July 28, 2025 • 56 mins
Let’s kick off INSPIRATION by re-sharing my conversation with Sr. Marilyn Lacey, RSM, Founder of Mercy Beyond Borders. Get ready to be challenged, inspired and moved to tears! Mercy Beyond Borders is a global organization that is forging ways for women and girls in extreme poverty to learn, connect and lead. Sr. Marilyn shares incredible stories of courage, determination and divinity in this conversation. It was a priviledge to provide a platform for Sr. Marilyn to share her story and the stories of so many women who are changing their lives through education and advocacy.
Sr. MARILYN LACEY, a Sister of Mercy, is passionate about making the world a more welcoming place. She’s been working with displaced peoples since 1981. Although she holds a Master’s Degree in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and 4 honorary doctorates, she insists that the poor have been her best teachers. In 2001 Marilyn was personally honored by the Dalai Lama as an “unsung hero of compassion.” For two decades Marilyn directed the refugee and immigration programs for Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, CA. She has also worked in refugee camps overseas.
(1:28) Sr. Marilyn shares her story with us and why she has chosen this work.
(8:40) We learn about actionable tools that Sr. Marilyn shares to educate people on the impact they can have in the world.
(12:00) Sr. Marilyn shares with us the experience(s) of little girls, from South Sudan, that illustrates the positive impact her organization is having on people.
(21:56) How did the system get set up that put her organization, Mercy Beyond Borders, on a path to make a difference in other countries?
(30:01) We learn more details about the infrastructure, and the relationship with local government(s), that allows MBB to be impactful.
(33:34) What is the importance of understanding that there is no “over there”? Helping others has an impact on us locally since we are so interconnected around the world.
(38:54) A discussion about the “wrap around services” that MBB offers to ensure the girls are safe and can continue to get the education in their local countries.
(50:13) Who in Sr. Marilyn’s life are sources of support and motivation as she continues her work?
(52:37). How does Sr. Marilyn see Mercy Beyond Borders making an impact in the future?
Connect with Sr. Marilyn Lacey, RSM
https://www.mercybeyondborders.org
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Sr. MARILYN LACEY, a Sister of Mercy, is passionate about making the world a more welcoming place. She’s been working with displaced peoples since 1981. Although she holds a Master’s Degree in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and 4 honorary doctorates, she insists that the poor have been her best teachers. In 2001 Marilyn was personally honored by the Dalai Lama as an “unsung hero of compassion.” For two decades Marilyn directed the refugee and immigration programs for Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, CA. She has also worked in refugee camps overseas.
(1:28) Sr. Marilyn shares her story with us and why she has chosen this work.
(8:40) We learn about actionable tools that Sr. Marilyn shares to educate people on the impact they can have in the world.
(12:00) Sr. Marilyn shares with us the experience(s) of little girls, from South Sudan, that illustrates the positive impact her organization is having on people.
(21:56) How did the system get set up that put her organization, Mercy Beyond Borders, on a path to make a difference in other countries?
(30:01) We learn more details about the infrastructure, and the relationship with local government(s), that allows MBB to be impactful.
(33:34) What is the importance of understanding that there is no “over there”? Helping others has an impact on us locally since we are so interconnected around the world.
(38:54) A discussion about the “wrap around services” that MBB offers to ensure the girls are safe and can continue to get the education in their local countries.
(50:13) Who in Sr. Marilyn’s life are sources of support and motivation as she continues her work?
(52:37). How does Sr. Marilyn see Mercy Beyond Borders making an impact in the future?
Connect with Sr. Marilyn Lacey, RSM
https://www.mercybeyondborders.org
Subscribe: Warriors At Work Podcasts Website: https://jeaniecoomber.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/986666321719033/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanie_coomber/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanie_coomber
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanie-coomber-90973b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMZ2HyNNyPoeCSqKClBC_w
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Warriors at Work Show. This is Genie Koomber,
your guide and host. This is a show for men
and women in the workplace who want to move from
the predictable to the potent. This is your weekly dose
of inspiration with an edge. I talk with CEOs and shawmans,
sports marketing executives, and therapists.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
All of us are.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Like minded thinkers and doers who tell stories, share wisdom,
and challenge each other to have the best life possible
inside and outside the office.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody, it's Gennie.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Thanks so much for joining me here at Warriors at
Work and Happy July. As we reach the halfway point
of the year, it's a natural time to pause, reflect
and realign with ourselves. So over the coming weeks, I
will be resharing podcast episodes from Warriors at Work and
the intention here is to help you to reconnect with
your yourself, refuel your energy, and move forward with clarity.
(01:04):
Let's make the rest of the year really count enjoy. Marilyn,
thank you so much for joining me in this conversation
today and sharing your incredible story, so much wisdom and
gifts that you're putting out into the world feel really,
really grateful.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
You'd be wonderful to have a chance to be with
your audience and your community.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You've had such an extraordinary life, and I extracted something
from your website that I thought really embodied a lot
of the things that I picked up from you when
we first spoke, which was you chose to forge ways
for women and girls in extreme poverty to learn, connect
and lead. Your organization is now fifteen years old. You're
(01:46):
in five countries, and you go to places like South
Sudan and Haiti, just to name a few, And you
have chosen to do this work in the world, and
I think we need to start first by having you
share with us your story and why you chose to
be in this space doing this work on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, how long have we got? I am having an
amazing life, and I think it probably differs from what
most people in the US think of nuns lives, being
I have had the great privilege really of being part
(02:32):
of an empowering community of women, which is the Convent
that I joined. The Sisters of Mercy, who are all
themselves well educated women who've held positions of leadership, who've
built hospitals, who've been CEOs of institution and so having
been in the content for decades, I had so many
(02:53):
mentors and role models and people who helped me when
I hit a glitch when I first moved into leadership positions.
So there's an in built, built in support network that
is pretty phenomenal, and I've benefited immensely from that. But personally,
(03:17):
you know, I think about the randomness of our birth. Right,
Why was I born into a comfortable, loving family in
a country that was in the time at peace, had
a wonderful education, had a chance to travel, and in
good health. I mean, those blessings should not be taken
(03:42):
for granted, right, And then when you have the chance
to confront or meet people who have none of those,
just by the randomness of their birth into extreme poverty
or ill health, or oppression of emails in the country
where they were born, the cultures that dismiss them or
(04:05):
marginate them. There was something always in me that gravitated
toward a sharing of what I've received to be with
those who had certainly giftedness and talent and beauty and
all of that, but none of the social and economic
benefits and educational benefits that I have had. I think
(04:30):
it is like water always finds its own length, you
know its own level, and if the water's higher here,
pretty soon it's going to be evened out everywhere. That's
the vision I have for the world. You know. So
we all have gifts to share, and yet we cling
to what we have more often than we open our hands, right,
(04:51):
And so I guess my life has been about being
so impressed by the people, the impoverished people that I've met,
that I've wanted freely to devote my life to evening
out in any way that connecting people who have resources
with the nonprofit I'm running, so that we can use
(05:14):
those resources to lift up women and girls who are
in really difficult, dangerous, depressing situations. Places like Katie and
South Sudana don't get in the US news very often,
but live in really really oppressive situations. So my story,
(05:38):
I think, is just one of being pulled into the
giftedness of that those relationships and inviting others into it.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You were drawn to the.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Beauty, and you use words like resilience and tenderness, which
are not I mean, resilience is definitely a word we
hear a lot and particularly post COVID environment. But the
word tenderness, it's not something that you hear. And I
think it's also really important how you say you want
to you want all, like all of the rivers to
run and all be connected and have more equality and availability.
(06:14):
And and I want to break down some of the
things that you shared with me to prepare for this
interview that I think really speak to how special you
are and this work in the world.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, let me stop you there. I'm not special except
the fact that I've had these experiences, right, And I
think it's I think most people don't have these experiences
because we fear what is other?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Right, that's true.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Well, you know we tell our children not to talk
to strangers. We we wish to be safe, right, And
I forget who it was that said that the only
the only place you can really be safe isn't a coffin.
Oh God, And that sounds bizarre, but it's really true.
If you're going to live life to the full, you've
(07:02):
got to drop all your you know, armor and engage
with people. And I know that there are threats out there,
and I know the world is dangerous, and I have
face down guys with ak forty seven's who are you know,
drunk and unreliable and things like that. But honestly, on
the most part, for the most part, people are not threats.
(07:27):
People bring blessings into your life. And I don't know
how to reverse that thinking in America that you know,
if we could just isolate ourselves, we would be safe.
That's not true. So anyway, I kind of live without
the fear gene e except for spiders. And so as
a result, I've I've engaged with lots of different cultures
(07:49):
and different peoples and different experiences, and it's brought me
a lot of joy. So I don't think that makes
me special. It just makes me blessed.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
You know, Hm, you know, you shared so many incredible
experiences with me when we were preparing for this conversation,
and you made a comment that really hit me, and
it's still it still sits with me, as women are
are worth less than cows, and that comment plus some
(08:20):
just incredible stories of courage and bravery and perseverance.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You are. You are in the middle of.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Extraordinary places in the world, things that we here in
the US have no understanding or relationship to. So it's
it's even difficult to hear, let alone get into action
to support. So tell us about that journey.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So you you're doing this incredible work.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
How do you go from educating someone to moving them
to action.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Well, there's I think there's lots of different ways because
we're all unique. But I would say in general, we
are deluged with information and news about trouble right around
the world because that's what sells, and the cable news
networks and all of that is conflict and friction and
panic and terrorism and all of that. So we're kind
(09:14):
of inundated with a lot of that, and it is
it can be paralyzing. Right. You can just watch five
minutes of the nightly news and say I can't take
this anymore, and you turn it off and you put
on a comedy. Right, I've done that myself. But the
way to engage, I think, is to allow your heart
(09:36):
to be touched. And it's not going to be by
every issue. It might be homelessness, it might be hunger
of children, it might be a particular cancer or something
that you want to say, you know what, I want
to do something about that. In the world. I may
be small, I may not be a bazillionaire. But I
(09:58):
can do some thing, and that decision to do something
is very energizing. The paralysis will disappear. Yeah, you could
say cancer, Who can do anything about cancer? It's in
every family, it's it's everywhere. We're doomed. Or you can say,
I'm going to volunteer at such and such an agency
(10:21):
that's doing something for patients or for research or for whatever.
