Vision Beyond Borders - Saturday Volunteers

This picture hangs in the entry of the warehouse and offices at Vision Beyond Borders. I thought you would like it.

As I have told you before, Vision Beyond Border's main mission is to deliver Bibles to places where they are not freely available. Often, this means someone has to put their own safety and freedom at risk in order to do it.

When carrying out their mission they so often became aware of needs of the people they are meeting.  This led to them taking on many challenges as they try to help in other ways. They help with orphanages. They have safe houses and work to rescue women from the sex trade. They deliver clothes, shoes, seeds and more, depending on the needs. 

Saturday morning a group of us from our church gathered at the Vision Beyond Borders Warehouse to work once again on repackaging seeds to donate to people who are deprived of the ability to purchase their own seeds.  We are repackaging them so they take up less room for shipping or delivering via someone's suitcase. It also demonstrates they are not being taken in to sell in stores. The bottom line is, there are thousands and thousands of seed packets. We are stubborn people who want to finish this project we started, even though it turned out to be a much bigger project than we expected.

These are all people with busy lives. These are people who could surely find things they need to do for themselves on their fee Saturday. Yet, they came. Once again, they stayed longer than they meant too as well. 

These people, these friends from church, are the cream of the crop.

Visiting Vision Beyond Borders

Yesterday Mike and I joined others for a tour of the newest Vision Beyond Borders facility. I am excited that it is right here in our town. I look forward to learning more about their work and having opportunities to volunteer on occasion. I am just so impressed wth this group and their "can do" attitude.  

I thought it quite appropriate that they had this huge map in their warehouse. There doesn't seem to be any place they won't go to be of service.

Yesterday we saw volunteers helping sort donated clothing that will be going to various countries to help people in need. They check for stains or missing buttons. I learned they have to sort in ways I would not have considered. For instance, they deliver clothing to Burma (Myanmar). There, the Karen people and other tribes face a military leaders who intend to exterminate them. Click on the link to learn more. This is a place where children have to hide in the forest for their own safety. They do not take bright colored clothing there because that would make them easier targets for bullets.  I am telling you, they are serving those in dire situations.

Their main focus is providing Bibles, free of charge, in the language of the recipients. That certainly isn't the end of it, though. Besides clothing, we saw them packaging health and hygiene kits. I know they do things for orphanages as well as helping women get out of sex trafficking.

Patrick, in the blue shirt, was telling us a story of answered prayer. He is often approached regarding unmet needs. Someone asked him if he could acquire 1,000 cassette tapes. That is an unusual request now days!  About 3 hours later he received a call from a woman in another town. She had 1,500 cassette tapes and wondered if he had any use for them!  I don't know, I just feel God is watching over these caring people.

Vision Beyond Borders

We've been doing something important this week-end. It was not a big thing, really, but we felt we were a part of something huge. Actually, we were! I will tell you more about it tomorrow but for now, watch this video and you'll learn more about Vision Beyond Borders. Check back tomorrow to hear our small part in helping this group.