Nine years ago, I stepped off the plane in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, for the first time and was met by a group of World Renew-Honduras staff members and translators who have since become allies in the faith-inspired work of justice and poverty alleviation. Over the next three weeks, my students and I spent time with World Renew and their partner organization in a community in southern Honduras. We contributed to a water project and public health initiative supported by our university while learning about community-based transformational development, strength-based partnerships, and broader issues of systemic poverty. It was quickly clear that our visit was just one chapter in a university partnership that today extends over 30 years.

The longevity of our work in Honduras was evident on that visit. As part of our students’ learning, our colleague and friend Rolando took us to a number of communities near our host village that had already been partnering with World Renew and our university for two decades.

Residents and leaders in those communities spoke movingly of the difference that safe and accessible water made for their health and well-being. The impact was vast: community solidarity grew through shared manual labour and planning, and children’s access to education was transformed. Specifically, young girls were no longer required to stay home to carry water for daily use, and adolescent girls could remain in school with dignity because their hygiene needs were finally met by accessible water.

Leaders praised World Renew’s partners for their ongoing grassroots presence, delivering maternal and child health programs and male-centred programs addressing gender violence. Residents also spoke fondly of their time with our students, whether 2, 5 or 15 years earlier; they remembered students’ names, told stories of funny interactions, and sang lines from songs they learned together. 

It became clear to our students that development projects are about much more than technical outcomes like clean water or cement floors—as important as those things are. Longstanding projects are avenues to belonging for those who have been excluded. They can be pathways to a growing sense of dignity for those who have seen themselves as powerless to shape their own future, and they serve as the first steps toward more just and inclusive societies for those who live on the margins of their communities, cities, or countries. 

As a teacher and advocate from the global North, I was particularly struck by the importance of our long, deep relationships with our partners in Honduras. Our students were able to witness the fruit of development initiatives several decades in the making. Our partners grew to trust us as reliable partners, whose presence, prayers, and financial support could withstand changes in leadership, political challenges, and pandemics. And our students—many of whom have grown skeptical of "one-off" short-term service opportunities—could participate knowing their presence was part of a long-term relationship. Their visit was not an isolated experience, but one moment in an ongoing conversation lasting decades.

For the last few years, the longevity of our partnership in Honduras has become really apparent. Several students have joined our project because their parents participated in the project a generation earlier. Their eagerness to get involved is a testament to the power of deep relationships, cross-border partnerships, and cross-cultural encounters – all things that only seem to get better with age!