Or I'm going to write a check if I can,
or I'm going to skip a few lattes this week
and write that check, you know, to cure cancer. So
whatever moves your heart, whatever your issue is children or pets,
or you know, disease or the climate crisis. My goodness,
(10:43):
it's everybody's problem. If you take some action, no matter
how small or how great, you will feel empowered and
you will be making a difference, and then you'll be
able to watch the news about that because it's moving
in the right direction. Right. Well, So I say that
to everybody, we especially us citizens, we have power. We
(11:05):
have power. We don't use We don't use it at
the ballot box. Effectively, we don't use it by talking
to our elected officials. Uh that's I mean, there's so
many ways. We just focus on building a kind of
a comfortable existence for ourselves and people we love, thinking
that that will keep us safe, and it can't because
(11:31):
we're all connected, the butterfly effect and all of that.
But we also know it spiritually that we are connected
to one another, and so we all need to be
caring at an action level MM not only for people near,
(11:53):
but people far, because they're really not far. We are
one small.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Planet, yes, interconnected, and I would love for you to share. Obviously,
you do so many incredible things you and your team
with this organization.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Share with us.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
What's the story that you think really depicts the mission
and the positive impact that you're having.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
You know, it's hard to pick, there are so many,
but I think right now, of course, our mission is
to work only with females, women and girls, and only
in places of extreme poverty. So by definition of what
we've chosen to do in the world, we are in
really tragic places, places where women have very hard time
(12:53):
accessing education and then staying in school, avoiding forced marriages,
human trafficking, making a living. People are living on less
than two dollars a day, and most of them less
than one dollar a day. In the places we work,
so everything we do is uphill. It's not like we
(13:14):
just I can say to you, Janie, we've decided you
have a lot of potential. We're giving you a scholarship
and you can go to high school for free, in
college for free on us, and you're going to learn
leadership skills along the way. We're going to talk to
you every month. We're going to visit your home, get
to know your situation. We're going to be there for you.
It's not like it is in the US, where it's
(13:37):
a good thing to give somebody a scholarship, of course,
but when you do it in a country of extreme poverty,
and you do it for a girl, it is life
changing and transformative. So I tell you about one young
girl whom we supported through primary school. So this is
(13:57):
in South Sudan, and when she was in first grade,
she was walking home from school with a bunch of
her friends, twenty or thirty of them from the classroom,
and an airplane came overhead and started dropping bombs. This
was a terrible war between Sudan and South Sudan regionally.
(14:18):
Dozens of her classmates were killed directly by the bomb
and then by the shrapnel and she's a young child
at this time. She completely dazed. Some adults came to
the area afterward and found her and she couldn't get
back to her family. Everything was disrupted. So someone knew
(14:44):
about this school in South Sudan that took girls and
the airlifted her out. I don't know if it was
the un or who. She was too young to remember,
but at age six she came to this school, which
Mercy Beyond Borders, my nonprofit is now the major major
supporter of. She went through school there primary school, and
(15:07):
while she was a student there, the school was bombed
because the war had expanded, and she survived that also,
and she never lost sight of the fact that she
wanted to become a teacher. She was just determined that
she was going to do because there were no schools
for girls anywhere, and where girls are thought to be
(15:29):
worth less than cows, they are derided and pushed out
if they attempt to go to school. So a single
gender school is very important. So she went through that
all girl primary school. We gave her a scholarship to
go to college, to high school and to college, and
she became a teacher and returned to that school where
she had gone to primary school to be a teacher.
(15:52):
Then she went back to the Nuba mountains to teach
there and to see again the family that thought she
would dead. She'd had no contact and an older sister
had survived. Right now, at that school there are about
eight hundred girls. It's become a magnet school because it's
(16:13):
the only all girl primary in the country of South Sudan,
and it's because of that the only place where girls
are safe and can play. It's the only place where
in the country where you will see girls playing jack's
or jump rope or soccer because in the villages they
never play. They do manual labor from dawn till dusk,
(16:36):
and they are literally the slaves of their brothers, even
their younger brothers, because of the position of females in
their society, and also because of the fact that girls
are given away at puberty for a dowry of cattle,
(16:56):
and so they are like the currency. They don't use
much money. They prefer cows. So if a family, let's say,
has two boys and two girls, the only way for
the boys to marry, and remember boys are privileged, is
(17:17):
for if the family has a lot of cows because
they have to give cows to the as the bride price.
So how does a family get cows. They sell their
daughters in exchange for cattle, and then the cattle is
used by the sons to marry. So it's a circular
thing that traps the girls and the only way out
(17:37):
of that is education. So now that the word is
out that there's a girls school, there girls who are
being trafficked into early marriage to elderly men. I mean,
you know, a twelve year old girl being sold to
a sixty five year old man because he has more
cows to give. They find out about it and they're
(18:01):
escaping at risk of their life running one of them.
I have an interview on a tape seven days. She
walked during the night so she wouldn't be seen through
the forest, which is very dangerous, a lot of wild animals,
till she found this school. She has lived at the
(18:21):
school now for seven years. She's an eighth grader now,
and she lives with the guilt. She's happy to be
in school, she's very bright. She's going to get a
high school scholarship. But she lives with the guilt that
her family then sold the next younger sibling instead of her. Wow,
(18:42):
this is commonplace and horrific in this day and age.
I understand you have to be careful that cultures have
their things, you know, but this needs to change because
we are all connected now and human trafficking is an
international crime. So it's Wow. We're getting girls into school
(19:04):
and those that show promise, we're giving them scholarships to
high school and then into university. And we now have
seventy seven young women, the first educated people in girls
in the entire country of South Sudan. Seventy seven graduates
from university.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Are they all staying in South Sudan or have they.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Moved and they're all staying.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
They're ging it right back into the system.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, and they're so happy to be doing it. I
visit them. In fact, I'm going back to East Africa
middle of June when we visit them at clinics and classrooms.
So it's still going to take a long time. You know,
you don't change the culture overnight, and we're not going
to change the culture. It's the girls who are educated
that are going to change it. Because we want a
(19:50):
world where females are educated, connected and influential. Because they
know what needs to be done, but without an education,
you just don't have entree to a seat at the table.
So I would invite your audience to go to the
website and see Mercy Beyond Borders MBB Mercy Beyond Borders
(20:14):
dot org and see what we're doing. And certainly there's
no argument that the best intervention you can make to
eliminate extreme poverty is to educate the females in a family.
All research has shown that there's no controversy about it.
It's just hard to do in certain places. That's where
(20:36):
we've decided we need to work.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
And very recall you sharing with me that a law
was passed that girls had to have a primary school
education in South Sudan and that's fairly new.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yes, it's fairly new since twenty eleven. They became a
country and western countries helped them build their constitution. So
it's yeah, it's in their constitution that everyone has the
right to an elementary education. But that is it's inked
in the constitution. But it won't help a girl in
a rural village right into a school that's by the
(21:10):
men and the village chieftains. So we are out and
about and using every imaginable way we can to convince
people that an educated girl is worth more than a
dozen cows, should be getting a job that will be
lifetime income for your family.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So, you know, I'd love to talk a little bit
about Well, first of all, that was an incredible example
of how important this work is, and I would love
to talk more about.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
You know, you talked about really having the combent.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's sort of the foundation, right, and there's convent all
around the world, and that becomes the central connect point
for you and for pulling in other people that want
to do this work with you. But I'd love to
zoom out for a moment and think about this from
a leadership perspective.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Is you had to set up a system.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You had to set up an infrastructure to ensure that
this work could happen and does happen on a daily basis.
So I'd love for you to share with anybody watching
or listening what that looks like, like, what are the
things that you needed to have as the leader, and
then how did you set up this infrastructure and this
(22:25):
system and how do you ensure that it continues to work?
I mean, in anybody watching or listening this person is
going to relate to.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
This, but I'd love to hear it from you.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Through a lot of mistakes, right, learned that always the way? Edison?
You know, what did you say? I haven't failed a
thousand times. I've learned a thousand things that don't work.
And we started back in two thousand and eight, I
founded Mercy Bey on boarders. And at that time there
had been a peace agreement that ended a thirty seven
(22:58):
year civil war, and so the hundreds of thousands of
women and families that had run out of South Sudan
to escape the war into refugee camps were beginning to
trickle back into South Sudan. There was peace more or less.
In twenty eleven, they voted to secede from Sudan and
(23:22):
become their own country of South Sudan. So then even
more people came back. So I went over and just
started listening to the women. And an interesting thing had
happened to the women in the refugee camps of Uganda
and Kenya and Ethiopia. All these camps are run by
the UN of course, huh. And in the camps the
(23:46):
refugees saw, much to their surprise, that females were in
leadership positions. That females were teachers in the camp where
social workers were, administrators, were pilots, and were you and
top personnel? And this were like, WHOA, in our country,
(24:08):
this would never happen. Women can't go to school, women
can't hold positions, women don't have jobs outside the village.
