The celebration will take place August 2 through September 2 in the Kenya Coastal Province town of Mpekatoni.
A visit by a pastor and two laypeople from Christ Covenant Church in Florissant helped initiate the denomination in 1998, although that was not the plan when the trip was conceived. Pastor Marc Murchison traveled with Paul Mungai Mucharia and Martha Miller to meet with former international students who had attended the church while living in the United States. They also planned to meet with Christians in remote areas of Kenya.
Days before the team arrived in Kenya, however, terrorists detonated vehicle bombs next to the U.S. embassies in the country’s capital city of Nairobi and in Tanzania. More than 200 people were killed and roughly 4,000 injured in the Nairobi blast. At least 11 were killed and 85 wounded in Tanzania.
Murchison and Macharia – who eventually became pastors of the Florissant church – visited many of the bombing victims in a government hospital in Nairobi. Many were badly burned and some were blinded by flying debris, Murchison recalls.
As they ministered to people in the area, four congregations were started in as many weeks, says Murchison. That proved to be the beginning of the denomination. In 1999, other representatives from the Evangelical Covenant Church traveled to Kenya on a six-week trip during which additional churches were formed.
Macharia and Murchison are returning for the anniversary celebration. Accompanying them will be Curt Peterson, executive minister of the Department of World Mission; Pete Ekstrand, Africa regional coordinator; Jeff Anderson, superintendent of the Canada Conference; and Alberto and Lisa Zapeda.
For a previous story on the ministry of Christ Covenant Church in Kenya, see Kenya Ministry.
