Author; Executive Director, Mercy Beyond Borders

The Kindness of Strangers: My Quarter-Century with the World’s Refugees

Marilyn Lacey, a Sister of Mercy, believes that being with the poor is our best chance to meet God face-to-face. Her passion is to make this world a more welcoming place for persons forced by war or persecution to leave their homelands. For 25 years she has resettled refugees arriving to the US and also worked in refugee camps in Southeast Asia and Africa. For two decades she directed services for immigrants and refugees, including the Amerasian children from Vietnam and the Lost Boys from Sudan, at Catholic Charities in San Jose.

Marilyn was personally honored by the Dalai Lama in 2001 as an “Unsung Hero of Compassion.” She holds a master’s degree in social work from UC Berkeley, but says that the refugees have been her most important teachers. In 2009 Ave Maria Press published her memoir, THIS FLOWING TOWARD ME: A Story of God Arriving in Strangers.

Marilyn now manages the nonprofit she founded in 2008, Mercy Beyond Borders, which partners with displaced women and children overseas to alleviate their extreme poverty. In furtherance of the U.N. Millennium Goal #1–cutting extreme poverty in half–Mercy Beyond Borders is currently working in Sudan, funding grass-roots projects for women’s economic development as well as educational opportunities for girls.