Mbuzi Choma!

April 22, 2025April 22, 2025 by Jonathan In Nairobi Church Plant 1 Comment

A belated Happy Easter! We trust you had a joy-filled day of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus with your church community as well as with your family. What did you have for your Easter meal? It seems that most Americans celebrate with ham, pork chops, pot roast, or lamb. Here in Kenya, we culminated our resurrection celebration with mbuzi choma (roasted goat).

We had over 50 people (including children) join us for the service. It was such a joy to sing songs celebrating what Christ accomplished for us on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, being encouraged by the kids as they recited Scripture and sang more gospel-centered songs, but especially as Pastor Brian preached from God’s Word on the importance of the cross and the resurrection. Unless we are clear about what Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished for those who hope in him, we aren’t proclaiming the gospel.

Kenyan Visa

After three and a half months and multiple visits to Immigration, we just found out that Jonathan’s Kenyan visa was approved for three years. Also, it was $700 less than what we were expecting! He still has some paperwork to get signed by our sponsoring church here in Kenya and pay a security bond, which should be completed this week. When that’s done we will apply for a dependent pass for Lilli. Pray that it won’t take as long as the visa, and that her previous work in Kijabe as a nurse won’t complicate the process. If they believed she was still working as a nurse in Kenya they would deny her dependent pass and want to charge a large amount of money for a renewed visa.

What’s Next?

We still consider ourselves in the “soft launch” phase of the church. Again, that means the only advertising we’re doing is by word of mouth, and now a growing social media presence. We still meet in our garage, which can hold about 50 adults somewhat comfortably. We’ve been averaging around 40 adults the last few weeks. Our goals for this phase of our life are:

1. Keep growing a core group of people on which the church will be built
2. Build a strong foundation of the gospel into this core team, as well as a general agreement and buy-in to the core values and shared virtues of SGC Nairobi
3. For this community to not only know the gospel, but to begin doing life together in a way that demonstrates the Holy Spirit’s work in us through this gospel

We’re likely just weeks away from reaching what the garage will comfortably hold, but apart from that, we aren’t necessarily in a hurry to move to a more permanent venue. This place allows us to more easily prepare meals for after services and space for fellowship and sports each Sunday. We could really use another 2-3 months to continue pursuing the three goals above.

However, we must be prepared for the future. We’ve already been in contact with resourceful people to help us find a venue in the Westlands area of Nairobi. Jonathan and Brian will begin touring some possibilities next week. Please pray that God would either direct us to a specific place, or connect us with people who can guide us to a place. We know that location is not everything, but it is hugely important in providing accessibility to the people we want to reach and to those already part of our church and in providing a place our community can continue to grow in Biblical fellowship. As they say, location, location, location!

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