El Toto: Murang’a church for the deaf where silence reigns during worship

200 metres into Kabati is another group deep in worship. In the rented house, this group is conducting its service in silence. This is El Toto Church, a place that brings together residents of Kabati living with deafness to have a moment with their God.

Cindy Kwak is the founder of this church, and she purposely did this to help deaf Christians within the area to worship freely and comfortably.

Born in South Korea but raised in Kenya, Cindy founded El Toto Church in 2020 at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic, as part of their main branch in Dandora. Born of missionary parents, Cindy has been keen on helping vulnerable members of the community, hence the birth of El Toto Church.

“We started this church in 2020 when I went to Kabati shopping centre and found these women with deafness in the market. I saw them signing in the Kenyan sign language and since I know it, I approached them and realised their desire to want to worship,” Cindy told Citizen Digital.

She then brought the women together started worshipping and ministering within Kabati area.

Word spread around the area about their mission, and this attracted more people with deafness to the church.

“Our community started growing gradually and more members joined us to worship with us. Since we didn’t have a physical place to worship from, we rented this small house and turned it into our church,” Cindy says.

Mary Muthoni was born deaf. She is one of the first people Cindy found in Kabati, and they have been together since then.

“We used to struggle a lot because not all people understand us. But when I met Cindy in 2020 and we connected, we started ministering together and our community has since grown. Now we worship freely and comfortably,” Muthoni says.

Her sentiments were echoed by Everlyne Awino, another of the church members with deafness. She says her faith in God has grown exponentially since she joined El Toto church, and she feels more at home than before.

“It’s amazing to see that our character is formed through worshipping at this church and our faith has grown stronger through the church. There is even a change in attitude at our work stations,” Awino said.

When worshipping here, the church service is mostly conducted in silence as Kenyan sign language is the mode of preaching.

However, when a visitor who doesn’t understand sign language worships with them, Cindy interprets the sermon.

Reading the Bible requires patience as church members need time to process and read the scriptures. Unlike in normal church services where the preacher continues to preach as the congregation listens in and reads the scriptures, here the congregation greatly relies on sign language to flow with the sermon of the day.

“Our membership has grown. On a normal day we have about 10 worshippers or more at the church. We conduct our service from 2pm every Sunday for about two hours,” Cindy adds.

Away from the church, Cindy has founded a leather company, Nashipai Leather, where she has trained majority of these women on stitching and making leather products.

Proceeds from these products are used to pay the women as part of empowering them to feed their families.

“Nashipai Leather purely employs deaf women whom we’ve trained to stitch leather products like bags, wallets, and belts. We sell these products and help sustain these ladies and their families,” Cindy says.