Kenyatta University has become the first public university in Kenya to hire a Seventh-day Adventist chaplain to minister to Adventist students on the campus.

The university has also allocated land to be used for the construction of a church to serve the students, and the pastor will be on the university’s payroll. 

The Kenyatta University Community Seventh-day Adventist Church has now officially started conducting Sabbath, or Saturday, services. Pastor Peter Bwana, executive secretary of the Adventist Church in Kenya, has expressed appreciation to the vice-chancellor of the university, and its board of governors, for the allocation of land.

Pastor Enoch Omosa, publishing director for the Adventist Church in Kenya, was hired after an extensive recruitment exercise conducted jointly by the university and the church. Asked what was unique about his new congregation, Omosa said, “My office hours!” 

“Ninety percent of our meetings are held at night because the students are extremely busy during the day with classes and late evening with study halls,” he explains. “It’s a challenge becoming nocturnal.” 

Currently there are 300 Adventist students at Kenyatta University. The university is the second public institution to grant the Adventist Church permission to organize a church within its premises—the first was Kenya’s largest health-care facility, Kenyatta National Hospital.