On April 6, 2025, the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kalobeyei Village, Kenya, created its first branch, reported ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The Kakuma Branch, created exactly 195 years after the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York of the United States, is 419 kilometers from Kitale, Kenya, where the nearest organized Church unit is.
In its first months as an official branch, membership grew from five to 31 Latter-day Saints.
Refugee-disciples
“The Savior knows how it feels to be a refugee — He was one,” said Elder Patrick Kearon then a General Authority Seventy in the April 2016 general conference. “As a young child, Jesus and His family fled to Egypt to escape the murderous swords of Herod.”
Early Latter-day Saints were refugees. Elder Kearon, now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, explained that they were “violently driven from homes and farms over and over again.”
By the time Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was 11 years old, he had been a refugee twice.
In 2001, Jervase Makur Dhoul Ajok fled his home in South Sudan after an attack on his village when he was 13 years old. Speaking of Ajok, an article on the Africa South Area website reported: “His flight into the bush began a journey of almost 1,000 miles and severe hardships, including lack of water, food and shelter as he traveled with people he did not know, toward the Kenyan border. He stayed seven years in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.”
Ajok eventually became one of the first missionaries called from South Sudan, serving in Ghana.
Regardless of their refugee status, these individuals persevered through their difficulties and became refugee-disciples.
According to a United Nations Refugee Agency report, there were nearly 42.7 million refugees around the world at the end of 2024.
In an October 2015 letter from the First Presidency, Latter-day Saints were encouraged to provide assistance to refugees in all parts of the world. Six months later, the First Presidency invited Latter-day Saint women of all ages to assist refugees in their own communities as part of the “I Was a Stranger” effort.
Kakuma Refugee Camp
Kakuma Refugee Camp consists of over 300,000 refugees from more than 20 countries who were displaced due to famine, war and persecution.
UNICEF reported that over 80% of those refugees are women and children. With so many children, classrooms average 133 students.
The Church has stepped in to help bring classrooms and quality education to those in the camp through “Learning for Life,” launched by UNICEF in 2018.
A new branch
Over the last nine years, Latter-day Saints receiving refuge at the Kakuma Refugee Camp have often requested a branch be established. This wasn’t possible until the past year.
After a donation that provided internet access and a shelter where members could meet, group leader Elias Zablon traveled the 800-plus kilometers round trip to petition for a branch. Meeting with then-Kitale Kenya District President Anthony W. Matende and then-Kenya Nairobi West Mission President David Sturt, Zablon pleaded for a branch to be established.
President Matende and President Sturt then visited the camp, assessed its needs and received approval to establish the Kakuma Branch.
President Sturt and his second counselor, President Meshack Odunga, returned to the camp on April 6, 2025, to organize the branch and call Imani Botrus as the new branch president.
Speaking to these Church members, President Odunga said: “It’s great to learn from you and see how things are unfolding line upon line. We are grateful for the faith of the Saints here.”
President Sturt added, “We are grateful to all those who made this day possible, including our brothers who provided internet and this shade, which has immensely made it easier to create this branch.”
President Odunga reminded them that they are pioneers of Kakuma, similar to early pioneers of the Church.
“Please remember the journey traveled by the early pioneers of the Church; if it wasn’t for their sacrifice and determination, we don’t know what would have happened,” he said. “Sometimes suffering refines us, and we ask that you have great faith in the Lord as the Author and Finisher of everything, and good things will surely come.”
Now, the Latter-day Saints in Kakuma are rapidly growing their small branch.
On May 24 and 25, 26 individuals were baptized and welcomed into the branch. With these new Church members, the branch grew sixfold in its first couple of months.
At the creation of the branch, President Odunga testified, “You are the pioneers in this place, and you have all it takes to grow the Church here.”
