About Us | Our History
From 1981 to 1991, Steve Reed and his family lived in an inner city Central American community in San Francisco as missionaries. While there, Steve started and pastored a Spanish-speaking church which has since merged with another church. He also helped start an English speaking church in the same neighborhood which is flourishing today. The Spanish-speaking congregation encouraged Steve to start a ministry that would serve the truly poor in Central America by providing them badly needed resources.
In response to this request, the Reed’s moved back to their home town of Sacramento to start Beyond Partnership in 1991. Steve began visiting Otto de la Cruz, a national missionary from Guatemala and Humberto del Arca, a national missionary from Honduras both working for the same mission as Steve. During this time, Steve believed that Guatemala and Honduras, like all poor countries, needed schools, orphanages, and houses for the poor, and he just wanted to figure out the best way to accomplish this. However, when both national missionaries told him that their primary needs were not what he had been thinking, but rather church buildings where their congregations could worship their Lord, Steve listened, and refocused the budding ministry accordingly.
This principle of responding to the needs of the nationals as they express them, as opposed to how we perceive them, continues to be the backbone of what Beyond Partnership does. There are now several full/part time staff, and a myriad of volunteers who allow Beyond Partnership to work in the various countries and coordinate at least 25 projects a year.
Steve says, “Through these projects, the North American Churches learn from our brothers and sisters who have lived faithfully in adverse situations. Both the first world and third world churches are strengthened in their labor to more effectively evangelize and disciple their people. More people commit themselves to missions and to the growth of their churches. We hope ultimately these projects will impart a new vision for the mission of the church.”