The Children Need Us

Welcome to our blog.  We are Beyond Our Borders, a team of volunteers that exists to help poor children around the world.  We began in 2004 with an idea to reach beyond our church, our community, and our country to follow Christ's commandments to spread God's word and to help children.  Operating under the auspices of Christ United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, we seek to serve the daily needs of disadvantaged children by building long term partnerships with Christian leaders in other countries who have exhibited full-time commitment to the needs of poor children.

Beyond Our Borders transforms the lives of impoverished children and their families in developing countries.  Our projects nourish children in mind, body, and spirit and provide hope by enhancing their daily lives with improved sanctuary and Christian teaching.

This is our mission -- and we execute that mission by identifying and funding projects with our partners.  Details of our methodology and specific projects will be provided in future posts.

This picture captures the essence of the children that we serve.  Most of the children are between the ages of 2 and 10 years old, but we also support some projects for teenagers.  As you can see, these beautiful children must deal with daily environments that are impoverished beyond our imaginations.  Usually living in favelas, or slums, or dirty city streets, our children are surrounded by poverty, deteriorating housing, garbage dumps, illegal drugs, prostitution, and violent crime.  By supporting local creches (day care centers), orphanages, and faith-based outreach programs, we can help these children build the hope and character they need for a better future. 

Sure, there are many longstanding, non-profit organizations that help children, and they are bigger and more far-reaching than we will ever be.  However, we want more involvement than just making donations to an established charity, though that is a fine thing to do.  We enjoy working together as a team to raise money for the children and then allocating funds to projects.  We enjoy traveling to other countries to meet the children and the leaders that work with them every day.  We enjoy performing all of our own administration and establishing partnerships with Christian leaders around the world.  Most of all, we love seeing smiles on the children's faces, knowing that we have helped them to learn, to stay safe, and to know God.

We hope that you become a regular follower of this blog.  We want your prayers, your ideas, and your support.  The first few blog posts will give you background and facts about Beyond Our Borders -- where we go, our current projects, and our future plans.  Then the blog will concentrate on current events and stories about the children that we serve.  Thank you for your interest, and please consider how you can contribute to help the children of the world.