On April 23, 1902 three Friends — Arthur Chilson, Edgar Hole, and Willis Hotchkiss — set sail from New York to Mombasa, Kenya. From there they made their way across by rail to Kisumu and then by foot to Kaimosi and set up a mission there on August 17. They came from the programmed tradition of Five Years Meeting (now Friends United Meeting)
From that small beginning, Quakerism grew and spread thr
oughout Kenya during the twentieth century, although it is still concentrated in the western area. A mission hospital (Kaimosi Hospital) was founded in 1941. The Friends Bible Institute opened in 1942. Friends gradually spread into other areas of Kenya, with another hospital (in Lugulu), an epilepsy colony, an agricultural college and a college of technology all being established, as well as many new churches. It also spread to the neighboring countries of Uganda and Tanzania. Due to the size, the original East Africa Yearly Meeting split into several smaller Yearly Meetings, some of these splits have been painful. There is now one umbrella organisation - Friends Church in Kenya (FCK) - which brings together all fourteen Yearly Meetings in Kenya.
