Want to know who's behind this work?
The board, staff, and volunteers who keep things moving.
Meet the team
About JourneyPartners
Rooted in partnership.
JourneyPartners is an ecumenical and interfaith ministry that has spent more than two decades building cross-cultural partnerships in Zimbabwe and the United States. We don't bring solutions — we bring relationships.
Our journey
Four decades, one journey.
From a sabbatical and a friendship in 1984 to today's three mission pillars — see the chapters that built JourneyPartners.
How we started
The work that became JourneyPartners began with a small group of travelers who chose, in the late 1990s, to keep going back. What started as a single immersion trip turned into twenty-plus years of relationships — friends in Gokwe and Bindura who taught us how to listen, and supporters at home who made return trips possible.
From those early visits, the work grew on the strengths of our Zimbabwean partners: boreholes and reservoirs where the community asked for water, classrooms and books where teachers asked for support, clinic rebuilds where local healthcare workers led the design. The pattern stayed simple — they identify the need, they lead the project, and we stand behind them with funding, supplies, and our presence.
Today JourneyPartners is a registered U.S. nonprofit operating on a volunteer-heavy model: low overhead, named projects, and direct lines to the partners doing the work. We're still small on purpose — small enough that every dollar has a face attached to it, and every trip is a real conversation with people we've known for years.
What grounds us
We are Christ-centered and interfaith. Our roots are in the Christian tradition, and our partners and travelers come from many faith communities — Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, ecumenical, and people of other traditions or no formal tradition at all. What we share is a commitment to mutual learning, hospitality, and the conviction that good work is done in relationship.
We do not condition partnership, hiring, project participation, or care on a person's faith. We welcome every traveler and partner who shares our commitment to walk alongside.
Partnership, not charity
Charity arrives with answers. Partnership shows up with questions. When a Gokwe community asked us for a borehole, we asked them to lead the project planning — to choose the site, to negotiate with the contractor, to set up the local cooperative that would maintain it afterward. We funded the build. They run it.
That pattern shapes everything we do: the school in Gokwe is led by Zimbabwean teachers and administrators; the clinic rebuild was scoped by Zimbabwean health workers; Kutenda Children's Home is governed by a local caretaker council. Our role is to listen, to fund what the partners ask for, and to bring travelers who are willing to be guests rather than experts.
Next steps
Want to know how to help?
Donate, send supplies, host a church visit, or join an immersion trip.
Get involvedStand alongside Zimbabwe
Every dollar goes directly to the partners doing the work. Donate today and join a community of supporters who believe in partnership over charity.