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Greetings!
It is not raining. No, but the thick air itself condenses on my skin and trickles helplessly from my face, along my collarbone, down my back, soaking the cotton t-shirt that I donned fresh just minutes ago. The notepad on which I'm attempting to write (being careful to make only the slightest of movements) blotches and wrinkles and curls with sweat from my palm. Welcome to Sudan! 107° in the shade; perhaps 125° in the punishing sun. The thatch roof above me provides shelter but no relief. Even the mosquitoes seem too dazed to dine
Flattened by this heat, I admit defeat and set aside my grand plan to hike to a nearby village to interview one of MBB's scholarship awardees. Instead, I rest on a cot and wonder: How do Sudanese women keep working all day without collapsing? How do they manage to sing? Their lives are lessons in resilience. I am so glad to be here learning from them - and I invite you to mark Mother's Day by reaching out to a mother in Sudan. Honor your own Mother this month by supporting a Mother in Sudan. $50 brings her the priceless gift of literacy. $100 brings her the joy of enrolling her daughter in school for a year. $250 enables her to start her own small business. Make this Mother's Day memorable; please give what you can afford.
Read below about two of the amazing people your generosity is already helping. It is my joy to connect you with them through Mercy Beyond Borders.
Thank you,
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Did You Know? | |
Intense bombing during the civil war displaced millions of S. Sudanese from the geographic corridor where the North was building a pipeline to extract oil from S. Sudan to the Khartoum government in the North. Thousands of Chinese military now guard that pipeline.
98% of S. Sudan's non-aid revenue comes from oil; the 2005 Peace Agreement established a 50/50 sharing of oil revenues between North and South.
Recently S. Sudanese officials announced that the current oil-sharing plan will continue even if S. Sudan votes next year to secede from the North. Otherwise, observers fear that the North would restart the civil war. |
| Read Our Blogs |
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Mercy Beyond Borders blog provides a weekly commentary from MBB's founder, Marilyn Lacey, rsm, on MBB activities at home and abroad.
Mercy in Sudan blog chronicles the experiences of Kathleen Connolly, rsm, who moved to Africa in Jan 2009. She is living at St Bakhita School in Sudan. | 
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Archived Newsletters
You can find previous issues of this newsletter in the below links.
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"Now when I die, I will have a box!"
 This is a story about the power of education. It begins with Deborah, who is now a nursing student at the Nursing College in Mapuordit, S. Sudan, on a full scholarship from Mercy Beyond Borders. It leads to the village where Deborah's mother and grandmother live. We visited because we had heard that they did not really believe that Deborah was going to be supported through Nursing School. It was too good to be true. After meeting us and verifying the scholarship, the grandmother stood beneath the shady neem tree and solemnly announced for all to hear, "Now when I die, I will have a box!"
What did she mean? Simply that because her granddaughter was becoming an educated woman, she herself-an old woman who had never been to school and could neither read nor write-would now be seen as an important person in the village. Being the relative of an educated woman was enough to give her a new sense of dignity. And as such, she would deserve to be buried in a coffin, a box, rather than left out in the bush for the vultures and wild animals to devour, as is the lot of the poor who die in Sudan. Imagine! Such is the power of education, changing even the lives of the uneducated!
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"See! I am positive living!"
 Pascalina has plenty of reasons to be discouraged: during her 16 years in a refugee camp, her husband and two sons died of AIDS. She herself is now HIV+ and confined to a wheelchair. But amazingly, she is not discouraged. In fact, she exudes energy. True to her name, Pascalina has "passed over" from grief to hope. She is the leader of Mercy Beyond Borders' first micro-enterprise group: 15 determined HIV+ women in the town of Nimule. She has used her MBB loan to expand a small kiosk where she sells soap and oil and salt. The added products have enticed more people to visit her kiosk; her monthly revenue has already increased 20%.
Pascalina took a grueling 6-hour bus ride on a rough road in order to meet with us in Juba to express the group's thanks for the micro-loans program. With the strength of a survivor she proudly told us, "Now I am focused on my business, not my sickness. See? I am positive living!" |
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Ambassador Of The Month
 Linda, a radiologist at Kaiser in San Jose, is passionate about education and believes in what Mercy Beyond Borders is doing for girls in Sudan. In her words: "For me, it is a joy and a privilege to support young Sudanese girls through your organization. Makes me feel a little less sad about the great disparities that exist in our world--and I love the fact that the money goes to education, which gives these young folks the tools to succeed on their own merits, with our help!" Ambassadors volunteer to raise $1,000 each year for Mercy Beyond Borders. For more information, or to become an Ambassador, contact Marilyn Lacey at mercybeyondborders@yahoo.com |
You're receiving this email because of your interest in MERCY BEYOND BORDERS. MBB was founded in 2008 by three colleagues-- a Sister of Mercy, a university professor, and a medical doctor--determined to improve the lives of displaced women and children living in extreme poverty. We are a 501(c)(3) registered in California and committed to linking U.S. resources with displaced women & children overseas. We are currently targeting Southern Sudan, which has one-quarter of the world's displaced peoples.
Please feel free to forward this to others who may be interested in hearing about us.
Sincerely,
Sister Marilyn Lacey
Executive Director
Donations to support the work of Mercy Beyond Borders can be made online by clicking on the button above or sent to Mercy Beyond Borders, 1885 De La Cruz Blvd #101, Santa Clara CA 95050-3000. |
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