So now that peace was beginning to happen in their country,
they went back to their villages and they said to me,
when I went around and interviewed them, I said, what
do you need to help rebuild after being away for
decades in the refugee camps? And they said, could you
(24:33):
educate our daughters? I'm too old, but could you educate them?
I said, yeah, I think I could do that. I
was a high school teacher before I went into refugee work.
And then some of them said, well, I'd love to
start a business too, if I had some wherewithal increasing
access for girls to go to school, getting the girls
(24:57):
who were in school, even in primary school, to be
on the radio and talk about how good it was
and how it was benefiting everybody. We had a radio
show every Saturday. But then the war broke out again
and the women went back into the refugee camps. I
was in twenty fifteen, so we followed them there. So
(25:17):
now we're also working in the refugee camps. And what
kind of infrastructure. You hire local people who know the languages,
who know the culture, and wherever possible, you hire females.
In South Sudan, we actually had to have a man
(25:38):
as our country director because nobody would listen to a woman, right,
and it just is like impossible. You know, you go
to the office to get your registration papers signed and
they just look at you and say, well, it looks
like it's all the paperwork. It's pretty good here, we
just need one more thing, come back tomorrow. And I
(25:59):
know a guy actually who was another the head of
another nonprofit, who went one hundred and one times to
get the paperwork signed off.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Is there delaying for the sake of delaying it or
are they expected they.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Want waiting a bride waiting a bride.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And they're waiting for you to just decide, whereas a.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Woman who went wouldn't even get an appointment to get into.
So we do have some men on our staff and
they're wonderful people, but mostly women because they know the
situation of women and they know what will change it.
So we don't own any schools. We don't build schools,
we don't we invest in the human capital. So we
(26:38):
found this little school that was at the time we started,
it was just I don't know, maybe one hundred girls
under a couple of trees, with a few teachers having
a blackboard leaning against the tree and teaching outdoors. You know, now,
as I said, it's become a magnet school. It's got
eight hundred girls because we invested in that struggling school.
(27:05):
It's not my school, it's not mbb's school. We don't
care about being big man in Africa. You know, we
didn't put our name on the buildings. We just are
investing in the girls, paying for a school nurse to
be on campus, building a library for this school, putting
in a computer lab. I'm sure we have the only
(27:26):
eight year olds who can type seventy words a minute
in the whole country. And we do because by putting
in that enrichment that the government controls the curriculum, the
government appoints the teachers, the government pays them miserable salaries
when it pays them at all. But we can enhance it,
you know, by providing building a dorm and a feeding
(27:50):
program and this kind of thing so that people want
to be there. And it's stunning to me that last week,
just last week, the national exams came out for all
eighth graders in There are ten states in South Sudan,
so we're in a big state called Eastern Equatoria. That's
where the school is. The grades came out for all
(28:14):
three four hundred and seventy one boys and girls in
that school who were eighth graders and not in that
school in that state. Most of them boys, of course,
because there are not that many girls in school. As
far as the eighth grade, of the top ten scorers
in the entire state, five were from the school that
(28:36):
Mercy be Bey on Border supporters.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
And the top two first place in the state we're
from that school.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Wow Wow. So this is the first.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Time that a girl rather than a boy has ever
been at the top.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
So how did that? The coper you? How did that
for you? And then what was the reaction?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
They are so proud and I am so proud, and
I'm telling all our donors you should be proud because
you're making this happen. I still get chills when I
think about it, because boys have all the privilege and
they go to school and they just can do their homework.
And the girls go to school and if they're not borders,
they have to go back and do all the chores
till midnight, which is why we give them a solar
(29:25):
lamp so they can study into the wee hours, because
they have to do all the domestic work in addition,
you know, all the laundry, all the houlding of water,
all the cooking, in addition to being you know, a
fourth grader or a sixth grader or whatever. So that's
the foundation, and that's what we want to replicate everywhere.
We were replicated it also in Haiti, in the mountains
(29:47):
of Haiti, and Haiti's in a death spiral right now
with fifty percent inflation, gangs ruling the streets. We had
to pull out one of our US workers. So everybody
there now is Haitian born. They can't leave. Very dangerous.
But you asked about infrastructure. You go there, you talk
to people, you find out what would help them. You
set up a structure, you hire people to begin it,
(30:10):
and you entrust them to change it, adjusted design expand
because they know best. I'm ten thousand miles away.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
How does the government interpret and work with the system
you're creating.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Are they receptive? Are they are they challenging?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Well, every time I visit, you sell sit in as
an example, But it's also two. In the refugee camps,
young men will come up to me and say, hey,
I hear you're giving away scholarships to girls. I want one.
I say, okay, let's make a deal. I will give
you a scholarship presuming you have the academic talent, as
(30:55):
soon as all the females in your village get as
much education as you've had and are on a level
playing field. And they just stare daggers at me for
a minute or two, and then they laugh and walk
away because they know that's not going to happen in
his lifetime. But we're here for the long haul, and
(31:18):
we are going to see that equality happen. I think
we forget how recent it is, even in the United
States that women have had to vote, and of course,
where there's still a glass ceiling here. So if we
have it here, it's going to be a thousand times
worse in these other countries. But they're on the right
path and if we can get enough resources, we know
(31:42):
it's working. You know, we're still very small. We've only
about twenty five staff that we're in five countries, six
if you count the US, just where our headquarters are.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
And you have fifteen hundred in primary.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Two primary school, one in Haiti and one in South Sudan,
all girl.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, and then how many in high school right now?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I think it's two hundred and fifty nine something like that.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And then how many at the university level.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Around one hundred and fifty wow, And that's of course
it's more expensive.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Sorry, both countries or is that just South Sudan.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Well, we started fifteen years ago in South Sudan and
it was only several years later that we started in Haiti.
So it's only the last four years that we've had
anybody finish high school in Haiti. So we're way behind.
We have nine right now in university in Haiti, but
(32:45):
that's not because we don't want more. It's because high
school is seven years long in Haiti. They're on the
French model, so it goes up to what we would
call junior college and then so we're just now getting
cohorts that can be eligible for university. So the only
thing stopping me from from doing more is resources, you know,
(33:09):
expanding our donor base and all of that. But it's
that's why I'm so happy to be on a podcast.
It's interesting to me that wherever I've spoken about this
or or met people, they become donors because they think
that this is amazing. But nobody knows about us, right,
and I'm hoping that would change.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Well. Something that you said with to me really struck
a chord too, is that you know, I'm sure you
get a lot of people that are asking you what
about you know, United States problems and how about we,
you know, work on our own infrastructure. And I've loved
your response there is no over there. It's it's better
for all of us that we educate and the.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
World is becoming smaller and smaller, and it's good.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
For everyone that we're that we're doing this work outside
the US, and I just wanted to reflect that back.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I think that's just thanks for I really am convinced
of it. It's not just like a theory I have.
I'm very convinced of it. But I understand why Americans
are not We're very insulated from the world. We have
oceans on two sides. We're a friendly neighbor in Canada
as well, you know, developed nation, and so all our
(34:21):
focus is on building wall on the southern border to
protect us. First of all, I think the whole protection
thing is wrong, as I explained earlier, But it's very
evident that the problems that exist in some of these
tumultuous places, whether it be terrorism or disease you know
(34:49):
Ebola started near the refugee camps in Uganda years ago,
or political instability or migration, all of these things that
we consider very serious problems don't honor borders. Right. It
(35:11):
may have been safe to be an American one hundred
years ago, but now we've got airplanes.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
And.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I mean, you know, a flea that's got bubonic plague
on it can jump on an airplane or hide in
a suitcase, and suddenly it's anywhere else in the world.
We saw that with COVID, We'll see it again with
the next pandemic. So what is going to keep America
(35:42):
safe is not really building up walls here and bigger
barns for our wealth, but helping these dangerous places to develop.
So that they're not so dangerous anymore. They have hygiene,
so they have good health care, so they have a
(36:04):
future for people, and people don't get frustrated so frustrated
that they become terrorists, right, No, I mean, the solution
to keeping us safe and prosperous is to share what
we have with others so that they don't feel a
need to migrate. The first refugee camp I ever worked
(36:25):
in was on the Mekong River between Thailand and Laos
for Laotian refugees after the CIA had been in Laos
during the Vietnam War for years and years and years,
and those who had cooperated with the US. Then when
Vietnam and Laos fell to the Communists were in great danger.
So there were a lot of refugees coming over into Thailand.
(36:46):
And I remember this young man Laotian who had swum
across the Mae Kong and I was in this refugee camp.
He said to me, sister, who would ever want to
leave the country of their birth? And I thought, oh,
a lot of people, you know, because you would think
(37:07):
everybody's wanting to come to America. He didn't want to go.
He wanted to go back to laos, you know. But
you only leave when things are too terrible, when you
can't feed your children, when you can't find a job,
when your ethnicity or religion is is so verboten. You
know where you live that you've got to escape. Yeah,
(37:29):
there are some people that just want to have a
better life and come to America, but most of the
migrants are not people who want to leave. That's been
my experience. I've been doing refugee work for forty years.
They miss their homeland, they would go back if they could,
and they do. Ninety nine and a half percent of
refugees never come to a developed country, to be Canada,
(37:53):
the US, or Australia primarily, and a few to the
Nordic countries. Ninety nine and a half percent stay in
the refugee camps for twenty thirty forty years or go
back to their country if it improves a little. So
we may think we're deluged with all these people, but
in fact we're going to be very sorry if they
stop coming. Because we are an aging society. We need
(38:17):
younger people, we need social security people, you know, paying
into it and all that. So the countries that have
locked themselves out of migrants because they want a pure culture. Japan, Germany,
places like that are now having real economic questions about
their future demographic that's another story, but there really is
(38:41):
no over there any So whatever we can each do
in some small way to make those countries stronger and
better and more peaceful ultimately helps everybody else.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
One other thing that I wanted to touch on relating
to having these local teams.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Supporting the mission and really being a part of this.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Every day, you have what I'll just call wrap around
services around these girls to ensure that they go to school,
and I'd love for you to share some of the
challenges that they face that could prevent them from going
to school.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, we use what's called a case management model, so
we never just give a scholarship to somebody and say goodbye.
