Imagine the most forsaken place you’ve ever been. Can you picture it?
This is the story of how you have helped to share the gospel in one of the most remote areas Maranatha has ever worked.
In 2016, a Seventh-day Adventist missionary named Stanley Kinathi moved to Illeret, a desolate desert village in northern Kenya, near the border of Ethiopia. His purpose? To share the message of Jesus Christ with one of the most isolated people groups in the country–the Daasanach tribe. Their isolation from the rest of the world naturally made them hostile toward all strangers, including Stanley. It was an intimidating scene to step into, but Stanley was not afraid.
He began his work by visiting homes in Illeret and the surrounding areas. He connected by befriending the children. As he became their friend, he told them about their great friend in heaven, Jesus Christ.
When people fell ill in the community and had nowhere to get help–no hospitals, no medicine–Stanley told them about the great physician in the sky. He prayed with them and God cured them. News spread about the God who could heal, and more began to ask for these prayers. One by one, people opened their hearts to the Good News. Soon, they created the Sericho Seventh-day Adventist group and began meeting under a small tree.
Later that same year, Maranatha responded to a request to assist this region by providing One-Day Churches. Maranatha’s Kenya team hauled ODC kits onto trucks and trekked into Illeret. They built a church for Sericho and six other congregations that Stanley helped to plant. Five years later, Maranatha returned to drill water wells for these same congregations–an epic expedition involving 11 trucks and five punishing days of travel from Nairobi, through the Chalbi desert, and on to Ileret.
“The water well has contributed a lot in spreading the gospel in the community,” says Stanley. “The water well came here because of the Church, and to them it means this is a true God who can bring good things to the community.”
Today, Sericho now has 40 members and has planted three more churches in the surrounding communities. Other groups are popping up too and soon more One-Day Churches will dot the landscape, serving as a beacon of hope.
The work of Maranatha is a catalyst for growth in the most isolated parts of the country–proving that even in the most desolate, arid places, the gospel can grow.
This is the work of Maranatha. God calls us to go into the most challenging places–places that other organizations might refuse. Your donations are what fuel this work to bring the gospel to the forgotten corners of the earth.
This year, Maranatha hopes to work on nearly 500 projects in 2026–including in Illeret. But all this depends on if we can receive funding. Today, we are asking you to serve the mission with your financial support because we cannot fulfill these commitments without funding. Whether you give $10 or $10,000, we ask that you prayerfully make a donation today!
Now, more than ever, God is calling on us to be missionaries in any way we can.
