Feature
Sharing Jesus with Neighbors in Northwest Kenya
The Holy Spirit is at work in refugee camps and other towns in northwest Kenya, bringing saving faith in Christ the Redeemer to all people.
In early 2025, the number of refugees living in the Kakuma and Kalobeyei refugee camps in northwest Kenya surpassed 300,000 for the first time. More than half are children.
Many have witnessed unspeakable violence in the countries they have fled. Many are separated from the people they love, not knowing when or if they will ever be able to return to their homelands. Many have been living in these conditions for well over 10 years.
Many are Lutheran.
Refugees from over 20 countries — primarily South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia — live under a scorching sun in a landscape of dust and thorns. Temperatures regularly soar to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Shade is a rare commodity.
For the refugees trapped in a cycle of dependence and endless waiting, “the temptation to hopelessness is powerful,” said the Rev. Shauen Trump, regional director for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) in Africa.
This June, Trump visited Kakuma and Kalobeyei with a short-term mission team from Living Faith Lutheran Church in Clive, Iowa. Living Faith has sent a team to Kenya almost every year since 2012, and they’ve witnessed the despair in the camps up close.
“I had seen poverty before [visiting the camps],” recalled team member Joanne Diehl. “But I had never seen poverty of spirit like this.”
It’s tempting even for the Living Faith team to hit a point of despair because of how little can be done to care for the physical needs they encounter. The problems are beyond the scope of what can be solved by one church or even one church body, and donations outside of the coordinated international response can sometimes do more harm than good, endangering the very people they are hoping to help.
However, the team has also been able to witness some positive changes over the years — particularly in the Lutheran congregations they visit.
In the 2010s, the displaced or converted Lutheran refugees living in Kakuma and Kalobeyei did not have pastors of their own, meaning that they would only receive Holy Communion when they were visited by a minister from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK) or an LCMS missionary. Given the arduous, dirt-road journey needed to reach them, congregations could go months without receiving these holy, faith-sustaining gifts. One trip by LCMS missionaries in 2019 revealed a congregation that had not received the Lord’s Supper in five years.
Today, five refugees serve as pastors to the five Lutheran congregations in the camps, with more attending seminary to help ensure that the Lutheran refugees in Kakuma and Kalobeyei will never again suffer a drought of Word and Sacrament ministry.
‘When You Walk Through Fire’
As the ELCK and the LCMS came to realize that these camps were not as transient or temporary as they had thought, the decision was made to send a man from each congregation to Matongo Lutheran Theological College at Neema Lutheran College in Nyamira County, Kenya. In 2021, the first cohort of refugee pastors from Kakuma and Kalobeyei celebrated their ordination as pastors of the ELCK.
On a typically hot afternoon in June, Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Kakuma was abuzz with excitement as pastors, evangelists and laypeople from multiple refugee congregations gathered to partner with the LCMS visitors in door-to-door evangelism and visitation.
As the groups — each a mixture of local pastors and evangelists and LCMS team members — walked the community, they were often brought face to face with immense suffering.
One mother, Mary, asked for prayers for her adult children: Her son, unable to get work, was struggling with alcoholism. Her daughter’s husband was also unable to work because of injuries from a violent attack, and recent changes to the ration distribution system had left her in distress about meeting her family’s daily needs.
The Rev. Anjelo Ongang, pastor of Pari Lutheran Church, Kakuma, who led one door-to-door group, offered Mary the words of Isaiah 43:1–2, “Fear not, … I have called you by name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
He recalled the fourth man present with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace: “Somebody who we cannot see is among us: Jesus.”
“Jesus will never leave you, never forsake you,” added Diehl, pointing to Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered in [His] name, the Lord will hear us.”
The first day’s efforts concluded with a Bible study (in English, Nuer and Arabic) back at Gethsemane on Romans 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:35, 37).
Said Trump, “The suffering we endure, God is in control of that. We know that He is good. He doesn’t make us suffer capriciously.”
Gathering Charcoal
On day two, the groups departed from Gambella Lutheran Church in nearby Kalobeyei Refugee Camp to share Christ in the community. As introductions were made on one front doorstep, the evangelists discovered that they were among fellow Lutherans who had stopped attending church. Cecilia, one of the three gathered, explained that she had moved to another side of the camp, away from her old congregation.
Through evangelist Valentino Okongo Lino’s translation, Trump addressed the three with an image familiar in daily life at Kalobeyei: charcoal.
“When you start a cooking fire, you gather the charcoal into one place,” he began. “While it is gathered together, it can do a lot of good work: It can boil water, it can cook, it can provide heat and light. Every coal in that fire is lit and burning together.
“If I pull a few coals from the fire, the fire will still burn, but those three coals will start to fade and die.
“We teach that Jesus is present in the service when He forgives sins. When we sing, the songs are full of God’s Word. He is present in the preaching and in the Sacrament and in the liturgy. When the church gathers together for worship, Jesus is with them. … We are like dead people. In worship, He gives us life again.”
When Cecilia said she would start attending church again, Trump urged her: “If it is too far to walk, find other Lutherans and start a church here. I have seen many churches start on a porch or under a tree. Ask the pastor to come here after the service, at 1 p.m.”
Cecilia lived too far to walk to Gambella Lutheran Church in the heat that day, but that same afternoon, over half of those visited by Ongang’s group (which went door to door nearer to the church) showed up for Bible class. No groups were ever turned away from a door they knocked on.
Under a Tree
Two hours from Kakuma, Kenyan Lutherans in the small city of Lodwar have also been spreading God’s saving Word among their neighbors.
In the late 2010s, the Lutheran community in Lodwar — visited many times by the team from Living Faith, Iowa — were looking for land on which to establish an ELCK church. Not long after the pandemic, their friends in Iowa learned via email that not only had they gotten land for the church, but they had named it after their sister congregation.
Raising funds to construct a church building is slow going, so for now, the congregants gather for the Divine Service under the shade of the two tallest trees on their property.
“God opened the way for us to be here,” said the Rev. Sammy Ataan of Living Faith, Lodwar.
Even as they build their physical church, the congregation has been busy building the kingdom. Inspired by the door-to-door evangelism done in partnership with the short-term team in 2024, congregants continued knocking on doors in their community long after their Iowa friends had left. Thanks to these efforts, a new congregation — Makuti Lutheran Church — has taken root in another area of the city near the Turkwel River. On Sundays, this church also meets under a tree.
With 15 adult members and over 20 kids in Sunday school, Makuti is served by the Rev. Joab Lopese. By the grace of God, they will continue to grow.
“Expanding the kingdom of God, visiting people in their homes, sharing the love of God with them — that’s the most important thing we can do,” said Trump of the work taking place in Turkana.
“You are the church,” he told the young congregation under their tree near the river. “Jesus is here. He has given you faith.”
Learn More
- Learn more about the Synod’s work in Africa
- Read a 2019 Engage article on the history of ministry in these refugee camps
- Make a gift to support LCMS International Mission
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Mary Henrichs
Staff writer and editor for LCMS Communications.
