If you send donations via snail mail or make donations through your personal bank bill payer system (you will need to make the address change online with your bank), please change the mailing address to:

Beyond Partnership
PO Box 727
Haverhill MA 01831

There is no change if you make your donations via Electronic Funds Transfer or your debit/credit card online at www.beyondpartnership.org. Donations should be sent to the new address beginning Friday, June 15.

This change will allow us to reduce administrative costs and be more focused on our efforts to partner with our ministries in Central America, Cambodia, Haiti, and our other partnerships. There is much great kingdom work and ministry happening, and we want to maximize the impact of your generous donations to the poor.

If you have any questions, please email phil@beyondpartnership.org. You can still reach us by phone at 916.736.0716.

Your donations are critical to continuing God’s kingdom work in the areas we all love and serve, and this administrative change will help us in these efforts.

With gratitude,

Steve Joh
Board Member

As my sabbatical has come to an end, I have been in much prayer and feel that the time has come for me to transition out of being the Executive Director of Beyond Partnership. I have had meetings with the BP board and staff, and the plan is for me to resign when I turn 65 in November.

Until then, I’ll be doing much of what I always have done: lead teams, visit churches and friends, and support our national partners as much as I possibly can! And, obviously, I’ll be working on a smooth transition from me to the next Executive Director of Beyond Partnership.

Of special importance to me, are my last trips to Central America, Cambodia and Haiti. I am planning to lead three trips to encourage the national churches, thank them for the privilege and honor it has been to learn from them, and to assure them that Beyond Partnership will continue to be there to partner with them. I will be planning the trips in the fall. I will be sharing more information about these trips soon but wanted to mention it early, in case you feel God might be leading you to join me on one of them.

So please pray for all of this, with extra focus on the most important thing: our shared love of bringing Jesus’ Gospel to the poor! And, pray that God will lead the next Executive Director our way in His perfect timing!

I am very excited about how God is leading both Laura and me at this time. I also wanted to share with you that Laura will be working as an attorney, helping the immigrants in our communities as they seek help through the new immigration laws that are currently in congress. Please note, you can contact Laura if there are people you know who need help. Laura will be working with World Relief in this effort which affords our churches an amazing opportunity to “welcome the stranger and alien in our midst.” After I resign, I look forward to working with her and will continue to be centered on the poor and in helping the immigrants in the United States as the new immigration law is implemented.

It’s been a phenomenal ride with you all through the Mission Door / Partnership and then Beyond Partnership days, and my hope and prayer is that the best days of God’s mission among all our international partners is yet ahead!

Love in Him,

Steve

Cristian Fuentes

It is time to collect the funds for the Pastors’ Children Education Fund for the upcoming school year in Guatemala which begins in January. The Pastors’ Children Education Fund is a special project that provides funds to help the pastors in the Guatemalan Association to be able to send their children to school.

We have some children that have graduated or moved out of the program, and some new children that have been added. There are currently 16 children that still need partners. You can learn more about it on the Beyond Partnership website.  You will be able to see which children need partners, how the fund works and how to donate. Any questions can be directed to Jan Castro, project coordinator at jan@beyondpartnerhsip.org .

The Recovery House of Worship is a church planting ministry working primarily with recovering substance abusers.  They work in some of the areas affected by Sandy including Brooklyn, the Bronx, Coney Island, Jersey City, and Union City, NJ.  Many of the poor church members have experienced damage to their homes.  urricane Sandy has caused tremendous damage not only in the US, but also in many islands in the Caribbean.  Many lives have been lost and homes have been completely destroyed in areas where Beyond Partnership works.   Pastor Guillomettre the president of the Christian Center for Integrated Development in Haiti says, “I am in a very bad situation with some of our churches in the Central plateau and Petit Goave, last month the hurricane Isaac had devastated those areas and now we have another tropical storm “Sandy” that adds on the damages. Some of our church members there lost all their goods: gardens, animals and the roofs of their homes.  These poor peasants don’t have any money in the bank or insurance to help them out.”

Please consider helping Beyond Partnership support these ministries as they attend to their suffering congregations.  First, go to www.beyondpartnership.org and press the “Give Online” button in the upper right corner.  This will take you to a secure sit to process your donation.

To donate to Haiti, scroll down to Haiti Relief and indicate your level of support

To donate to the Recovery House of Worship, scroll down to Disaster Relief Fund.

Please continue to pray for all those affected and that God would empower these ministries so that they can minister to the hurting people around them.

If you and your church are interested in sending a team to help rebuild or clean up in these areas, please contact Beyond Partnership at info@beyondpartnership.org as soon as possible!