Be well, because it's really hard to do it on
your own, and to be well when you're coming from
a position where your own parents tell you you're not
even a human being. You know, you're just lower than
the cows, and you're here so we can sell you.
You know, so that education is not just about new
(39:46):
subjects you learn in school, but it's educating learning about
your own dignity and agency. What happens is a parent
gets sick and the girl feels so reponsible to take
care of the younger siblings that they'll drop out of
school to do that as much as it kills them.
(40:08):
Or they get malaria. Let's say they're in high school
on one of our scholarships. They get malaria and they're
out of school for three weeks. They can never catch
up without the services, we'll link them with a mentor
right to catch up what you miss because they don't
all have textbooks. There might be one textbook for the classroom,
you know, and that kind of thing. So, or the
(40:30):
parents will come and say with the AK forty seven
in hand, they come back to the school, the high
school and say we've found a husband for you. We're
going to take you back to your village and we
can intervene. We can talk them down. Sometimes not always.
So the case management Services, by which we you know,
(40:52):
hike in Haiti four hours into the mountains to meet
the family and get them on our side, you know,
our side being the side of education and development for girls.
That this daughter of yours has potential, she's really smart.
Let her stay in school until she finishes high school
and then we'll make another visit and say let her
go to college. We have two girls now in medical
(41:14):
school in Haiti who never could have gone that far.
And Haiti has one of the worst medical statistics in
the world, so they could use two more doctors, you know.
So we're not changing the world overnight, but we're bringing
fifty percent of the human capital of these countries is
not being utilized. The girls are not growing and contributing
(41:39):
and giving back because they're not educated. So it's a
long project, going to be generations, right, and I want
to get you know, I want twenty million in the
bank so that when I die, this continues, right, And
I know there's people who can give that and not
even miss it, right, you know, it's the wealth of
(42:00):
this country is staggering. So it's just how to get
people to see what's happening. And on our website you
can see stories and photos and a couple of videos
of what we're doing. But my message to folks who
are listening is, yes, do something good locally every year
and do something good internationally every year. Doesn't have to
(42:22):
be mercy beyond borders. But you know, I at both levels.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I wanted to get into also some of the mentors
and people that have inspired and helped you.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Along this journey.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
But I have to pause and get you to share
the Dalai Lama connection.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
So les's that story.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Well, he has always been one of my heroes because
he says my religion is compassion, and that rings so
true for me. I do happen to be a Catholic nun,
but I'm really sometimes I think I'm really a Quaker.
I'm not into the structure or the hierarchy or any
(43:10):
of that. I am into the message of Jesus and
the message of the Dalai Lama and the message of Gandhi.
I think these people are my heroes. So one day,
the Dalai Lama came to Santase where my office is,
and he or his minions I don't know, picked a
group of people to be honored. He called them the
unsung Heroes of Compassion. Well, at the time, I was
(43:34):
running a refugee welcome and resettlement program, and so I
got on his list, his magic list, and I was
one of the people invited to this event. It was
really wonderful because he's a refugee Tibet and I've spent
my life pretty much working with displaced people, mostly refugees,
so it was a really special day for me. And
(43:57):
at one point during the event, each of us was
called up to the stage and had a chance to
be hugged by the Dalai Lama. It was wonderful, and
the whole day was It's just very special. But I
don't want to talk about that day. I want to
(44:17):
talk about what happened the next day. I after my
morning prayers, I always have read the newspaper and there
on page one is a picture of the Dalai Lama
and I embracing, and it's in color. No less, I
mean the Mercury hast never does anything in color. But
(44:38):
I was really excited. It's like, oh, this is my
fifteen minutes of fame, you know. And I knew my
mother would be excited because she liked it when her
kids succeed at something, you know. So I then finished
my breakfast and I'm driving to work, about a half
hour drive, and I stopped to get gas. I'm thinking
(45:01):
about the Dollar Lama. I'm not at all present to
what I'm doing. I'm just thinking, what a wonderful day
this was. Blah, blah blah. I finish getting the gas
and I drive up, start to drive off onto the street,
and I hear the most horrible sound you can ever
hear when you are driving out of a gas stations,
this metallic screeching like this. Yeah, And I look in
(45:25):
the room mirror and you can guess what happened. I
had been so distracted I had forgotten to take the
hose out of my vehicle. So it is on this
rubbery thing and it's spewing gasoline all around, and I'm horrified.
It is the only time I've ever done something that stupid,
you know, So it shut itself off automatically, I guess.
(45:46):
But there was puddled gasoline everywhere, and I'm thinking, oh,
this is so stupid. So I reach into the vehicle
and get my purse. I figure I'm going to have
to get my insurance card and pay for this or whatever.
And as I'm doing this, I see somebody, a little
man maybe five foot two, running out of the booth
(46:10):
where you pay, and he's running straight toward me, and
he is not looking happy, and he is running across
the concrete and he goes.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Like this, what in the world.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
It's you? Bows down all the way down. I think,
what is happening here? So he reaches me and he says,
it's you. He bows again, and I think, what is happening?
It turns out this guy was reading the paper. Oh
(46:45):
my godness, I was wearing the same jacket which was
kind of had an interesting pattern on it was noticeable.
And he was from Tibet.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Oh my god, can you believe that? Okay, So a
moment of divinity right there, right there.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
So I say to here, I am so sorry. I
am so sorry this mess I have created. What do
I need to do? Can I pay you for this?
He says, oh, no, no, no, no, it is an
honor that you come to my place of work. I'm like,
I'm not getting it. So I say to him again, here,
here's my card, here's what are we going to do
(47:21):
about this? And he said, no, no, no, one thing.
Only May I touch you? Hm? And so I said
of course. So he gives me a big hug and
then it clicked. The man is Tibetan. He believes the
(47:43):
Dalai Lama is the incarnation of the divine. He himself
is a you know, a lowly clerk at a gas
station who has never dreamed of ever meeting the Dalai
Lama in person, but he knew from the photo that
not only had I met the Dollar Lama, the Dollar
Lama had given me the blessing cloth and embraced me
(48:07):
so to in his mind, if he could just touch
me through me, he could touch the Dolli Lama and
be blessed.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Wow, what a great story.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
I was so staggered by that, and I just have
never forgotten it because it's true for all of us,
not about the Dalai Lama, but that we reached the
divine through one another. It's not when we're kneeling in
some chapel somewhere usually, although that's where we go thinking
(48:43):
it will happen. It happens when we open ourselves to
one another. And since I'm a follower of Jesus, it's
very clear in the Gospels that he said he would
be hiding in the least of our brethren, and that
whatever we did to the least, meaning the oppressed, the forgotten,
(49:05):
the migrant, the refugee, the homeless, the addict, the whatever,
if we touched those people, we would be closer to
the divine. I mean, it's just it's kind of a
ground role for me. Yeah, it's not just a theory,
you know, it really happens. Yeah, and that's why you know,
(49:30):
I can truthfully say to people I have been working
for more than forty years with refugees and migrants, all
of them strangers, and I have been so enriched and
so blessed, and once or twice I've been crossed up scammed,
but the vast majority is blessing.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
The way I hate the way I experience you in
this work is not only are you giving hope and.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Meaning, but a sense of purpose, a sense.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Of of love, and you're experiencing in return so much
love and compassion and having an impact too.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Just some of the I hope. So one of the
things you were just previously.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Sharing and you said that you really admire the Dalai,
Lama and Gandhi.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Who are those.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
People in your life that you go to there your
mentor they're your source of support and motivation.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Are they the same people or do you have a.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Different group that you go to when you're like, all right,
I need inspiration, Okay, I need motivation to keep this
work going.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
What does your circle look like?
Speaker 3 (50:40):
People probably don't believe this, but most nuns are very
highly educated. I live with a sister who was not
only a hospital CEO, but was CEO of a consortium
of hospitals that had one hundred. She's on the board
now one hundred hospitals. And these people know about management,
about governance, they know about structures, they know about problems,
(51:04):
you know, when when there's embezzlement or this or that,
they've been there, They've done that. I get a lot
of mentoring from the people I know in community. Then
I have a board of directors. It's very, very very savvy.
One is the manager of Global risk at Capitol Group,
(51:25):
which is a humongous asset management company like black Rock,
you know. And you know he's funny. He says, I shouldn't,
I shouldn't argue with people carrying machetes, And eighteen forty
seven is like, why not? They're in my way, you know,
for I want their daughters to go to school. And
he said, because we don't have a succession plan yet.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
But I would say I learned from books and then
from people. I learned from webinars at least to a week.
I want to establish us concretely, not necessarily in hundreds
of countries, but to go deep with the people, the
(52:13):
women and girls we work with. Because if it's one
thing I learned from Gandhi, it's that transactional relationships are superficial,
but if you go deep with people, it's transformational, not transactional.
And that that's.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
A bumper sticker right there.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
That is beautiful, which really leads me to my last question.
I want you to think, Okay, Mercy beyond Borders, it's
twenty thirty.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Mm, it's twenty thirty fill in the blank. Ah, we
have we as Americans, have switched from mantra a stranger
is danger to a belief that strangers bring blessings. So
(53:10):
we're not so afraid anymore, and we're interacting more. And
instead of the cautious foreign student living in my house
for a semester, which even now is considered foutre, you know,
it's everybody is welcome, and we're beyond tribalism, whether it's
in Congress or in Africa. Right, everybody's got their tribes.
