Charles Kiloki & the City of Karen

We also visited a church in the Nairobi suburb called Karen who's head Pastor is Charles Kiloki.  It's quite a splendid church in a somewhat richer area of Nairobi though still pretty middle class.  Not with the poor people in the slums; nor with the rich politicians.  The church is actually set up as a part church, part school, and part business; which is arguably a more traditional idea of the church.  The church compound had a variety of buildings, the primary building is the 'typical' church building for worship and the general church service.  Surrounding the compound are smaller buildings for a young kid's school, a tailoring shop/training facility, a computer training room, and a bible school (semi-common on larger churches to offer a bible school).  I will be honest, I wrote down "wood working" in my notes, but I can't remember where that is, but I trust that somewhere on that compound is the beginnings of a wood shop training facility.

Besides all the training facilities that the church offers, it also runs a garbage pick-up service.  They seemed to have successfully beat out the limited competition with better rates and service; and use it as a way of reaching out to the Karen community.  I suppose it is also symbollic as Christ wants us garbage and all!  ;-)

One adorable side note: When we were walking around taking the tour of the compound (which isn't really that large, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of an acre or ~20k sqr feet) two young girls ran up to Heather and hugged her.  For no apparent reason than maybe she smiled at them.  Kid's love white people, but it is unusual for them to be that friendly to strangers, even if they are white.

We left the church compound to go check out the "dormitories" for the Bible School.  I was impressed.  It was two older buildings with a bunch of bunk beds in them, and farm that the students tend too.  Having the students tend the farm to produce their own food is a wonderful part of the instruction that many Kenyans (primarily males) avoid.  I was told then Kenyan boys don't like farming.

Lastly, we visited a nearby house who may be a member of the Karen church though I'm not positive.  She and her husband love birds it appears.  I so wish we had our camera for this part of the trip.  This house's yard is literally a bird sanctuary.  It had chickens of different types, doves, pigeons, turkeys, geese, parakeets, and peacocks with full colorful tails even!  There were other birds who's names I can not recall.  They also raised goats and rabbits there as well.