In 1989 the Kenosis Community Trust was established with the aim of starting a Lutheran religious community.
For this purpose a property was bought from the Lutheran congregation Bishopstowe-Pietermaritzburg, which included the old parsonage at Bishopstowe and a sizable piece of eucalyptus forest.

In 1996 a one-year training programme for women leading to a Certificate of Primary Theological Education began on the site as a first stage in realizing this goal.

With Sr. Happiness Khumalo entering the Kenosis novitiate in June 1997 the foundation was laid for the Kenosis Community proper, the Lutheran community of sisters.

The primary orientation towards the training of women was expanded through events that happened during 1997. A school girl of the neighborhood gave birth to a child in Kenosis and soon afterwards died of AIDS. Because there was no parent who could take care of the orphan, she was nursed for five months at Kenosis. She was then adopted by a distant relative working on the neighboring small-holding. This event led to an awareness of the growing plight of children orphaned by AIDS in our immediate vicinity. Kenosis decided to join the Pietermaritzburg network CINDI (Children in Distress) in order to explore possibilities of becoming involved in the care of children orphaned by AIDS.

In December 1997, Kenosis acquired the neighbouring property. The accommodation of the farm labourers, including that of the adoptive parents of the orphaned child, was in a bad condition. Something had to be done not only for children orphaned by AIDS, but also for the community of farm laborers. Taking up suggestions developed in Zimbabwe by the Farmers Orphans Support Trust (FOST), Kenosis started its Kenosis Aids Orphans Project that saw the establishment of three housing units for care giving of orphans within a healthy village community of the laborers working at Kenosis.

Since its inception, Kenosis cooperated with the Bishopstowe Landowners and Residents Association to help establish the Bishopstowe Family and Health Care Clinic. This will ensure that sick patients and children of the community can be cared for locally. To administer and finance the clinic, a separate Trust was formed, the Bishopstowe Clinic Trust, on which Kenosis is represented. The work of the clinic has expanded to include an outreach programme which does AIDS awareness work amongst farm labourers, especially Cane cutters.

In response to a request by a delegation of farm laborers' wives that came to Kenosis in March 1998, the Bishopstowe Early Childhood Development Center for the benefit of the farm labourers' community was established. In 2001 the building operation began and with the help of 2 groups of German volunteers the creche was ready to be opened in September of that year.

One of the original visonaries of the Kenosis Community, Gert Landmann, had the wish to establish a retreat centre.