KENYA - SDA DATA

Agriculture is the principal occupation of Kenya's people, the principal domestic crops being maize and beans. Large quantities of tea, coffee, sisal, pyrethrum, and cashew nuts are exported annually.

Statistics (1992) for the fields--Central Kenya Conference: churches, 203; members, 27,308. Headquarters: Nairobi. Kenya Coast Field: churches, 42; members, 4,117. Headquarters: Mombasa. Kenya Lake Field: churches, 215; members, 60,201. Headquarters: Kendu Bay. North Nyanza Field: churches, 86; members, 17,588. Headquarters: Kisumu. Ranen Field: churches, 223; members, 61,210. Headquarters: Ranen. South Kenya Conference: churches, 384; members, 106,791. Headquarters: Kisii. Western Kenya Field: churches, 173; members, 29,005. Headquarters: Eldoret.

Development of Seventh-day Adventist Work. The first Seventh-day Adventist missionary to Kenya was Canadian-born A. A. Carscallen, who arrived from Britain in 1906. With the assistance of E. C. Enns, a German missionary from Pare in Tanzania, he chose as the site for the first mission station a five-acre (two-hectare) plot at Gendia Hill, about two miles (three kilometers) inland from Kendu Bay of Lake Victoria. This site was among the Luo people in what is now South Nyanza.

Working with Carscallen was Peter Nyambo, a Seventh-day Adventist worker originally from Malawi who had come with him from England. Within 14 months Carscallen reported that he had erected the basic mission buildings and had learned the Luo language, which had never before been reduced to writing. Later, he made a Luo translation of the Gospel of Matthew, which was accepted for publication in 1913 by the British and Foreign Bible Society of London.

In 1907 Carscallen was joined by J. D. Baker and his wife, who in 1909 opened a new station about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from Gendia. On May 21, 1911, the first 10 Luo believers were baptized. In 1912 four new stations were opened. At Nyanchwa Mission I. R. Evanson began work among the Kisii people. Records indicate that the work was difficult and no real impact had been made by the time World War I closed the station. After the war L.E.A. Lane, assisted by a Luo worker, Yakobo Olwa, reopened the station and built a school. Not until 1922 were the first two Kisii baptized. Later, the work in Kisii expanded rapidly. Paulo Nyamweya, one of the early converts, became the first African worker in Kenya to become a mission station director.

The Karungu Mission Station was opened by E. B. Phillips of England at a former government administrative post on Lake Victoria. Because the climate of the region was unhealthful and the population was decreasing, the station was soon closed, the buildings dismantled, and the materials used to build the Kanyadoto Mission, from which the work in the Karungu area was then cared for.

Work began at Kanyadoto in 1912 when a layman, J. H. Sparks, camped and preached under a large fig tree until land could be secured and temporary buildings erected. Mariko Otieno, a Luo worker, assisted in the early years at Kanyadoto, and in 1914 A. A. Matter and his wife, and Swiss workers, came to take charge. A. Watson opened work on the island of Rusinga in Lake Victoria. In 1913 Carscallen moved some 40 miles (65 kilometers) inland, southeast of Gendia, and opened the Kamagambo Station and was assisted for a short time by D. E. Delhove.

When the Germans invaded South Nyanza during World War I, the missionaries were evacuated to a camp near the Kaimosi Station of the Society of Friends, not far from Kisumu. None of the missionaries except Matter and Carscallen got back to their stations before 1916. When they did, they found the stations had been thoroughly looted and the buildings badly damaged. The large house at Gendia had caught fire while occupied by the military. The missionaries, many with furloughs long overdue, set about the uphill task of rebuilding and of recovering their scattered flocks.

Chaotic conditions following the end of the war prevented sending out replacements before 1920. In that year a large group of fresh recruits were sent from Britain to relieve the tired veterans. There were 10 in the first group, led by W. T. Bartlett. Of them Bartlett and W. H. Matthews stayed at Gendia, which served as headquarters; E. A. Beavon went to Nyanchwa Mission; W. W. Armstrong to Kanyadoto; S. G. Maxwell to Kamagambo; T. G. Belton to Wire Hill Station. All were faced with an urgent rebuilding program. Before leaving Kenya, Carscallen handed over to Bartlett detailed maps showing the location of the various missions in Kenya and Western Tanzania.

Another group of new missionaries arrived in 1921, among them Dr. G.A.S. Madgwick, who in 1925 opened the Kendu Hospital about two miles (three kilometers) from Gendia Mission. E. R. Warland went first to Kanyadoto, later to Kamagambo. Also in this second group were Mrs. Bartlett and her daughter, Margery, who taught at Gendia, and Grace Clarke, who went first to Wire Hill, then to Kamagambo to build a girls' school. Miss Clarke developed a proficiency in Luo and Swahili that enabled her later to make a valuable contribution as a translator.

Prior to 1930 little had been done outside an area around Lake Victoria, but in 1933 the Karura Station was opened near Nairobi, with W. W. Armstrong as the first director. This became a base for work among the two principal tribes of Central Kenya, the Kikuyu and the Kamba. In 1934 W.C.S. Raitt, sent to begin work on the coast of Kenya, opened the Changamwe Station, near Mombasa, close to the main Mombasa-Nairobi road two and a half miles (four kilometers) from the center of the city. Work in this predominantly Muslim area developed slowly, as it did among the Kikuyu and Kamba peoples, but a number of churches and companies were established.

