Kapsengerut: Birthplace of the Reformed Church of East Africa

By William Kiptoo

Today, I visited the home of the late Joseph Cheserem of Kapsengerut, whose story we recently featured as “The Grassroots Prophet Who Founded the Modern-Day Reformed Church of East Africa (RCEA).” 

The home is strategically located along the busy Eldoret–Eldama Ravine Road, just past Naiberi and Straughburg, in Uasin Gishu County. It sits on a gentle rise known as Kapsengerut—literally, “the home of Sengerut.”

The late Mzee Joseph Cheserem (Sengerut ) the humble farmworker whose faith and vision gave birth to RCEA

WHO WAS SENGERUT? 

In this quiet but spiritually vibrant homestead stands a church that Mzee Sengerut himself helped to establish in 1992. He donated the land for its construction, and next to it, a massive modern sanctuary is rising — a cathedral expected to hold close to 10,000 worshippers once complete. According to his family, this was Mzee’s vision: a house of worship that would draw people from near and far to praise God. 

Just beside the church compound lie the graves of A.J. Mouton (Morton) and his wife — the South African farmer who Sengerut worked for and first brought the gospel to him— and those of Mzee Sengerut and his wife, side by side. Their resting places seem to whisper a shared destiny: the master and his servant, bound even in death by faith and purpose. 

The rising cathedral at Kapsengerut — a vision first spoken by Mzee Sengerut, now being fulfilled by his grandsons. Once complete, it is expected to accommodate over 2000 worshippers.

Their graves are tenderly maintained, a living testimony to a bond that transcended race and colonial boundaries. The family recalls that before his death, Mzee Sengerut often spoke of “people from South Africa who will come to complete the church.” Today, his grandsons have taken up that vision — building what their grandfather once dreamed: a cathedral for all nations.

The resting places of Mzee Sengerut and his wife, beside those of A.J. Morton and his wife — a symbolic union of faith that transcends time, race, and status. “Even in death, they remain bound by their shared mission.

 ECHOES OF THE PAST 

Within the compound that once belonged to Morton still stand remnants of the early boer farmers — old farm machinery, the original storage building, and the renovated settler house now home to Sengerut’s descendants. They treasure these relics, reminders of both hardship and faith. 

It was here, in Kapsengerut, that the Reformed Church of East Africa took its first breath. 

The rusting tractor of A.J. Mouton — a silent witness to the industrious days of Sengerut Farm. Once a symbol of progress and toil, it now rests as a relic of a bygone era, whispering stories of the land’s colonial past and the generations that labored upon it.

Once A.J. Mouton’s farm store, now part of the Sengerut family legacy. Time has weathered its walls, but not its story.

The renovated A.J. Mouton house at Sengerut still stands strong.

THE SHAMBA BOY WHO BECAME A PROPHET 

Born in 1906 Joseph Cheserem (Sengerut) grew up under colonial Kenya’s shadow. He began as a farmworker (“shamba boy”) on the estate of A.J. Mouton, a South African Boer settler. Unlike many settlers of his time, Mouton shared not only work but also the Christian gospel with his laborers. 

After a near-death illness, Cheserem’s miraculous recovery convinced him of God’s power. In 1953, he was baptized — an act that transformed his life. 

Though he could neither read nor write, Cheserem possessed a remarkable memory and a gift for speaking. He began to gather fellow African farmworkers, sharing the gospel in their own languages and through their lived realities. His faith was not borrowed — it was rooted in experience. 

As the gatherings grew, he made an extraordinary request: that the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa send a full-time missionary to Kenya. It was an unheard-of plea — a humble African farmworker petitioning an international mission board. Yet his conviction moved hearts. 

In 1944, Reverend B.B. Eybers arrived in Kenya. Though history often credits Eybers with the formal founding of the RCEA, it was Sengerut’s vision and groundwork that made the mission possible. Eybers would later admit, “The church was already alive in the hearts of the people.” 

LEGACY OF A LIVING ARCHIVE 

Sengerut never held an official position in the church. He never studied theology nor preached from a pulpit. But among the early believers, he was their teacher, prophet, and historian. He could recite long passages of scripture and recount the church’s beginnings with flawless detail. 

When he passed away in 1996, the RCEA Moderator eulogized him simply: 

        “He is the history of the Church.” And indeed, he was — a living archive through whom the story            of faith, struggle, and transformation was preserved. 

Today, as the Reformed Church of East Africa spans thousands of congregations across the region, its spiritual roots remain firmly planted in Kapsengerut — the humble farm where one man’s faith transcended colonial barriers, illiteracy, and invisibility.