About Mercy Beyond Borders

Our Story

A chance encounter in California back in 1992 between Sister Marilyn Lacey and Bishop Paride Taban from South Sudan [at that time still part of Sudan] planted the seed for Mercy Beyond Borders. At a conference for refugee resettlement directors, the bishop spoke about the ongoing civil war that had displaced millions of people in his homeland. Marilyn, a Sister of Mercy working full-time with refugees in the US, had never heard of this war.

She approached the bishop and said, “I wish I knew more about the suffering of your people.” He responded immediately: “Come and see.” She did. And she never forgot what she saw. Thousands of skeletal South Sudanese walking, walking, away from the bombings and burning villages…

How could anyone forget such suffering, on such a massive scale, and almost completely unnoticed by the mainstream media? 

Long story short: Marilyn spent two decades welcoming and assisting refugees arriving to the U.S. The fact is, however, that only ½ of 1% of refugees ever get permanently resettled in a safe country. Marilyn decided to switch her focus to the other 99.5%, those left behind, and specifically to the least among them: women and girls.  With the help of two friends, Steve Wade and Shirley Tamoria, she founded Mercy Beyond Borders in 2008.  

Mercy Beyond Borders began in South Sudan, choosing to work with those most at-risk: women and girls in places of extreme poverty. In other words, forging ways for females without education or influence to learn, connect and lead. And doing it in places that few knew about or cared about.

Mercy Beyond Borders started at St. Bakhita Girls’ Primary School in South Sudan, the only all-girl elementary school in the new nation.  Then we offered high school scholarships to girls successfully completing primary, and higher education scholarships to those showing the most promise.  Always, we enhanced the education by providing computer classes, leadership workshops, and advocacy training for its Scholars. 

Our core values for our Scholars are personal integrity, academic excellence, and compassionate action (demonstrated through community volunteering).

For women who have never been to school, we offer paths to economic advancement through a 2-year training program teaching perma-gardening techniques and providing micro-enterprise loans and business training.

The goal, of course, is the formation of confident, capable women leaders who will “pay it forward”, working for positive change in their respective countries.