During 1930 to 1935 a number of new workers went to Kenya, among them C.T.J. Hyde, who worked first at Kendu Hospital, later at the Kamagambo school; and Jean Schuil, who gave nearly 20 years to the work of training teachers at Kamagambo.

Education. From the first, Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in Kenya, as elsewhere in Southern Africa, sought to build a strong school system, believing that literacy was necessary to develop strong church members and trained workers to care for them. The central stations developed schools offering up to five or six years' education, which were fed by numerous two- or three-grade "bush" schools. During the late 1920s Kamagambo Training School (now Kamagambo High School and Teachers' College) was made the teacher training center for SDA work in Kenya. This training program received government recognition, its graduates sitting for government examinations before being sent out as teacher-evangelists. Schools for girls were established at Kamagambo, Nyanchwa, and Karura.

Hundreds of teachers went out to establish village schools, most of which clustered around the principal missions, which were concentrated in South Nyanza, bordering the lake. The typical schoolhouse was the place of worship on the Sabbath day for the village church, and the teacher of the school usually served as the leader of the company.

In 1947 the European constituency in East Africa, whose children were attending public schools, requested a church school to be established in Nairobi. The school (since 1962 called the Maxwell Preparatory School) was opened in 1949 with a hostel for boarders. Currently it is divided into Maxwell Adventist Preparatory School (elementary) and Maxwell Adventist Academy.

Problem of Government Aid. Government grants-in-aid were offered to managers of these SDA schools in the district of South Nyanza. These funds came from the annual tax levied on every male, for the government operated no schools, finding it more economical to make cash gifts to the missions that provided education for the indigenous inhabitants. This was a common practice of the British in various parts of the empire.

The grants-in-aid were of two kinds: (1) capital, available to directors of the larger missions for providing buildings and other educational facilities; and (2) recurring, made on behalf of all certificated teachers working in mission schools in Kenya, European and African alike.

The system eventually created problems. As the government wage scale rose rapidly, particularly after World War II, it became difficult to explain why a young man just out of school should receive considerably more than the mission could pay an experienced pastor. Probably more serious was the result that many of the teachers, in view of the source of their salaries, came to regard themselves as government rather than mission employees.

The pros and cons of accepting government aid were debated in Kenya church committees for more than two decades. The problem was also considered by the Southern African Division committee, which finally decided that no SDA organization should accept further government financial assistance for educational purposes after 1956 (this did not exclude grants made for medical work).

The results were far-reaching. SDA missions in Kenya entered upon an extremely difficult time. The East African Union did not have funds to operate the schools that had been receiving the grant. Many of them were either turned over to other mission societies or operated as independent African schools, the teachers continuing to receive salaries from the local government. Some of the teachers remained faithful to the church; others did not.

More recently the church members in the South Nyanza, Kisii, Migori, and Nyamira districts (which comprises a majority of the Kenya Seventh-day Adventist constituency) advocated a return to the practice of receiving government grants for educational work. After careful consultation with higher authorities, the union voted its approval as from 1962. This, however, did not apply to schools on central Kenya mission stations.

Organization and Growth. Originally the mission stations in Kenya, in what was then British East Africa, were under the sponsorship of the British Union Conference. From 1909 to 1912 the Yearbook lists the British East African Mission as "under the direction of the General Conference Committee in Europe," from 1912 to 1918 as part of the European Division, from 1918 to 1923 as part of the British Union.

In 1921 Kenya became part of the East African Combined Mission, with headquarters at Gendia Mission Station, Kenya. In 1924 Kenya is listed in the East African Union Mission, which after the formation of the Northern European Division in 1928 became a part of that. In the 1934 Yearbook four Kenya missions are listed; in 1938 there were five missions composing the Kenya Union Mission, with S. G. Maxwell as president; thereafter headquarters were in Nairobi.

Since World War II made it difficult for the Northern European Division to administer the East Africa missions, these were transferred in 1941 to the Southern African Division. In 1943 a new East African Union emerged, which included Kenya, with H. M. Sparrow as president. Headquarters were in Kisumu, a town central to SDA work in Kenya, then from 1950 in Nairobi.

With the continued growth of membership it was decided in 1953 to set up once more field organizations within Kenya much as it had been when Kenya was a union. These were South Kenya (Kisii, Masai), Kenya Lake (Luo), and Central Kenya (areas outside of Nyanza province); in 1961 another field was formed known as the Ranen Field, also in Luo, Kuria, and Abasuba country.

Today African workers are carrying most of the work and also holding executive positions. In November 1972 D. K. Bazarra was appointed the first national president of the East African Union. Now all of the Kenya fields are administered by African presidents.

In 1981 the Western Kenya Field was organized, serving the Luhyas and Kalenjins of the Western Province of Kenya. In 1981 the South Kenya Field was organized into the South Kenya Conference. In 1986 the Kenya Coast Field was organized to serve the tribes of the Coast and North Eastern provinces. In 1989 the Central Kenya Field was organized into Central Kenya Conference. In 1990 the North Nyanza Field was organized to serve the Luo people. ⁽¹⁾