Kenya (MNN) — School will soon be in session at Kenya Hope‘s Mueller Memorial Academy. The school is named in honor the ministry’s former executive directors, Dave and Joy Mueller, who passed away suddenly last year.
(Photo courtesy of Mueller family)
“Through the help of the Rafiki Foundation, it’s going to be classic Christian school,” says Steve Holman with Kenya Hope. “There’s already more than 100 kids on a waiting list. There’s already a faculty and headmaster hired. Year by year, we’ll be adding classes.”
The school will be opening with three grades in January 2025. Holman says much of the responsibility for establishing the faculty, the curriculum and the training for the school was on the local Kenyan director’s shoulders.
“I’m really just amazed at what God has done,” Holman says. “But this was something that Dave and Joy really believed in, and it’s quite ambitious. It’s clear that God’s been in this.”
Kenya Hope has a five-level strategy by which they partner with local communities. First comes clean water, the gospel, and audio Bibles. Then come community development projects, such as their Widows Might program and eventually a school.
“We had seven locations last year, but it looks like very soon, we will be involved in 12 ministry sites among the Maasai people. That’s a big step forward,” Holman says.
Mueller Memorial Academy campus (Photo courtesy of Kenya Hope)
The Mueller Memorial Academy campus is the first local property the ministry has owned. But Holman is quick to point out, “The human part is far more important — cohorts of widows [in the Widows Might program] and then the children coming to the school. [Then] the school growing each year and fulfilling its mission as a unique Rafiki Philosophy of classic Christian education, Kenyan style.”
There are many ways Kenya Hope serves as the hands and feet of Christ. Connect with them at kenyahope.org or check out their Christmas Giving Guide to find your place in the story!
“Start with our website and look at the opportunities there,” Holman says. “We need more partner churches — a church that takes a look at what we do and says, ‘We believe in that. How can we personally get involved?’”
Header photo of students from another school courtesy of Kenya Hope.
