In February 2026, a German volunteer team spanning ages from the mid-20s to late 70s travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, for a construction and renovation mission trip. Working alongside a Kenyan team, the group served three local projects — "Nest," "BigShip," and the "Ark School." Daniel Kroppach, a missionary serving in Nairobi, reflects on the experience in the August–October 2026 issue of Allianz-Mission's move magazine.
Allianz-Mission, the overseas mission arm of Germany's Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden (FeG), facilitates short-term mission partnerships between German congregations and projects in the Global South. Short-term teams have sometimes drawn criticism as being driven more by volunteers' desire for experience than by genuine local needs. Kroppach addresses this tension directly, acknowledging that some funding requests for the trip were denied with what he calls "pious arguments" questioning whether such teams are truly necessary.
Kroppach argues that the real value of the trip lay not primarily in the construction work completed — "the work could have been done another way," he writes — but in the relationships formed. He describes the experience as "lived community" between Germans and Kenyans, where shared meals, conversations, and working side by side built bonds that outlasted the building projects. The team itself embodied a striking diversity: alongside German church members, the group included a former Syrian refugee. For Kroppach, this became "a small picture of the diversity in which God calls and uses people together." The relationships built, he concludes, are "what remains, shapes, and changes."
(Originally published in German. Summary translated by CC / Connexion.)
Source: Allianz-Mission / Bund FeG — allianzmission.de
