Beyond Limits, a collaborative partnership venture based at Bethany College, offers a two-year, residential post-secondary Christian campus experience and Beyond Limits life skills certificate for qualified young adults with developmental disabilities. The program includes a customized selection of audited Bethany classes, independent living skills courses, and on-campus job placement and coaching to gain work skills in Bethany’s student work/study program.      https://beyondlimitscollege.com

“Butterflies have always fascinated me.  With their former life on the ground, their changing rest and their new life, I’m filled with hope that God is always about creating and growing earthly things into the eternal stuff that we can’t leave behind.  When my husband and I learned during an 18 week ultrasound that our first child wouldn’t survive outside the womb due to a chromosomal abnormality, we were met with a swarm of Monarchs outside the doctor’s office.  There we were, deep in shock and teetering on grief, in the middle of an intersection at the center of a retail cement jungle, surrounded with Hope on Wings, reminding us that God will bring new life out of this dying.  And, we were not disappointed.

The heartache we endured in the days following that ultrasound was unlike any pain we’d ever experienced.  But God carried us through and filled us with hope in ways that marked our lives forever.  Since then, the butterfly has reminded us of how God can take something so yucky, dirty and slimy and change it over time into something more beautiful and powerful than we could imagine.  And when we have days with a more shaky faith, He seems to remind us of His trustworthiness and goodness by opening our eyes to the flit and flight of wings nearby.  So, naturally, when Tasha shared with me her love of the butterfly and her desire to bless others one butterfly at a time, I wanted to be a part of it.  While there have been several ways that the butterflies flying out of my home are adorned, my favorite creations were painted with love by my friends at Beyond Limits.  Five young adults with Special Needs are students in a program at Bethany College in Bloomington, MN, where they live on their own and attend classes and serve on the campus with their peers.  A friend of mine and I have led an art class for them during their free time where they learn that everyone is an artist because we’ve all been created by the Master Creator to be creative ourselves.  They love it!  They especially loved painting butterflies with the intention of hiding them around for a crazy game of hide and seek for this wild thing- The Butterfly Drop!  Thank you, Tasha, for giving us the opportunity to let loose this Hope that God has given us through such a creative and beautiful way.  Indeed, this movement causes us to lift our eyes up off the ground we’re crawling on, rest a bit in a time of re-creating and spread our wings and fan out hope to all who might cross our paths- one butterfly at a time.”
– Megan Hughes