Cost: $1750.00 per person. Cost covers flight, accommodations, food, ground transport, travel insurance, extra translators, mobilization of nationals, tips, etc. Additional money will need to be raised for medical supplies to be used in Nicaragua.

We are grateful for what God has done over the years through Steve and Beyond Partnership and we are looking forward to how He will use our mission in the years to come.

During Steve’s sabbatical, operations at Beyond Partnership will go on as normal. Staff will continue to lead projects and connect with national leaders as well as North American churches and individuals.

Please pray with us that Steve will truly enjoy rest and rejuvenation (so help us by avoiding the urge to communicate with him about Beyond Partnership-related concerns), and pray that he’ll return ready to go and better than ever!  I’m sure personal notes and emails of encouragement would be appreciated by Steve.

If you have any Beyond Partnership-related concerns while Steve is away, please contact Phil Williams (interim Executive Director) at phil@beyondpartnership.org.

Paul Spurlock, Board President

Then came the first team. Eight people from High Street Community Church, Santa Cruz, CA worked in Limón, Costa Rica. This team from High Street formed a group they called “High Cinco” or High Five, which began to do projects each month in their home community. They would contract construction or other jobs and use the funds they made for materials on other mission projects. And, once a month they would do a project for someone in their community who needed help and couldn’t afford it. High Cinco raised funds and participated on other projects in Guatemala and Honduras.

Honduras 1993

But we quickly learned that bringing groups of North Americans to help third world churches should not be only a one way exchange of the wealthy giving material goods to the poor. The poor have so much love, experience and faith to give to us as their Christian brothers and sisters from the US that we desperately need. Through focusing on forming genuine and honest relationships between brothers and sisters, we found that we have been able to see God accomplish much more than we originally planned to achieve through just facilitating the giving of material abundance from the US. In fact for Beyond Partnership our principle goal in leading teams in the third world is to allow the Holy Spirit, through relationships among brothers and sisters in Christ, to penetrate people’s hearts and transform their lives so that as they go back to their regular lives, they can be more of what God intends for them.

As more groups from the US started to go with Beyond Partnership on projects, there was a need for more people to help organize the trips. That is when Mike and Lisa Ratzky joined the Beyond Partnership team 18 years ago to help bridge the staffing gaps. Since then several staff have come and gone, but now there are a total of 8 full time and several volunteer staff working to serve both the national churches and US churches.

Over the years Beyond Partnership has worked with over 60 churches and organizations from the US on a total of over 400 teams in 10 different countries throughout the Americas and South East Asia. BP, through donations from many churches in the US has given over $4 million to national ministries in order to further their goals. This money has been used to purchase property, construction materials, fund new start-up ministries, start economic development programs, and help provide education for children and pastors.

Cambodia 2010

As the national ministries we work with have grown, so have their needs and vision. We have responded to their requests by providing more than just funding. We now coordinate medical teams, construction teams in remote areas where there are no hotels or other facilities available, and a summer intern program. We try to keep an open ear to hear how we can help the national ministries and then turn around and find out how we can make things happen through our contacts in the US.

There are also ministries in new countries we are currently getting to know to see if the Lord would have us partner with them to help further the Gospel in other parts of the world. There are so many needs, but we want to make sure we continue to serve the current national ministries well as we consider expansion.

As Beyond Partnership looks forward to our next twenty years, we thank God that He allows us to be part of His work. We have no idea where God will take us in the future, but if the past twenty years is any kind of indication of what is to come, we know we can expect great things. Your prayers and support have been such an integral part of what we have done, and moving forward we know we cannot do this without your partnership as the body of Christ. As we have grown, so have our needs. Our fervent desire has always been to see God’s Kingdom grow in the ministries we serve throughout the world, and we have constantly lobbied on their behalf. But in doing so, we have often neglected our own organizational needs. In order to better Serve their Vision, Beyond Partnership needs your financial support. Would you prayerfully consider making a gift to The Beyond Partnership Fund? This is our most comprehensive fund that impacts every program and every country and field where we serve and work (i.e., special projects, emergency needs, exploration of new ministry sites, etc.).

Together we can thank God for what He has done and the privilege He has given us to participate with Him.

Make A Gift to Beyond Partnership

Did You Know?

The funds raised for trips and special projects do not cover the salaries of Beyond Partnership field staff. This is one of the ways we keep trip costs down. Staff, who lead our projects and teams, must raise their own financial support independently from teams and other special projects. Would you consider supporting a staff member monthly, quarterly or with a one-time gift?