(53:34):
And the reason I called Mercy beyond Borders with that
name is because we are all stuck behind various kinds
of borders and fearful of what lies beyond them. So
it's not just geographic, it's psychological. It's ethnic, it's racial,
it's caste systems of all sorts, it's you know, glass ceilings.
(54:00):
We've got to move out beyond all the borders that
keep us from being the best human beings we can
be and connected and caring and developing toward peace.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
God, there's a gorgeous way to end this conversation.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
And let me just say there's a quote I use
at the bottom of my emails that is from a
fellow humanitarian, and Jan Elias, and he works at the
UN and he said, without passion, nothing happens. But without compassion,
the wrong things happen.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
So there's a lot of people doing things around the world,
but for money or fame or power or land or whatever.
Let's make compassion our guiding star for leadership. Take the
risks we need to take to create real community wherever
(54:56):
we are, in our families, in our communities, in our schools,
in our global environment.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Using the word more often.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
Where if we can just start using the word more often,
use compassion more often, think of compassion, operate from a
place of compassion.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
I am so grateful.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
That you are doing this work in the world that
you came here to share your gifts, your heart, your story.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the
Warriors at Work Show. If you are interested in learning
more about what we do at the Warriors at Work
Show and platform, be sure to go over to my website,
(55:42):
Jeanie Koomber and subscribe to my monthly Warrior Playbook newsletter.
I share everything that I'm up to month by month,
as well as some lessons and insights that I've learned.
I'm also interested in hearing any feedback you have about
this conversation or future topics, so reach out to me
to directly on JC at geniecoombert dot com or on LinkedIn.
(56:06):
Be sure to tell your friends and your colleagues about
this Warriors at Work conversation. Subscribe, review and rate us.
It's the best way to get this message out into
the world.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Be well,
Welcome to the Warriors at Work Show. This is Genie Koomber,
your guide and host. This is a show for men
and women in the workplace who want to move from
the predictable to the potent. This is your weekly dose
of inspiration with an edge. I talk with CEOs and shawmans,
sports marketing executives, and therapists.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
All of us are.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Like minded thinkers and doers who tell stories, share wisdom,
and challenge each other to have the best life possible
inside and outside the office.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody, it's Gennie.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Thanks so much for joining me here at Warriors at
Work and Happy July. As we reach the halfway point
of the year, it's a natural time to pause, reflect
and realign with ourselves. So over the coming weeks, I
will be resharing podcast episodes from Warriors at Work and
the intention here is to help you to reconnect with
your yourself, refuel your energy, and move forward with clarity.
(01:04):
Let's make the rest of the year really count enjoy. Marilyn,
thank you so much for joining me in this conversation
today and sharing your incredible story, so much wisdom and
gifts that you're putting out into the world feel really,
really grateful.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
You'd be wonderful to have a chance to be with
your audience and your community.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You've had such an extraordinary life, and I extracted something
from your website that I thought really embodied a lot
of the things that I picked up from you when
we first spoke, which was you chose to forge ways
for women and girls in extreme poverty to learn, connect
and lead. Your organization is now fifteen years old. You're
(01:46):
in five countries, and you go to places like South
Sudan and Haiti, just to name a few, And you
have chosen to do this work in the world, and
I think we need to start first by having you
share with us your story and why you chose to
be in this space doing this work on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, how long have we got? I am having an
amazing life, and I think it probably differs from what
most people in the US think of nuns lives, being
I have had the great privilege really of being part
(02:32):
of an empowering community of women, which is the Convent
that I joined. The Sisters of Mercy, who are all
themselves well educated women who've held positions of leadership, who've
built hospitals, who've been CEOs of institution and so having
been in the content for decades, I had so many
(02:53):
mentors and role models and people who helped me when
I hit a glitch when I first moved into leadership positions.
So there's an in built, built in support network that
is pretty phenomenal, and I've benefited immensely from that. But personally,
(03:17):
you know, I think about the randomness of our birth. Right,
Why was I born into a comfortable, loving family in
a country that was in the time at peace, had
a wonderful education, had a chance to travel, and in
good health. I mean, those blessings should not be taken
(03:42):
for granted, right, And then when you have the chance
to confront or meet people who have none of those,
just by the randomness of their birth into extreme poverty
or ill health, or oppression of emails in the country
where they were born, the cultures that dismiss them or
(04:05):
marginate them. There was something always in me that gravitated
toward a sharing of what I've received to be with
those who had certainly giftedness and talent and beauty and
all of that, but none of the social and economic
benefits and educational benefits that I have had. I think
(04:30):
it is like water always finds its own length, you
know its own level, and if the water's higher here,
pretty soon it's going to be evened out everywhere. That's
the vision I have for the world. You know. So
we all have gifts to share, and yet we cling
to what we have more often than we open our hands, right,
(04:51):
And so I guess my life has been about being
so impressed by the people, the impoverished people that I've met,
that I've wanted freely to devote my life to evening
out in any way that connecting people who have resources
with the nonprofit I'm running, so that we can use
(05:14):
those resources to lift up women and girls who are
in really difficult, dangerous, depressing situations. Places like Katie and
South Sudana don't get in the US news very often,
but live in really really oppressive situations. So my story,
(05:38):
I think, is just one of being pulled into the
giftedness of that those relationships and inviting others into it.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You were drawn to the.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Beauty, and you use words like resilience and tenderness, which
are not I mean, resilience is definitely a word we
hear a lot and particularly post COVID environment. But the
word tenderness, it's not something that you hear. And I
think it's also really important how you say you want
to you want all, like all of the rivers to
run and all be connected and have more equality and availability.
(06:14):
And and I want to break down some of the
things that you shared with me to prepare for this
interview that I think really speak to how special you
are and this work in the world.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, let me stop you there. I'm not special except
the fact that I've had these experiences, right, And I
think it's I think most people don't have these experiences
because we fear what is other?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Right, that's true.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Well, you know we tell our children not to talk
to strangers. We we wish to be safe, right, And
I forget who it was that said that the only
the only place you can really be safe isn't a coffin.
Oh God, And that sounds bizarre, but it's really true.
If you're going to live life to the full, you've
(07:02):
got to drop all your you know, armor and engage
with people. And I know that there are threats out there,
and I know the world is dangerous, and I have
face down guys with ak forty seven's who are you know,
drunk and unreliable and things like that. But honestly, on
the most part, for the most part, people are not threats.
(07:27):
People bring blessings into your life. And I don't know
how to reverse that thinking in America that you know,
if we could just isolate ourselves, we would be safe.
That's not true. So anyway, I kind of live without
the fear gene e except for spiders. And so as
a result, I've I've engaged with lots of different cultures
(07:49):
and different peoples and different experiences, and it's brought me
a lot of joy. So I don't think that makes
me special. It just makes me blessed.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
You know, Hm, you know, you shared so many incredible
experiences with me when we were preparing for this conversation,
and you made a comment that really hit me, and
it's still it still sits with me, as women are
are worth less than cows, and that comment plus some
(08:20):
just incredible stories of courage and bravery and perseverance.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You are. You are in the middle of.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Extraordinary places in the world, things that we here in
the US have no understanding or relationship to. So it's
it's even difficult to hear, let alone get into action
to support. So tell us about that journey.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So you you're doing this incredible work.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
How do you go from educating someone to moving them
to action.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Well, there's I think there's lots of different ways because
we're all unique. But I would say in general, we
are deluged with information and news about trouble right around
the world because that's what sells, and the cable news
networks and all of that is conflict and friction and
panic and terrorism and all of that. So we're kind
(09:14):
of inundated with a lot of that, and it is
it can be paralyzing. Right. You can just watch five
minutes of the nightly news and say I can't take
this anymore, and you turn it off and you put
on a comedy. Right, I've done that myself. But the
way to engage, I think, is to allow your heart
(09:36):
to be touched. And it's not going to be by
every issue. It might be homelessness, it might be hunger
of children, it might be a particular cancer or something
that you want to say, you know what, I want
to do something about that. In the world. I may
be small, I may not be a bazillionaire. But I
(09:58):
can do some thing, and that decision to do something
is very energizing. The paralysis will disappear. Yeah, you could
say cancer, Who can do anything about cancer? It's in
every family, it's it's everywhere. We're doomed. Or you can say,
I'm going to volunteer at such and such an agency
(10:21):
that's doing something for patients or for research or for whatever.
Or I'm going to write a check if I can,
or I'm going to skip a few lattes this week
and write that check, you know, to cure cancer. So
whatever moves your heart, whatever your issue is children or pets,
or you know, disease or the climate crisis. My goodness,
(10:43):
it's everybody's problem. If you take some action, no matter
how small or how great, you will feel empowered and
you will be making a difference, and then you'll be
able to watch the news about that because it's moving
in the right direction. Right. Well, So I say that
to everybody, we especially us citizens, we have power. We
(11:05):
have power. We don't use We don't use it at
the ballot box. Effectively, we don't use it by talking
to our elected officials. Uh that's I mean, there's so
many ways. We just focus on building a kind of
a comfortable existence for ourselves and people we love, thinking
that that will keep us safe, and it can't because
(11:31):
we're all connected, the butterfly effect and all of that.
