St. Austin’s Parish – Msongari

St. Austin’s Catholic Church has a rich history dating back to 1899 as the Oldest Church in inland Kenya and is currently a key historic site being considered for gazettement as a “Kenya Heritage Site”.

“A bleak, swampy stretch of soggy landscape, wind-swept, devoid of human habitation of any sort, the resort of thousands of wild animals of every species. The only evidence of the occasional presence of human kind was the old caravan track skirting the bog-like plain.”—THE GENESIS OF KENYA COLONY.

These words describe the Nairobi of a little more than a century ago, where lions, rhinos, leopards, giraffes, deadly snakes, and myriads of other forms of wildlife made their home. The brave Masai brought their beloved cattle to the fresh waters of a stream located there, a welcome sight for the nomadic communities. In fact, the Masai called the river Uaso Nairobi, meaning “Cold Water,” and the location Enkarre Nairobi, meaning “Place of Cool Waters”—thus providing the name for the area that would completely alter Kenya’s history. An important event in the development of Nairobi was the construction of the Kenyan railway, once known as the Lunatic Express and in mid-1899, the 530km of track stretching from the coastal city of Mombasa to Nairobi had been laid and arrived into Nairobi.