Church History
Blessings Friends, I am Pastor Reuben Simiyu from Kenya, East Africa and Lead Pastor of New Life City Church in Naivasha town in Kenya.
Naivasha is a small town outside Nairobi City which hosts close to 200,000 residents who depend mostly on horticultural flower growers and exporters. As you may know, Kenya is one the leading flower exporters in the region.
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The monthly wage here is averaged at $60, so most people survive on below a dollar a day. Considering this level of poverty, we have pastored this Church for 15 years in a rented muddy building and lived in a muddy one-roomed house in a slum area.
We were not able to make much progress in our community until May 2020 when AK Ministries led by the late Evangelist Ash Kotecha from the UK, his wife Sharon Kotecha and their lovely daughter Esther stepped in to help raise funds for our church and ministry.
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They started supporting us with our rent, food and clothing. The more they received, the more they gave and towards the end of August 2020 we started looking for a plot of land to build the Church building.
With the help of friends, AK Ministries was able to buy us a plot which cost $9,000 and immediately New Life was able to build a basic and modern washroom.
By March 2021, a house costing $12,000 was built for myself, my wife and two children (now three) which was a great answer to prayer as we were about to become homeless.
In May 2021, AK Ministries decided we should build the church building but they didn’t have the funds. Rev Ash Kotecha started raising funds towards it and the more they received, the more we continued building and at this point Graham Cleveland of Trinity Charitable Trust in the UK also stepped in. We thank God that Trinity Charitable Trust contributed a large percentage of the amount towards the completion of the church building project at a cost of $30,000. AK Ministries and friends contributed the rest.​
By September 2022, we officially opened the church where we are now meeting. It didn’t stop there. AK Ministries and Trinity Charitable Trust thought of starting other money generating projects so eventually we can become self-sufficient. Our poultry farm came into the picture - we built the poultry house and bought chicks and chicken food to start with. An incubator was added and also a grinder and a cow to provide cheaper grain and milk for the people. As we become more self-sufficient we are able to support our community better. Right now we are helping to pay school fees for some vulnerable children, we feed many children on a Sunday and we support talent in the community especially in sports, being peace ambassadors and many other projects. Our next project is to build a church office.​
Even after Ash Kotecha went home to be with the Lord, we are still supported by AK Ministries under Sharon and Esther Kotecha to help realise all this. We are very grateful for your immeasurable support friends.