But we also know it spiritually that we are connected
to one another, and so we all need to be
caring at an action level MM not only for people near,
(11:53):
but people far, because they're really not far. We are
one small.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Planet, yes, interconnected, and I would love for you to share. Obviously,
you do so many incredible things you and your team
with this organization.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Share with us.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
What's the story that you think really depicts the mission
and the positive impact that you're having.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
You know, it's hard to pick, there are so many,
but I think right now, of course, our mission is
to work only with females, women and girls, and only
in places of extreme poverty. So by definition of what
we've chosen to do in the world, we are in
really tragic places, places where women have very hard time
(12:53):
accessing education and then staying in school, avoiding forced marriages,
human trafficking, making a living. People are living on less
than two dollars a day, and most of them less
than one dollar a day. In the places we work,
so everything we do is uphill. It's not like we
(13:14):
just I can say to you, Janie, we've decided you
have a lot of potential. We're giving you a scholarship
and you can go to high school for free, in
college for free on us, and you're going to learn
leadership skills along the way. We're going to talk to
you every month. We're going to visit your home, get
to know your situation. We're going to be there for you.
It's not like it is in the US, where it's
(13:37):
a good thing to give somebody a scholarship, of course,
but when you do it in a country of extreme poverty,
and you do it for a girl, it is life
changing and transformative. So I tell you about one young
girl whom we supported through primary school. So this is
(13:57):
in South Sudan, and when she was in first grade,
she was walking home from school with a bunch of
her friends, twenty or thirty of them from the classroom,
and an airplane came overhead and started dropping bombs. This
was a terrible war between Sudan and South Sudan regionally.
(14:18):
Dozens of her classmates were killed directly by the bomb
and then by the shrapnel and she's a young child
at this time. She completely dazed. Some adults came to
the area afterward and found her and she couldn't get
back to her family. Everything was disrupted. So someone knew
(14:44):
about this school in South Sudan that took girls and
the airlifted her out. I don't know if it was
the un or who. She was too young to remember,
but at age six she came to this school, which
Mercy Beyond Borders, my nonprofit is now the major major
supporter of. She went through school there primary school, and
(15:07):
while she was a student there, the school was bombed
because the war had expanded, and she survived that also,
and she never lost sight of the fact that she
wanted to become a teacher. She was just determined that
she was going to do because there were no schools
for girls anywhere, and where girls are thought to be
(15:29):
worth less than cows, they are derided and pushed out
if they attempt to go to school. So a single
gender school is very important. So she went through that
all girl primary school. We gave her a scholarship to
go to college, to high school and to college, and
she became a teacher and returned to that school where
she had gone to primary school to be a teacher.
(15:52):
Then she went back to the Nuba mountains to teach
there and to see again the family that thought she
would dead. She'd had no contact and an older sister
had survived. Right now, at that school there are about
eight hundred girls. It's become a magnet school because it's
(16:13):
the only all girl primary in the country of South Sudan,
and it's because of that the only place where girls
are safe and can play. It's the only place where
in the country where you will see girls playing jack's
or jump rope or soccer because in the villages they
never play. They do manual labor from dawn till dusk,
(16:36):
and they are literally the slaves of their brothers, even
their younger brothers, because of the position of females in
their society, and also because of the fact that girls
are given away at puberty for a dowry of cattle,
(16:56):
and so they are like the currency. They don't use
much money. They prefer cows. So if a family, let's say,
has two boys and two girls, the only way for
the boys to marry, and remember boys are privileged, is
(17:17):
for if the family has a lot of cows because
they have to give cows to the as the bride price.
So how does a family get cows. They sell their
daughters in exchange for cattle, and then the cattle is
used by the sons to marry. So it's a circular
thing that traps the girls and the only way out
(17:37):
of that is education. So now that the word is
out that there's a girls school, there girls who are
being trafficked into early marriage to elderly men. I mean,
you know, a twelve year old girl being sold to
a sixty five year old man because he has more
cows to give. They find out about it and they're
(18:01):
escaping at risk of their life running one of them.
I have an interview on a tape seven days. She
walked during the night so she wouldn't be seen through
the forest, which is very dangerous, a lot of wild animals,
till she found this school. She has lived at the
(18:21):
school now for seven years. She's an eighth grader now,
and she lives with the guilt. She's happy to be
in school, she's very bright. She's going to get a
high school scholarship. But she lives with the guilt that
her family then sold the next younger sibling instead of her. Wow,
(18:42):
this is commonplace and horrific in this day and age.
I understand you have to be careful that cultures have
their things, you know, but this needs to change because
we are all connected now and human trafficking is an
international crime. So it's Wow. We're getting girls into school
(19:04):
and those that show promise, we're giving them scholarships to
high school and then into university. And we now have
seventy seven young women, the first educated people in girls
in the entire country of South Sudan. Seventy seven graduates
from university.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Are they all staying in South Sudan or have they.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Moved and they're all staying.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
They're ging it right back into the system.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, and they're so happy to be doing it. I
visit them. In fact, I'm going back to East Africa
middle of June when we visit them at clinics and classrooms.
So it's still going to take a long time. You know,
you don't change the culture overnight, and we're not going
to change the culture. It's the girls who are educated
that are going to change it. Because we want a
(19:50):
world where females are educated, connected and influential. Because they
know what needs to be done, but without an education,
you just don't have entree to a seat at the table.
So I would invite your audience to go to the
website and see Mercy Beyond Borders MBB Mercy Beyond Borders
(20:14):
dot org and see what we're doing. And certainly there's
no argument that the best intervention you can make to
eliminate extreme poverty is to educate the females in a family.
All research has shown that there's no controversy about it.
It's just hard to do in certain places. That's where
(20:36):
we've decided we need to work.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
And very recall you sharing with me that a law
was passed that girls had to have a primary school
education in South Sudan and that's fairly new.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yes, it's fairly new since twenty eleven. They became a
country and western countries helped them build their constitution. So
it's yeah, it's in their constitution that everyone has the
right to an elementary education. But that is it's inked
in the constitution. But it won't help a girl in
a rural village right into a school that's by the
(21:10):
men and the village chieftains. So we are out and
about and using every imaginable way we can to convince
people that an educated girl is worth more than a
dozen cows, should be getting a job that will be
lifetime income for your family.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So, you know, I'd love to talk a little bit
about Well, first of all, that was an incredible example
of how important this work is, and I would love
to talk more about.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
You know, you talked about really having the combent.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's sort of the foundation, right, and there's convent all
around the world, and that becomes the central connect point
for you and for pulling in other people that want
to do this work with you. But I'd love to
zoom out for a moment and think about this from
a leadership perspective.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Is you had to set up a system.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You had to set up an infrastructure to ensure that
this work could happen and does happen on a daily basis.
So I'd love for you to share with anybody watching
or listening what that looks like, like, what are the
things that you needed to have as the leader, and
then how did you set up this infrastructure and this
(22:25):
system and how do you ensure that it continues to work?
I mean, in anybody watching or listening this person is
going to relate to.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
This, but I'd love to hear it from you.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Through a lot of mistakes, right, learned that always the way? Edison?
You know, what did you say? I haven't failed a
thousand times. I've learned a thousand things that don't work.
And we started back in two thousand and eight, I
founded Mercy Bey on boarders. And at that time there
had been a peace agreement that ended a thirty seven
(22:58):
year civil war, and so the hundreds of thousands of
women and families that had run out of South Sudan
to escape the war into refugee camps were beginning to
trickle back into South Sudan. There was peace more or less.
In twenty eleven, they voted to secede from Sudan and
(23:22):
become their own country of South Sudan. So then even
more people came back. So I went over and just
started listening to the women. And an interesting thing had
happened to the women in the refugee camps of Uganda
and Kenya and Ethiopia. All these camps are run by
the UN of course, huh. And in the camps the
(23:46):
refugees saw, much to their surprise, that females were in
leadership positions. That females were teachers in the camp where
social workers were, administrators, were pilots, and were you and
top personnel? And this were like, WHOA, in our country,
(24:08):
this would never happen. Women can't go to school, women
can't hold positions, women don't have jobs outside the village.
So now that peace was beginning to happen in their country,
they went back to their villages and they said to me,
when I went around and interviewed them, I said, what
do you need to help rebuild after being away for
decades in the refugee camps? And they said, could you
(24:33):
educate our daughters? I'm too old, but could you educate them?
I said, yeah, I think I could do that. I
was a high school teacher before I went into refugee work.
And then some of them said, well, I'd love to
start a business too, if I had some wherewithal increasing
access for girls to go to school, getting the girls
(24:57):
who were in school, even in primary school, to be
on the radio and talk about how good it was
and how it was benefiting everybody. We had a radio
show every Saturday. But then the war broke out again
and the women went back into the refugee camps. I
was in twenty fifteen, so we followed them there. So
(25:17):
now we're also working in the refugee camps. And what
kind of infrastructure. You hire local people who know the languages,
who know the culture, and wherever possible, you hire females.
In South Sudan, we actually had to have a man
(25:38):
as our country director because nobody would listen to a woman, right,
and it just is like impossible. You know, you go
to the office to get your registration papers signed and
they just look at you and say, well, it looks
like it's all the paperwork. It's pretty good here, we
just need one more thing, come back tomorrow. And I
(25:59):
know a guy actually who was another the head of
another nonprofit, who went one hundred and one times to
get the paperwork signed off.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Is there delaying for the sake of delaying it or
are they expected they.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Want waiting a bride waiting a bride.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And they're waiting for you to just decide, whereas a.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Woman who went wouldn't even get an appointment to get into.
So we do have some men on our staff and
they're wonderful people, but mostly women because they know the
situation of women and they know what will change it.
So we don't own any schools. We don't build schools,
we don't we invest in the human capital. So we
(26:38):
found this little school that was at the time we started,
it was just I don't know, maybe one hundred girls
under a couple of trees, with a few teachers having
a blackboard leaning against the tree and teaching outdoors. You know, now,
as I said, it's become a magnet school. It's got
eight hundred girls because we invested in that struggling school.
