Jesus and Mary operated Joan of Arc Residence, located at 1510 Third Avenue in downtown San Diego.

That same year, the Religious of Jesus and Mary opened Regina High School (for girls) on Riggs Road in Hyattsville.

Over time, the American sisters were joined by Religious of Jesus and Mary from other parts of the world including Spain, Ireland, Pakistan, and Peru along with vocations from Haiti itself.

Sisters, volunteers, and many local lay companions in mission have engaged in pastoral work, education, health care, community organizing, and agricultural and ecological projects in Haiti.

[17] In 2020, Sr. Janice Farnham, RJM, published an extensive history of the USA-Haiti Province entitled: Weaving Hope: The Religious of Jesus and Mary in the United States, 1877-2017.