As we were beginning to transition, the leadership of the Central American church came to me and asked if I would consider starting a ministry that would help bring resources to Central America where the needs were greater. I really didn’t want to do it, but my conviction is that God speaks through the Church (the body of Christ). I needed to put myself under the authority of their leadership. I decided to try it for two years.

I began to develop a program to help the poor in Central America. I was going to do water projects, housing, medical teams, school and education, agricultural projects, etc. I had a plan. I had learned the lesson that the poor understand their problems and have the wisdom to know how to best solve them—but, I had not really understood it and wasn’t practicing it with my approach. It took the poor to teach me again.

When I started meeting with Christian leaders in Central America, they had a different vision for their people. They wanted to first build the church (I think I heard someone else say that, “I will build My church”). They knew that the most effective way to solve the problem of poverty and the best way for long lasting community development was through the church. Since then, we have witnessed this, through the ministry of Misión a las Americas de Guatemala and the leadership of Otto de la Cruz. The association of churches in Guatemala sends a church planter/pastor to a poor community to live and start a church. They begin to evangelize the neighbors in the community and people start coming to the church and become followers of Jesus. Men who were defeated in life begin to feel good about themselves. Before they would spend the little money they had on alcohol and women, abuse their wives and kids, and had a difficult time keeping their jobs. As they begin to be transformed by Jesus, they stop drinking, they become faithful to their wives, and they no longer abuse their families. They become good employees and are able to hold a steady job. They now use their income for their families and the education of their kids, and the cycle of poverty is broken. This was their plan and the plan works.

Pastor Henry

Henry was an enforcer in the 18th Street gang in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Guatemala City. 18 is one of the largest and most violent gangs in the world. Henry was a feared young man. He grew up in a very abusive family situation and was on the streets by the time he was twelve. He had no hope for his future. About twelve years ago he came to know Christ and was transformed. Henri went into a church and the pastor and the members embraced him. He was discipled and trained by his pastor. Today Henry is married and a pastor of a thriving church and his community is being changed.

Ten years ago Beyond Partnership gave a grant to the Honduras Association to send Rigoberto Reyes to Nicaragua to be a church planter. Humberto Del Arca, the leader of the Honduran ministry we have been working with for years, trained Rigoberto and asked for our help. Ten years later there are over 25 established churches, an agricultural training center, a welding and carpentry school, and the Nicaragua Extension Bible Institute. None of this would have been successful without first starting the churches. It is the transformed people that are leading the social ministries. The social ministries give skills and prepare people for jobs and a better harvest for the farmers. They also attract many new people to the church who would otherwise never hear the Gospel.

Pastor Chico

Chico Fight was a feared man in Bluefields, Nicaragua, even by the Sandinistas and police during the civil war. He was an assassin and criminal without respect for life or authority. The city cowered before him. But God broke him and transformed him. Today Chico is still shaking up the city but not with fear and violence, rather with love and concern. Now Chico is the Nicaraguan ministry’s regional director along one of the roughest areas of the drug transportation route towards the US. He rescues youth from the throes of drugs, alcohol and gangs when these seem like the only viable options for young people trying to get ahead in life. But Chico has found Jesus and is sharing Him to give hope to the hopeless.

After the earthquake in Haiti we started working with the Association of Haitian Churches. It is a large group of churches completely under the leadership of the Haitians. Their first priority after the earthquake was to rebuild the churches. They understand that to put back together a country, first you have to put back together a people. Through the churches and under the direction of Haitian Christian leaders they started a “Transformational Village.” With little funding they started a training center. The training center incorporates the spiritual and the social. They train pastors to go back into areas throughout Haiti with new community development skills and programs. They work at the center with farmers on better agricultural techniques, hold computer classes, and have plans for a nursing school, an academic school, several vocational schools, and much more. They have a huge vision to help Haiti heal. At the center of everything they do is the Church.

In the past twenty years Beyond Partnership (formerly as Partnership Ministries) has helped build over 250 church buildings in 10 countries. Through those churches we have seen transformed lives—that transform communities. We have had the privilege of helping Guatemala start a seminary for poor pastors. In Nicaragua we helped start the agricultural project and vocational schools. In Cambodia we helped them start a cattle project where the churches provide a cow to the poorest families in the church. In Honduras as part of our 2010 Christmas offering we provided a boat to the Garifuna leader so he could plant churches up and down the North Coast of Honduras where there are no roads into the villages. When a church is built, Christian community results, lives are changed, broken homes are restored and villages are transformed.

