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.

In March 2003 this dream became a reality when Elly and Graeme Willis moved to Kenosis to run and manage the retreat centre. The centre is an income generating project in that all profits made will flow into the work with vulnerable children and children orphaned by HIV / AIDS.

Kenosis Corner

The name Kenosis is taken from Philippians 2: 7 and means "emptying oneself". The verses before and after this text indicate 'what this entails'.
"Have this mind amongst yourself, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant …." (Philippians 2:5-7)

Dear congregation, this is the founding text of the Kenosis Community, and this is what we in the Kenosis Community seek to do: to empty ourselves and to serve God through serving our neighbor, our churches and one another. Since the establishment of Kenosis, this picture of service has developed and evolved. Today the Kenosis Community has a Sisters Community; a number of Projects that address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children; and the first beginnings (or better said the re-establishment) of a Diaconical Training Program.

When Kenosis started, Mrs Giesela Tscheuschner made this cross for the Community. It portrays Jesus and three women who came to know, follow and serve him. "The women caught in adultery" from John 8, experiences his mercy and acceptance. The women "whose story would be told in memory of her" from Mark 14 as she poured expensive oil on his feet acknowledged his Godliness. The women, "at the grave of Jesus", as portrayed in the Easter story, encounter the risen Lord, and becomes his first witnesses. This cross portrays the encounter of women with Jesus, their experiences with him ans their serving him. The Kenosis Community has at its centre the risen Lord, and it is him whom it wants to serve, by serving our churches, the community in which we live as well as one another!

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