Who We Are

      JourneyPartners connects resources, people, challenges and opportunities around the world and at home. We focus in three main arenas: clean and available water, education and resources, and health and medicine. Past celebrations included the construction of a 75,000 gallon water reservoir in Gweru, Zimbabwe; assisting the new Alliance of Baptists in Brazil in the publication of Walter Shurden's “Four Fragile Freedoms” in Portugese, and delivery of more than two tons of supplementary textbooks to Jones County Schools in eastern North Carolina. More recent partnerships have brought more than a dozen cross-cultural mission immersion teams to Zimbabwe, and included the construction of a hostel to house AIDS orphans in Masembura and shipment of more than 500 nursing and medical textbooks to nursing schools in several developing areas.      

      2009 initiatives included the fifth Leadership Institute -- Leading Women -- in which more than 150 women from communities and congregations all over Zimbabwe participated.  Ongoing projects include reconstruction of the only medical clinic in the remote village of Nenyunga, to replace the one currently being washed away by the nearby river’s changing path; expansion of the House of Hope, a small orphanage in Masembura, in rural northeastern Zimbabwe, and currently home to 24 children who have lost both parents to AIDS; reconstruction of houses in the grotas of Maceio in northeastern Brazil, and continuing water purification and community health projects in Zimbabwe and Brazil.  The work projects for 2009 were to provide deep, clean-water boreholes for Nenyunga, home to the minority Tonga people, to provide portable chlorine-generating water purification systems in remote areas without access to clean, potable water, and to build a small caretaker’s house at the site of the new clinic.

      2010 partnership journeys are already in the planning, and include northeastern Brazil, Zimbabwe, and a US venue (to be determined).  To learn more about the work and ministry of JourneyPartners, you can visit our website page under “Journeys,” or contact us by phone or email. 
 

Some Criteria for Determining Projects

      JourneyPartners is a very small organization, with a very small operating budget.  All our members, including the Executive Director, volunteer their services, so we try to maximize our resources for projects. These decisions are made with some of the following criteria in mind:

    - Is the project in keeping with the principles and objectives of JourneyPartners? 
    - Which project(s) are most critical? 
    - Which project(s) will benefit or impact the most people? 
    - Will the project provide opportunity for US travelers to experience a cultural or mission immersion? 
    - Will the project provide opportunity for the host community to become acquainted with the US travelers? 
    - Can the project be accomplished as a true partnership? i.e., will the local community be able to provide resources (labor, materials, housing, food, etc.) to assist with the project? 
    - Given our financial limitations, is the project within JourneyPartners’ financial reach?
    - Does the project enhance or expand the reach of JourneyPartners and its ministry goals (geographically, culturally, ecumenically, etc.) 
    - Is this a "fundable" project? 
    - Can we find U.S. partners willing to commit to this particular project, and to assist in raising funds? 
     

There are also a few guidelines that we've made for ourselves through the years:  
    - We do not purchase land, in the US or abroad. 
    - We try to partner with local agencies and institutions, or entire communities, rather than individuals, national conventions or "umbrella" organizations, or individual congregations. 
    - While we work in the US and abroad with and alongside the faith community, increasingly we recognize the value of working with multiple institutions in local communities for a broader "ownership" of the project by those who benefit from it.