Who we are

The dream in 2008 grew into our first community development project in Burundi. Claude in picture and Kelley, living in Bujumbura, Burundi, worked with local Batwa friends to develop a community development model that would move landless families onto good land. But that was just the beginning – the dream was to work together toward shaping a viable and vibrant community that would become self-sustaining within a matter of years.

Thirty Batwa families moved to Matara in June 2009. As of 2011 they have reached food security, have all their children in school performing well, have all secured their legal rights by getting identity cards, birth certificates and marriage licenses, have started micro-enterprises that are bringing in additional income and boast of some great livestock.Their neighbors have elected one to public office, recruited another to lead the Parent-Teacher Council in the region and selected some as local judges in the tribal judicial system. We have all watched God transform this landscape and these lives – literally during this time, Community of Faith has sent teams each year to befriend the Batwa families offering encouragement and true friendship.

They worked together clearing land, planting carrots and cabbage, building homes, planting tree saplings in the tree farm and making fireless cookers.

They walked the roads together, hand in hand. The friends from Texas were witnesses at the community wedding of 10 Batwa couples and celebrated when the first baby was born in the new community.

Over the visits we have shared many dances, shaking the ground with the joy of togetherness and goodness that comes from true friendship.

These communities are fused together in friendship, which is the kind of partnership that we celebrate! In a recent visit, Mark and Laura Shook encouraged Claude and Kelley to take this a step further and create an organization that would embrace our current community development collaboration but add more!

We were invited to create a larger structure that would embrace more communities doing hope-filled work in other places and grow the friendships between them. We would be able to share our expertise and offer encouragement to other leaders.

We would be able to connect other communities to one another for mutual learning, support and collaboration. We could open the door for our friends in Texas to reach more communities across the globe, beginning with Africa.

The partnership born between two families could grow – to partnerships between many communities! Communities of Hope!
We work the way friends do – with energy, excitement and a spirit of collaboration as we share our resources and friends with one another.

Together, Community of Faith and Communities of Hope are committed to invest in sustainable transformation and partner with other communities of hope, wherever we find them!

Our history