The Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya

How Grimsby became inspiration for Kenya!

Your Place in Kenya is a small project but it has a big heart. Grimsby Neighbourhood Church pastor Sue Boyle tells the story of the community initiative her church is sponsoring

In 2014, Samuel and Mary Kingori – pastors of Elim Gospel Church in Nyeri in Kenya – came to the UK and visited a number of churches. One was Grimsby Neighbourhood Church, because we had been supporting them and taking ministry teams to Nyeri for a number of years.

While in Grimsby, Samuel and Mary saw the work our church was doing in our community through our ‘Your Place’ project, which expresses God’s love to people in practical ways. It was then that God put it in Mary’s heart to open Nyeri’s own ‘Your Place’.

Your Place in Kenya was born out of a vision to open a centre that would help the people of Nyeri and take up the challenge of becoming a ‘church without walls’.

In 2015, our church partnered with Samuel and Mary’s to put up a small metal building, and so the work began!

Mary is a great businesswoman and has run with her vision to develop a shop where local people can buy at more affordable prices. The shop makes a small profit and provides a modest income which pays Your Place’s ground rent, but most of the profit goes back into the community work to help people in need.

In addition to the shop, Your Place also has a small outdoor community café which serves as a meeting place where people can sit, enjoy a cup of chai and a snack. This was developed when the team from Grimsby took a plastic table, chairs and parasol for outside Your Place to create a space for sitting and chatting with the locals.

A few years later, Mary used some of the profits from Your Place to build a canopy on the side of the building where people can sit in the shade. It is here that the most important work of Your Place takes place, as Mary gets to know people, forms friendships and supports local people when they are going through tough times.

Building trust

It has taken time for trust to build, but local people now like talking with Mary. Her work is not only about making profit, but about investing in people’s lives. “Your Place is for everyone – it’s Your Place!” she says. Your Place has truly made a big impact on many people who would not normally come to church. Many have been touched and their lives have been changed through the love, care and support of Mary and other Christians who are able to show them God’s love in action.

Once, Mary noticed a man waiting for a bus opposite Your Place every day. He always carried a bag and was very careful to take it into the shade of an umbrella used by a stall holder as he waited. Mary began to wonder what was in the bag and came to realise the precious content was actually a baby!

She asked him about his situation. He told her his wife was in hospital and because he was not be able to afford to buy milk he was taking the baby every day to be fed by her.

Mary told him she was a pastor in the church and would like to help him with his travelling expenses for a week. The man accepted gratefully.

Another time she met a single lady with two daughters. The lady had recently found out she had breast cancer. In order to earn money to feed herself and her children she washed clothes for people – life was very hard. Mary was able to buy her food and clothes from the profits of Your Place.

Mary also interacts with people who are mentally unwell – often giving them tea and cake for free. She sells sanitary products at a very cheap price too, and is able to give them to people she realises could never afford them. Samuel, Mary and their church are certainly not rich, but they are very generous and have a heart to help those in need.

When we asked her, “What has Your Place done for you?” she replied, “It has helped me to be open to other people and to touch people’s lives.” She sees this as her service for Jesus.

Sometimes good conversations open up about God. There are times when Mary has been able to invite people to church – in fact, three ladies now go to church and have become Christians through this.

Samuel also meets with Christians and non-Christians to talk at Your Place. We thank God that a number have joined the church through this too.

Mary says, “Our community work is an expression of God’s love for the people outside the church.”

As I mentioned, Mary has built Your Place into a successful business – she is quite the entrepreneur! There, people can buy a wide range of items including clothes, pencils, screwdrivers, washing powder, sweets, drinks, toothbrushes, makeup, toilet rolls, and gas.

And the business has now stretched to Nairobi, where Mary buys items at cheaper prices than in Nyeri. Some of the gas she sells is bought by family members who live in Nairobi, which helps make the project sustainable.

Mary is always thinking of ways to improve Your Place. She has noticed lots of young people passing by when they get off the school bus, for example, so she is praying for another person with a heart for the work to help her so she can make and sell chips. Children would love to eat chips on the way home from school, she says!

Mary and Samuel would love to encourage and help other churches to set up their own Your Place.

During our visit to Kenya last year, Mary presented us with the tithes from her profits. We will use this to add something to our own Your Place Oasis Gardens in recognition of the great work of Your Place Kenya.

This is a new type of project for the people in Mary’s church and a new way of expressing God’s love. While some see it as ‘Mary’s business’, others have really caught the vision.

Mary and Samuel have not been afraid to step out and do things differently, and we applaud them!

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

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