(27:05):
It's not my school, it's not mbb's school. We don't
care about being big man in Africa. You know, we
didn't put our name on the buildings. We just are
investing in the girls, paying for a school nurse to
be on campus, building a library for this school, putting
in a computer lab. I'm sure we have the only
(27:26):
eight year olds who can type seventy words a minute
in the whole country. And we do because by putting
in that enrichment that the government controls the curriculum, the
government appoints the teachers, the government pays them miserable salaries
when it pays them at all. But we can enhance it,
you know, by providing building a dorm and a feeding
(27:50):
program and this kind of thing so that people want
to be there. And it's stunning to me that last week,
just last week, the national exams came out for all
eighth graders in There are ten states in South Sudan,
so we're in a big state called Eastern Equatoria. That's
where the school is. The grades came out for all
(28:14):
three four hundred and seventy one boys and girls in
that school who were eighth graders and not in that
school in that state. Most of them boys, of course,
because there are not that many girls in school. As
far as the eighth grade, of the top ten scorers
in the entire state, five were from the school that
(28:36):
Mercy be Bey on Border supporters.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
And the top two first place in the state we're
from that school.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Wow Wow. So this is the first.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Time that a girl rather than a boy has ever
been at the top.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
So how did that? The coper you? How did that
for you? And then what was the reaction?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
They are so proud and I am so proud, and
I'm telling all our donors you should be proud because
you're making this happen. I still get chills when I
think about it, because boys have all the privilege and
they go to school and they just can do their homework.
And the girls go to school and if they're not borders,
they have to go back and do all the chores
till midnight, which is why we give them a solar
(29:25):
lamp so they can study into the wee hours, because
they have to do all the domestic work in addition,
you know, all the laundry, all the houlding of water,
all the cooking, in addition to being you know, a
fourth grader or a sixth grader or whatever. So that's
the foundation, and that's what we want to replicate everywhere.
We were replicated it also in Haiti, in the mountains
(29:47):
of Haiti, and Haiti's in a death spiral right now
with fifty percent inflation, gangs ruling the streets. We had
to pull out one of our US workers. So everybody
there now is Haitian born. They can't leave. Very dangerous.
But you asked about infrastructure. You go there, you talk
to people, you find out what would help them. You
set up a structure, you hire people to begin it,
(30:10):
and you entrust them to change it, adjusted design expand
because they know best. I'm ten thousand miles away.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
How does the government interpret and work with the system
you're creating.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Are they receptive? Are they are they challenging?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Well, every time I visit, you sell sit in as
an example, But it's also two. In the refugee camps,
young men will come up to me and say, hey,
I hear you're giving away scholarships to girls. I want one.
I say, okay, let's make a deal. I will give
you a scholarship presuming you have the academic talent, as
(30:55):
soon as all the females in your village get as
much education as you've had and are on a level
playing field. And they just stare daggers at me for
a minute or two, and then they laugh and walk
away because they know that's not going to happen in
his lifetime. But we're here for the long haul, and
(31:18):
we are going to see that equality happen. I think
we forget how recent it is, even in the United
States that women have had to vote, and of course,
where there's still a glass ceiling here. So if we
have it here, it's going to be a thousand times
worse in these other countries. But they're on the right
path and if we can get enough resources, we know
(31:42):
it's working. You know, we're still very small. We've only
about twenty five staff that we're in five countries, six
if you count the US, just where our headquarters are.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
And you have fifteen hundred in primary.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Two primary school, one in Haiti and one in South Sudan,
all girl.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, and then how many in high school right now?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I think it's two hundred and fifty nine something like that.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And then how many at the university level.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Around one hundred and fifty wow, And that's of course
it's more expensive.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Sorry, both countries or is that just South Sudan.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Well, we started fifteen years ago in South Sudan and
it was only several years later that we started in Haiti.
So it's only the last four years that we've had
anybody finish high school in Haiti. So we're way behind.
We have nine right now in university in Haiti, but
(32:45):
that's not because we don't want more. It's because high
school is seven years long in Haiti. They're on the
French model, so it goes up to what we would
call junior college and then so we're just now getting
cohorts that can be eligible for university. So the only
thing stopping me from from doing more is resources, you know,
(33:09):
expanding our donor base and all of that. But it's
that's why I'm so happy to be on a podcast.
It's interesting to me that wherever I've spoken about this
or or met people, they become donors because they think
that this is amazing. But nobody knows about us, right,
and I'm hoping that would change.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Well. Something that you said with to me really struck
a chord too, is that you know, I'm sure you
get a lot of people that are asking you what
about you know, United States problems and how about we,
you know, work on our own infrastructure. And I've loved
your response there is no over there. It's it's better
for all of us that we educate and the.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
World is becoming smaller and smaller, and it's good.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
For everyone that we're that we're doing this work outside
the US, and I just wanted to reflect that back.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I think that's just thanks for I really am convinced
of it. It's not just like a theory I have.
I'm very convinced of it. But I understand why Americans
are not We're very insulated from the world. We have
oceans on two sides. We're a friendly neighbor in Canada
as well, you know, developed nation, and so all our
(34:21):
focus is on building wall on the southern border to
protect us. First of all, I think the whole protection
thing is wrong, as I explained earlier, But it's very
evident that the problems that exist in some of these
tumultuous places, whether it be terrorism or disease you know
(34:49):
Ebola started near the refugee camps in Uganda years ago,
or political instability or migration, all of these things that
we consider very serious problems don't honor borders. Right. It
(35:11):
may have been safe to be an American one hundred
years ago, but now we've got airplanes.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
And.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I mean, you know, a flea that's got bubonic plague
on it can jump on an airplane or hide in
a suitcase, and suddenly it's anywhere else in the world.
We saw that with COVID, We'll see it again with
the next pandemic. So what is going to keep America
(35:42):
safe is not really building up walls here and bigger
barns for our wealth, but helping these dangerous places to develop.
So that they're not so dangerous anymore. They have hygiene,
so they have good health care, so they have a
(36:04):
future for people, and people don't get frustrated so frustrated
that they become terrorists, right, No, I mean, the solution
to keeping us safe and prosperous is to share what
we have with others so that they don't feel a
need to migrate. The first refugee camp I ever worked
(36:25):
in was on the Mekong River between Thailand and Laos
for Laotian refugees after the CIA had been in Laos
during the Vietnam War for years and years and years,
and those who had cooperated with the US. Then when
Vietnam and Laos fell to the Communists were in great danger.
So there were a lot of refugees coming over into Thailand.
(36:46):
And I remember this young man Laotian who had swum
across the Mae Kong and I was in this refugee camp.
He said to me, sister, who would ever want to
leave the country of their birth? And I thought, oh,
a lot of people, you know, because you would think
(37:07):
everybody's wanting to come to America. He didn't want to go.
He wanted to go back to laos, you know. But
you only leave when things are too terrible, when you
can't feed your children, when you can't find a job,
when your ethnicity or religion is is so verboten. You
know where you live that you've got to escape. Yeah,
(37:29):
there are some people that just want to have a
better life and come to America, but most of the
migrants are not people who want to leave. That's been
my experience. I've been doing refugee work for forty years.
They miss their homeland, they would go back if they could,
and they do. Ninety nine and a half percent of
refugees never come to a developed country, to be Canada,
(37:53):
the US, or Australia primarily, and a few to the
Nordic countries. Ninety nine and a half percent stay in
the refugee camps for twenty thirty forty years or go
back to their country if it improves a little. So
we may think we're deluged with all these people, but
in fact we're going to be very sorry if they
stop coming. Because we are an aging society. We need
(38:17):
younger people, we need social security people, you know, paying
into it and all that. So the countries that have
locked themselves out of migrants because they want a pure culture. Japan, Germany,
places like that are now having real economic questions about
their future demographic that's another story, but there really is
(38:41):
no over there any So whatever we can each do
in some small way to make those countries stronger and
better and more peaceful ultimately helps everybody else.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
One other thing that I wanted to touch on relating
to having these local teams.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Supporting the mission and really being a part of this.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Every day, you have what I'll just call wrap around
services around these girls to ensure that they go to school,
and I'd love for you to share some of the
challenges that they face that could prevent them from going
to school.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, we use what's called a case management model, so
we never just give a scholarship to somebody and say goodbye.
Be well, because it's really hard to do it on
your own, and to be well when you're coming from
a position where your own parents tell you you're not
even a human being. You know, you're just lower than
the cows, and you're here so we can sell you.
You know, so that education is not just about new
(39:46):
subjects you learn in school, but it's educating learning about
your own dignity and agency. What happens is a parent
gets sick and the girl feels so reponsible to take
care of the younger siblings that they'll drop out of
school to do that as much as it kills them.
(40:08):
Or they get malaria. Let's say they're in high school
on one of our scholarships. They get malaria and they're
out of school for three weeks. They can never catch
up without the services, we'll link them with a mentor
right to catch up what you miss because they don't
all have textbooks. There might be one textbook for the classroom,
you know, and that kind of thing. So, or the
(40:30):
parents will come and say with the AK forty seven
in hand, they come back to the school, the high
school and say we've found a husband for you. We're
going to take you back to your village and we
can intervene. We can talk them down. Sometimes not always.
So the case management Services, by which we you know,
(40:52):
hike in Haiti four hours into the mountains to meet
the family and get them on our side, you know,
our side being the side of education and development for girls.
That this daughter of yours has potential, she's really smart.
Let her stay in school until she finishes high school
and then we'll make another visit and say let her
go to college. We have two girls now in medical
(41:14):
school in Haiti who never could have gone that far.
And Haiti has one of the worst medical statistics in
the world, so they could use two more doctors, you know.
