Kapsengerut: A Sacred Ground Where Africa and the West Met in Faith

On the Eldoret–Eldama Ravine road, 16Kms just past Naiberi and Straughburg in Uasin Gishu County, lies a place that quietly bridges continents, generations, and spiritual worlds. Known as Kapsengerut, this unassuming homestead is no ordinary village compound. It is the birthplace of the Reformed Church of East Africa (RCEA), a sacred space where African faith met Western mission, and where a farmworker’s vision gave rise to a lasting church movement.
The late Mzee Joseph Cheserem (Sengerut ) the humble farmworker whose faith and vision gave birth to RCEA

A Living Heritage

At first glance, Kapsengerut looks like any other rural homestead. But as one walks through its grounds, the air feels different. It ia reverent, almost hallowed. Here stand two modest graves side by side: those of Mzee Joseph Cheserem Sengerut and his wife, and just a few meters away, the resting places of J. Mouton and his wife, the South African settlers who first brought the gospel to this part of Uasin Gishu. Their proximity tells a story of unlikely partnership — of faith that outlived the barriers of race, class, and colonial history.

The graves are tenderly maintained, their flowers often fresh. It is said that even before his passing, Mzee Sengerut would visit the Mouton graves, reflecting on how God had used their encounter to shape an entire denomination. “Lord and servant,” the locals say, “tied even in death.”

The resting places of Mzee Sengerut and his wife, beside those of A.J. Morton and his wife — a symbolic union of faith that transcends time, race, and status. “Even in death, they remain bound by their shared mission


The Seed of Faith

Kapsengerut’s story begins in the 1940s, when Sengerut, then a young farmworker, tended Mouton’s fields. Mouton, unlike many settlers of his time, shared the gospel with his African workers. When Sengerut survived a near-fatal illness, he interpreted it as divine healing and gave his life to Christ. Unable to read or write, he nevertheless became a gifted preacher — his powerful memory and simple storytelling drawing large gatherings of fellow farmhands.

From these small open-air meetings, the vision of RCEA was born. Sengerut’s plea for missionaries led to the arrival of Reverend B. B. Eybers from South Africa in 1944. Though Eybers is often credited in official records as the church’s pioneer, it was at Kapsengerut that the true spark of the RCEA was lit,  not in mission halls, but on a humble farm in Uasin Gishu.

The Vision That Endures

Before his death, Mzee Sengerut donated part of his land for the construction of a church. The original structure, built in 1992, still stands , a testament to faith and foresight. Nearby, an even greater dream is taking shape: a monumental cathedral that, when completed, will seat close to 10,000 worshippers. According to his grandson Amos Cheserem, whom we met with his mother Mary, and a few church elders, this was his grandfather’s vision. “He used to say people from far and wide, even from South Africa, will come to worship here. That vision still guides us.”

The rising cathedral at Kapsengerut — a vision first spoken by Mzee Sengerut, now being fulfilled by his grandsons. Once complete, it is expected to accommodate over 60,000 worshippers.

Around the church compound, the remnants of the old mission era still whisper history, the rusted farm machinery, the storeroom Mouton once used, and the restored farmhouse where the Sengerut family still lives. Each object tells a fragment of a larger story: how faith took root not through conquest, but through shared humanity.

A Pilgrimage of Memory

Kapsengerut today is more than a place of worship; it is a pilgrimage site for those seeking to reconnect with the origins of the RCEA and the deeper spirit of African Christianity. Visitors come to stand on the soil where a servant’s faith met a master’s mission and gave rise to a people’s church. They come to remember — and to be reminded that God’s work often begins in overlooked corners of the earth.

The land itself carries a message: that divine purpose can bloom in the most ordinary of places, and that partnerships once born in inequality can, by grace, become stories of redemption and shared legacy. As the grand cathedral rises against the skies of Uasin Gishu, Kapsengerut continues to call — not only as a landmark of faith but as a living witness that Africa’s story of Christianity is both local and universal, humble and profound.

 

The renovated house of missionary A.J. Morton, still standing at Kapsengerut. Once a settler’s home, it now shelters the family of Sengerut, a place where memory, mission, and history meet.



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