My twenty year plan was not what God had in mind. Nobody could ever have imagined what God had in store for us. He has opened new countries, brought on new staff, and continues to use all of us: Beyond Partnership staff, national leaders, the many volunteers that have been on projects, the prayer support we have received, and the financial gifts that have been given. We have all been part of seeing the Kingdom of God become a reality in our lives and in the lives of more individuals and communities than we can count. And we pray that God would continue to do the same and even more over the next twenty years.

Steve Reed, Executive Director

This is a great opportunity to use your medical skills to serve the Kingdom of God in one of the poorest regions in the Western Hemisphere. We are looking for all sorts of medical personnel and translators to help meet the needs of many who have little or no access to medical care. We work under the Nicaraguan Conservative Baptist Church Association and they will be coordinating our medical efforts with evangelistic outreach.

The all inclusive cost is $1700. The deadline is Feb. 1.

For more info please write Mike Najjar at michaelnajjar@gmail.com

Henri Nouwen tells the story of an old man who used to meditate early every morning under a big tree on the banks of the Ganges River. One morning, after he had finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man quickly stretched himself out on one of the long roots that reached out into the river and reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he stretched himself out again on the roots to save the scorpion. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain.

At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted, “Hey, stupid old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?”

The old man turned his head. Looking into the stranger’s eyes he said calmly, “My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.”

Many times we get stung doing ministry and trying to do the right thing. Some of us were just stung worse than we have ever been stung. I arrived in Honduras on Sunday, December 4 with two friends. We came to support Robin, a close friend, whose husband Jeff died in a car accident. Steve Holtrust, a good friend of both Robin and me as well as the Beyond Partnership Board President, Robin’s mother, Madeline, and I came to Honduras together. We picked Robin up from the hospital (she was also in the car accident) and were driving to Tegucigalpa to identify Robin’s husband to bring him back to the States. Steve Holtrust, who was driving at the time, was shot by an unknown assailant and died instantly. The car crashed but the three of us were not injured physically.

Jeff Harter

I officiated Robin and Jeff’s wedding three years ago. Robin had waited so long for the right person to come along and I well remember the radiant joy that flowed from her at the wedding. Jeff was perfect for Robin and joined Robin in Signs of Love, the ministry to the deaf that Robin started 13 years ago. I have seen Robin be used by God to transform people that everyone forgot about into Christian leaders of the deaf ministry. Like the old man in the story, Robin and Jeff sat by the river and saved many people.

Steve Holtrust

Steve Holtrust retired three years ago and spent much of his time in ministry. He was the President of our Board. He was constantly serving in Honduras by supporting and spending time with the ministries of Humberto del Arca and Robin. He also sat by the river and reached out and touched the lives of many people.

Steve and Jeff are now in glory and we feel the sting. So many people are hurting over this. Tears of pain have been shed and the hurt will go away slowly.

Brennan Manning wrote about Henri Nouwen’s illustration, “only a madman would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, ungrateful creature.” Jesus answers, “My friend, just because it is fallen mankind’s nature to wound, that does not change my nature to save.”

As followers of Christ we have taken on the character and nature of Christ and we will be stung by this sinful fallen world. Some people get stung and it changes them into vengeful bitter people. Others get stung and they simply stop sitting by the river to save because they are afraid that they will be stung again. There is no question it hurts to be stung. But it should not change our nature to save.

Jesus came into this world and we stung Him. We continually sting Him with our sinful actions. His nature does not change and He continues to sit by our river and saves us.

Leonard Cohen, a Canadian singer and poet writes:

We’ve been cracked a little bit more. But now more light can come in. The star shined the night Jesus was born. Now may the star of Jesus shine a little bit brighter through the larger crack of pain we encountered. May we never run from the river because it hurts but always be there to save even though we get stung. As we get stung, I pray our nature to save does not change.

The true test of one’s character is what one does in times of adversity. Robin will return to Honduras and continue to work in the ministry with the deaf in spite of her suffering. God’s love in her heart is greater than the fear and pain that surround her. That is the nature that Jesus gave her. This is also Beyond Partnership’s nature as we will continue to serve the poor as before and be God’s instrument to save.

Beyond Partnership is doing well because of your prayers, support and concern. It has now been a year and a half that we have been an independent organization, and in spite of many ups and downs, we have grown stronger both relationally and financially. We thank you so very much for your part in our growth.

Eric Sanchez and Otto de la Cruz are two of the national ministry directors we work with in Central America. The light of Jesus shines through them among the very poor in Honduras and Guatemala. The Beyond Partnership Christmas offering will be used to support their ministries this year. Please read the attached and prayerfully consider helping them this Christmas season.

I pray that you allow yourself to be stung in the coming year and be cracked a little bit more so the light of Jesus shines on all you are around.

In His Love,