So we're not changing the world overnight, but we're bringing
fifty percent of the human capital of these countries is
not being utilized. The girls are not growing and contributing
(41:39):
and giving back because they're not educated. So it's a
long project, going to be generations, right, and I want
to get you know, I want twenty million in the
bank so that when I die, this continues, right, And
I know there's people who can give that and not
even miss it, right, you know, it's the wealth of
(42:00):
this country is staggering. So it's just how to get
people to see what's happening. And on our website you
can see stories and photos and a couple of videos
of what we're doing. But my message to folks who
are listening is, yes, do something good locally every year
and do something good internationally every year. Doesn't have to
(42:22):
be mercy beyond borders. But you know, I at both levels.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I wanted to get into also some of the mentors
and people that have inspired and helped you.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Along this journey.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
But I have to pause and get you to share
the Dalai Lama connection.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
So les's that story.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Well, he has always been one of my heroes because
he says my religion is compassion, and that rings so
true for me. I do happen to be a Catholic nun,
but I'm really sometimes I think I'm really a Quaker.
I'm not into the structure or the hierarchy or any
(43:10):
of that. I am into the message of Jesus and
the message of the Dalai Lama and the message of Gandhi.
I think these people are my heroes. So one day,
the Dalai Lama came to Santase where my office is,
and he or his minions I don't know, picked a
group of people to be honored. He called them the
unsung Heroes of Compassion. Well, at the time, I was
(43:34):
running a refugee welcome and resettlement program, and so I
got on his list, his magic list, and I was
one of the people invited to this event. It was
really wonderful because he's a refugee Tibet and I've spent
my life pretty much working with displaced people, mostly refugees,
so it was a really special day for me. And
(43:57):
at one point during the event, each of us was
called up to the stage and had a chance to
be hugged by the Dalai Lama. It was wonderful, and
the whole day was It's just very special. But I
don't want to talk about that day. I want to
(44:17):
talk about what happened the next day. I after my
morning prayers, I always have read the newspaper and there
on page one is a picture of the Dalai Lama
and I embracing, and it's in color. No less, I
mean the Mercury hast never does anything in color. But
(44:38):
I was really excited. It's like, oh, this is my
fifteen minutes of fame, you know. And I knew my
mother would be excited because she liked it when her
kids succeed at something, you know. So I then finished
my breakfast and I'm driving to work, about a half
hour drive, and I stopped to get gas. I'm thinking
(45:01):
about the Dollar Lama. I'm not at all present to
what I'm doing. I'm just thinking, what a wonderful day
this was. Blah, blah blah. I finish getting the gas
and I drive up, start to drive off onto the street,
and I hear the most horrible sound you can ever
hear when you are driving out of a gas stations,
this metallic screeching like this. Yeah, And I look in
(45:25):
the room mirror and you can guess what happened. I
had been so distracted I had forgotten to take the
hose out of my vehicle. So it is on this
rubbery thing and it's spewing gasoline all around, and I'm horrified.
It is the only time I've ever done something that stupid,
you know, So it shut itself off automatically, I guess.
(45:46):
But there was puddled gasoline everywhere, and I'm thinking, oh,
this is so stupid. So I reach into the vehicle
and get my purse. I figure I'm going to have
to get my insurance card and pay for this or whatever.
And as I'm doing this, I see somebody, a little
man maybe five foot two, running out of the booth
(46:10):
where you pay, and he's running straight toward me, and
he is not looking happy, and he is running across
the concrete and he goes.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Like this, what in the world.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
It's you? Bows down all the way down. I think,
what is happening here? So he reaches me and he says,
it's you. He bows again, and I think, what is happening?
It turns out this guy was reading the paper. Oh
(46:45):
my godness, I was wearing the same jacket which was
kind of had an interesting pattern on it was noticeable.
And he was from Tibet.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Oh my god, can you believe that? Okay, So a
moment of divinity right there, right there.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
So I say to here, I am so sorry. I
am so sorry this mess I have created. What do
I need to do? Can I pay you for this?
He says, oh, no, no, no, no, it is an
honor that you come to my place of work. I'm like,
I'm not getting it. So I say to him again, here,
here's my card, here's what are we going to do
(47:21):
about this? And he said, no, no, no, one thing.
Only May I touch you? Hm? And so I said
of course. So he gives me a big hug and
then it clicked. The man is Tibetan. He believes the
(47:43):
Dalai Lama is the incarnation of the divine. He himself
is a you know, a lowly clerk at a gas
station who has never dreamed of ever meeting the Dalai
Lama in person, but he knew from the photo that
not only had I met the Dollar Lama, the Dollar
Lama had given me the blessing cloth and embraced me
(48:07):
so to in his mind, if he could just touch
me through me, he could touch the Dolli Lama and
be blessed.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Wow, what a great story.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
I was so staggered by that, and I just have
never forgotten it because it's true for all of us,
not about the Dalai Lama, but that we reached the
divine through one another. It's not when we're kneeling in
some chapel somewhere usually, although that's where we go thinking
(48:43):
it will happen. It happens when we open ourselves to
one another. And since I'm a follower of Jesus, it's
very clear in the Gospels that he said he would
be hiding in the least of our brethren, and that
whatever we did to the least, meaning the oppressed, the forgotten,
(49:05):
the migrant, the refugee, the homeless, the addict, the whatever,
if we touched those people, we would be closer to
the divine. I mean, it's just it's kind of a
ground role for me. Yeah, it's not just a theory,
you know, it really happens. Yeah, and that's why you know,
(49:30):
I can truthfully say to people I have been working
for more than forty years with refugees and migrants, all
of them strangers, and I have been so enriched and
so blessed, and once or twice I've been crossed up scammed,
but the vast majority is blessing.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
The way I hate the way I experience you in
this work is not only are you giving hope and.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Meaning, but a sense of purpose, a sense.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Of of love, and you're experiencing in return so much
love and compassion and having an impact too.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Just some of the I hope. So one of the
things you were just previously.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Sharing and you said that you really admire the Dalai,
Lama and Gandhi.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Who are those.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
People in your life that you go to there your
mentor they're your source of support and motivation.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Are they the same people or do you have a.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Different group that you go to when you're like, all right,
I need inspiration, Okay, I need motivation to keep this
work going.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
What does your circle look like?
Speaker 3 (50:40):
People probably don't believe this, but most nuns are very
highly educated. I live with a sister who was not
only a hospital CEO, but was CEO of a consortium
of hospitals that had one hundred. She's on the board
now one hundred hospitals. And these people know about management,
about governance, they know about structures, they know about problems,
(51:04):
you know, when when there's embezzlement or this or that,
they've been there, They've done that. I get a lot
of mentoring from the people I know in community. Then
I have a board of directors. It's very, very very savvy.
One is the manager of Global risk at Capitol Group,
(51:25):
which is a humongous asset management company like black Rock,
you know. And you know he's funny. He says, I shouldn't,
I shouldn't argue with people carrying machetes, And eighteen forty
seven is like, why not? They're in my way, you know,
for I want their daughters to go to school. And
he said, because we don't have a succession plan yet.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
But I would say I learned from books and then
from people. I learned from webinars at least to a week.
I want to establish us concretely, not necessarily in hundreds
of countries, but to go deep with the people, the
(52:13):
women and girls we work with. Because if it's one
thing I learned from Gandhi, it's that transactional relationships are superficial,
but if you go deep with people, it's transformational, not transactional.
And that that's.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
A bumper sticker right there.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
That is beautiful, which really leads me to my last question.
I want you to think, Okay, Mercy beyond Borders, it's
twenty thirty.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Mm, it's twenty thirty fill in the blank. Ah, we
have we as Americans, have switched from mantra a stranger
is danger to a belief that strangers bring blessings. So
(53:10):
we're not so afraid anymore, and we're interacting more. And
instead of the cautious foreign student living in my house
for a semester, which even now is considered foutre, you know,
it's everybody is welcome, and we're beyond tribalism, whether it's
in Congress or in Africa. Right, everybody's got their tribes.
(53:34):
And the reason I called Mercy beyond Borders with that
name is because we are all stuck behind various kinds
of borders and fearful of what lies beyond them. So
it's not just geographic, it's psychological. It's ethnic, it's racial,
it's caste systems of all sorts, it's you know, glass ceilings.
(54:00):
We've got to move out beyond all the borders that
keep us from being the best human beings we can
be and connected and caring and developing toward peace.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
God, there's a gorgeous way to end this conversation.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
And let me just say there's a quote I use
at the bottom of my emails that is from a
fellow humanitarian, and Jan Elias, and he works at the
UN and he said, without passion, nothing happens. But without compassion,
the wrong things happen.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
So there's a lot of people doing things around the world,
but for money or fame or power or land or whatever.
Let's make compassion our guiding star for leadership. Take the
risks we need to take to create real community wherever
(54:56):
we are, in our families, in our communities, in our schools,
in our global environment.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Using the word more often.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
Where if we can just start using the word more often,
use compassion more often, think of compassion, operate from a
place of compassion.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
I am so grateful.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
That you are doing this work in the world that
you came here to share your gifts, your heart, your story.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the
Warriors at Work Show. If you are interested in learning
more about what we do at the Warriors at Work
Show and platform, be sure to go over to my website,
(55:42):
Jeanie Koomber and subscribe to my monthly Warrior Playbook newsletter.
I share everything that I'm up to month by month,
as well as some lessons and insights that I've learned.
I'm also interested in hearing any feedback you have about
this conversation or future topics, so reach out to me
to directly on JC at geniecoombert dot com or on LinkedIn.
(56:06):
Be sure to tell your friends and your colleagues about
this Warriors at Work conversation. Subscribe, review and rate us.
It's the best way to get this message out into
the world.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Be well,
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