The Christian Commission for Development was founded in 1982 by a group of Christians working with refugees from El Salvador who fled persecution in their country to Honduras, settling in refugee camps along the Honduras/El Salvador border. From that initial work of human rights, service, and pastoral compassion, CCD’s ministry expanded into neglected areas of Honduras. With the tremendous devastation of Hurricane Mitch in late 1998, CCD’s work expanded to over 400 rural communities, helping villages rebuild housing, agricultural production, and community infrastructure. CCD also expanded its ministries in the capital city, Tegucigalpa, where CCD’s headquarters is located.

In 2001, as reconstruction efforts after Hurricane Mitch were completed, CCD once again re-invented itself, having realized that their large program could no longer be sustained financially. CCD continues forward with its core identity as a Christian and ecumenical organization that believes that victims of poverty and injustice have talents and potential in themselves to work together to improve their situations. A new area of CCD’s work involves border areas and populations with the Central American countries of El Salvador and Guatemala. These are areas of immense ecological and ethnic diversity, areas to be protected in order for traditional methods of “development” to respect this diversity. In the Honduras-Guatemala border area, CCD concentrates its efforts with trans-border Indian communities, exploring options for mutual support and work together.

With the area near and in El Salvador, CCD is working with local communities around issues of natural resources, such as land and water, and around infrastructure and services, such as roads and health services, to link peoples from the two countries who sometimes are from the same families but separated by the border.

The political turmoil caused by the military coup in Honduras in June 2009 and the alarming levels of crime and delinquency it unleashed made it difficult for U.S./Canadian mission groups to go to Honduras. As a result, CCD had a considerable decrease in the number of groups received in 2010. Some of the groups who cancelled their trips to CCD decided to travel to other countries in Central America. CCD hopes to regain the relationship with them in order to normalize the operation of the program.

CCD did receive three groups through Global Ministries in 2010. Group visits included elements of relationship-building, construction work, and a medical/dental group. Relationship-building includes learning more about the work of CCD and the Theological Community in Honduras and considering the possibility of establishing a partnership with CCD. They also visited the Christian Reformed Church of San Pedro Sula. Another group helped to build a storage room for the chicken coop and painted five houses at Monte Horeb Training Center in La Ermita, Talanga. The medical/dental group was able to see 913 patients during their time in four communities.