The concept of starting an institution through which the needs of the community could be met spiritually, socially and physically was born in the hearts of Pastor John and Elizabeth while serving God at Fiwagoh Mission for orphanage Ministry under Bishop Benson k. Nganga, God stirred a desire to take care of the underprivileged children in the society.

In 2013 Bethesda Child Care Centre that caters for babies was born in a small home at Mawanga estate, Nakuru County-Kenya. We started with 2 children, and the number continued rising due to poor living conditions of the community, HIV prevalence and Malaria. Back in Fiwagoh Orphanage Home,Elizabeth was a social worker and she interacted very much with the guardians of the orphans.  Since the Fiwagoh orphanage was admitting children from the age 7 and above, the children below 6 years that were left behind with guardians were a burden to them. Elizabeth discussed the issue at length with John to see how they could help the small babies which she meet every time she went out to the village.

In September 2008, immediately after the skirmishes of post-election violence that left many families displaced, Sister Sharna Welty and some other missionaries from America being on a mission here in Kenya through Bethesda Center of Evangelism from Ghana, visited Fiwagoh orphanage and came to know John as he was an Evangelist there. When she went back to America, John exchanged a lot of emails just as friends and Sister Sharna’s visit of 2013 bore fruits after much prayers and discussions. Bethesda center of Evangelism was registered in Kenya on August 6, 2013 as a church ministry so that it could cover other missions such as Bethesda Child Care Center, Bethesda Health Care and Bethesda Schools among others.

To start as Bethesda Child Care Center, Elizabeth had known 2 siblings who were orphans. Esther was 6months old and Veronicah her 2 and half years old sister who were staying with their grandmother. It was joyous day for the family and especially for our last born daughter Ann to welcome those babies in the home to cook, bath and to babysit them.  It took a while before the family could adjust to the new life of the cry of the babies at night, but Elizabeth and I prayed so much and God answered our prayers by giving much love for the children and strength to endure all the reproach from the neighborhood who said they that we are trafficking the children and we will not go far before the law catch us. John and Elizabeth did not despise the days of small beginnings and understood that God takes His people through levels from one glory to another. We understood that until you are faithful in one level, He will not move you to the next level. By the end of 2013 the home had 6 children,2 siblings from street family(Tracy-3years and Vivian-2years)whose mother had died a month earlier. The other 2 siblings were abandoned at a bus stage in Nakuru town during Christmas holidays by their mother(Bravo-3yrs and Cate-2yrs),

The number of children increased gradually and we were forever grateful to the area Children Officers who understood our vision and brought children from the court to our institution. These children comes from different backgrounds and they have different challenges that they have faced, we have a girl who was thrown in a pit latrine by her mother while she was five days old, she was rescued by people from the nearby village and another one who was rescued by dogs at midnight when she cried for help she was barely 3 months old.  We understood clearly that God will give us a vision and bring a challenging situation to see whether you have Faith in Him. Manasseh and Lewis were the dip stick to measure all our love for the children, they are twins whose mother died just a week after their birth. Their father is a lame person and had other 3 children and he makes a living by mending shoes, he was unable to take care of the babies. We were introduced to him by a Good Samaritan and after two days he called us to take the babies. Elizabeth was admitted at the hospital with Manasseh for three weeks as he was very sick as a result of poor feeding during the days they were with their father, John was to take care of the other children at home with the help of one caretaker, Manasseh went a session of physiotherapy as he had a stiff body but all in all we praise the Lord for giving us strength to do all that came to us.

The house we had built was a three bedroom, we didn’t mind to share our room with the children, all the time we were on our knees praying to God to open ways for us to have a bigger place for the  increasing number of  children. God answered our prayers in a special way as Sister Sharna made another trip to Kenya in year 2014 to come and buy for us a land we had found at Mirangine in Nyandarua County 30 minutes drive from Nakuru,Kenya.

She was impressed by the five acre piece of land with a permanent house but it was too small to hold the children, we bought the land which costed a fortune, she did not stop there, she also bought a van for the children. Everything came as a dream as we found ourselves moving from one glory to another, Praise the Lord. On March 2015 ,we travelled to Ghana for the graduation of our two Evangelists, Sister Mary Mumba and Brother Laban from Bethesda Bible School that is where we got the plan and the blueprint of the house that we wanted to build. The year 2016, 2017 we considered of bringing the materials which we needed for the construction of the home. For all the materials we didn’t have funds set aside but when we had our feet on the water ready to start the building, God had told us to have faith like Moses when crossing the Red sea and its only for us to put our feet on water. Bethesda got funds from the sale of a church building in the USA, year 2018 we started the foundation of the house and by year 2020 February 23rd on a Sunday  Bethesda Childcare Center family was ready to move from the small house to the Maisonette house that our Lord Jesus Christ had provided. Praise be His name.