THERE'S NO
PLACE LIKE
H ME
Restoring rural communities of Kenya
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6
New Homes Built
2
Project Underway
1
Community to Change Forever
About Building with Hope
Building with Hope Ministries is working with our partners in Bungoma and other rural communities of Kenya, to restore hope by building new homes for families in need and providing the impetus for other sustainable living practices.
Our vision is to share the love of God through Jesus Christ by practical means, while pointing all to Him from whom all blessings flow.
YOU CAN HELP BRING HOPE TO AFRICA
And The Vision was Born
The vision to transform this rural village by building homes to replace the mud ones, complete with bathrooms and kitchens; clean, comfortable homes in which families could thrive and not just exist. This was the reason God sent Joe Palmisano and Pastor Dan Hanson to Bungoma...
Read the full story below.
OUR STORY
Upon completing this beautiful home, the reality hit that Naphtal’s home cost a fraction of what it would cost in the U.S.
Sometime in early 2023, a young man from Kenya named Naphtal Sikuku Nyongesa came to Sunday worship at Canton Nazarene Church in Canton, Ohio, invited by a church member. The following week, he returned to meeting and connecting with Pastor Dan Hanson at these times. After Naphtal returned to his home in Bungoma, Kenya, he and Pastor Dan Hanson continued to communicate as each began to learn increasingly about the other, and Canton Nazarene started to support the Christian High School that Naphtal and many of his associates had attended.
In early 2024, Pastor Hanson introduced Joe Palmisano, Lay Minister at the church, to Naphtal via WhatsApp, and the two began to communicate daily. Joe was amazed at this young man's spiritual depth and love and longed to know him more. Shortly after that, God placed on Joe’s heart the desire to travel to Bungoma to visit Naphtal and his brothers and sisters, who were all graduates of Living Hope High School, a school founded fifteen years earlier by a remarkable lady from West Virginia, U.S.A., who sold all she owned and followed God’s leading to Bungoma, Kenya.
As plans were set in place for the journey by Joe and Pastor Hanson, another process would directly affect the story of Building with Hope Ministries. Bungoma is a very rural area of Kenya, and lodging is scarce. That, combined with the fact that Naphtal had begun a home and needed funds to complete it, led to a funding effort from the U.S. to complete the house before the visit, scheduled for August 1st, 2024.
As planned on August 1st, 2024, Pastor Dan Hanson and Joe Palmisano were in Bungoma, Kenya, not yet knowing exactly the mission God had for them. Upon arrival, the two were met by an incredible group of young men and women.
Spending each day together from sunrise to well after dark in prayer, Bible study, and song, this group of young men and women bonded with the Pastor and Joe. After morning prayer and worship, the team would set out, walking down the dirt roads, stopping at each home to talk and pray for the families. One morning, Joe met a young lady who was going to get water at the village spring, and he asked her if she could show him the spring. Her name was Jacinta, and she asked if Joe would come to meet her family. When they arrived at her home, Joe found that it was made of mud, with no windows and a poorly fitted roof. In this tiny mud home with no bathroom or kitchen, lived Jacinta, her husband and five young children. The team had seen similar scenes on their daily prayer walks, but this one hit them, and the vision for Building with Hope was born. The vision to transform this rural village by building homes to replace the mud ones, complete with bathrooms and kitchens; clean, comfortable homes in which families could thrive and not just exist. This was the reason God sent Joe Palmisano and Pastor Dan Hanson to Bungoma, to use a home as a springboard of hope and motivation for more, such as sustainable gardens, water catchment systems, entrepreneurship, and a stronger Faith in the God who created the vision and made it so.
Thus, God’s Mission for Building with Hope Ministries began.