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Nick and Heidi Griffiths live in a small village in Kenya with their son, Gilly. Nick is a civil engineer and helps provide fresh drinking water via wells and water filtration systems. Heidi is a trained EMT and assists in medical ministries in the area.

Here Heidi shares the story of a short-term team that traveled to their village to build a church, and how God blessed their efforts.

We live in a small village in Samburu, Kenya called Baawa. It’s a quiet and joyful place, but lacks a few comforts such as running water, sanitation, electricity, and a church building. Our small church fellowship is filled with smiling faces and children’s laughter, but does not have a building, pews to sit on, or an altar. Our congregation worships under a tree. 

Our fellowship was started by Pastor Josiah, who is 89-years-old. It has been Josiah’s prayer that, one day, his congregation would have a church building in which they could worship the Lord. In the past, Pastor Josiah’s efforts to construct a church within our village were stopped by the community. In fact, several congregations throughout our village have tried to build a church structure, but were all stopped by the Baawa community. 

All of that changed on July 28, 2014.

A short-term team of 12 people from four different churches in the US felt called to travel to Baawa and construct a church.

The congregation, the team from the US, and our family joined together and started construction on the church just feet away from the remains of a church skeleton where the community forced Pastor Josiah to stop building years ago.

During the first day of construction, the tribe elders had a meeting just one tree away from our construction site. This was it! The Lord had to intervene! As the construction crew worked, we could hear the chanting of the tribe elders. 

Then. slowly, the elders dispersed. Three of the elders came over and joined the construction of the church!  

We worked for four days to complete the church, and now it stands within our village as one of God’s miracles! 

Many blessings have occurred since the completion the church. Thirteen local elders attended church the next Sunday, a men’s Bible study with the tribe elders is being formed, and a literacy program for mothers is now meeting in the church.

We thank God for casting a vision in Pastor Josiah and for the short-term team who came to help us. We are very excited about this new era in Baawa. We may not have running water, sanitation, or electricity, but now we have a church – a beautiful church called St. Josiah Church.