In November 2025, 41 members of the Dodge Center Seventh-day Adventist Church in Minnesota volunteered with Maranatha Volunteers International in Kenya. The group built new classrooms for the Kimogoro Adventist Boarding Primary School. “We had people of different faiths. We had people who, English wasn’t their first language–just a really diverse group of people,” said Dodge Center member and trip coordinator Tyler Coleman. “We were united in purpose to be a blessing in Kenya and to work together.”
This diverse team had an age range of seven to 78 and included 17 kids who were heavily involved in construction work. “My seven-year-old daughter, who’s not used to a whole lot of manual labor–they were the first group who started working, and they just continued throughout the day with big smiles on their faces,” recalled Coleman. Maranatha’s in-country construction crew helped kids participate by teaching them to lay cinder block walls. “The local workers were just fantastic to work with,” said Coleman. “They were patient. They were helpful. They were great with the kids.”
Kids and adults alike took advantage of the project as a chance to experience the global nature of the Adventist Church. “To realize that the Church is a whole lot bigger than just the four walls … allows you to travel and meet really interesting people and be welcome and to contribute to places where your skills and your funds are needed sometimes more than back home at the four walls of your church,” remarked Coleman.
This volunteer project was a part of Maranatha’s large-scale renovation of the Kimogoro campus. Kimogoro’s previous buildings were unstable, with dirt floors and hole-ridden walls and roofs. Young learners were subject to dim spaces and exposed to rain and cold winds. Maranatha volunteer groups and in-country construction crews have already completed two classrooms, a kitchen and dining hall, girls and boys dormitories, a large church building, and three bathroom blocks at Kimogoro, and have yet to finish nine more classrooms, an administrative block, and landscaping.
Since 2016, Maranatha has responded to numerous requests from the Adventist Church in Kenya for improved infrastructure. Volunteer teams and our in-country crews have built One-Day Churches, schools, and drilled water wells. More than 1,500 structures have been completed so far.