Suswa, Kenya

In 2007 our board member John Njoroge was on the pastoral staff at Faith Community Church in Whittier, CA USA. During that time his Senior Pastor David Mills came to LifeLift through John and asked if we could help them establish two water wells (boreholes) in the village of Maai Mahiu, in the Great Rift Valley west of Nairobi, Kenya.

Stephen Mbogo, Kenya Team Leader of African Evangelistic Enterprise assigned staff member Joseph Mullinge Ndiku to work with us as on-site manager of this project. Joseph reported that, due to conflict between the Kikuyu people of Maai Mahiu and the Maasai of neighboring Suswa, strife between the two tribes could be significantly exacerbated if two bore holes were given to the Kikuyu and none to the Maasai.

The conflict had included issues related to Maasai water and grazing rights, which sometimes encroached on land claimed by the Kikuyu. Faith Community Church and the people of Maai Mahiu offered to contribute one of their boreholes to Suswa as a peace gesture. It worked! After decades of fighting the Kikuyu and Maasai agreed to be at peace for the cost of two boreholes. The Maasai borehole came in dry yet the Maasai kept their commitment, even through a period of civil unrest following a disputed presidential election in Kenya in late 2007. Faith Community and LifeLift funded a 750,000 liter covered water reservoir for the Maasai. They responded by allowing the establishment of three Baptist churches on Maasai land near the reservoir.