Community Corner

Missionaries with Central Iowa Ties Eager to Return to Kenya

"... We stand firmly in the security that we have in Christ," Emily Holmertz said. "No event on this Earth – not even death – will ever take that away from us."

A West Des Moines Valley High School graduate doing missionary work in Nairobi, Kenya, says an al-Qaida-linked terrorist attack that left 61 people dead and scores more injured won't deter her and her family from returning to Africa.

Emily Holmertz is safe at home in Ankeny, but was at the mall at the end of July to treat her 7-year-old daughter, Sarah, to a meal out, according to a story in the Des Moines Register.

She said the mall is “a very common place for Westerners to go to feel a little escape from the African culture.”

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“It feels very much like you would feel in Jordan Creek mall,” she told the newspaper. “It was the kind of place we would go just to feel normal.”

Holmertz and her husband, P.J., and their two children have been living in Kenya for two years and working as missionaries. P.J. is from Johnston.

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Emily’s sister, Ashley Tierney, and her husband, Chad, also work as missionaries in Kenya and live north of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Ashley is also a Valley graduate.

Now the mall – just 15 minutes from where Emily and her family lived – has lost some of its comforting appeal.

Despite the terror attack, she and her family plan to return to Kenya in January and continue their work with the African Inland Mission. They’ve always been on high alert, especially in crowded areas, but feel called to spread the Gospel with the people of East Africa.

“... We stand firmly in the security that we have in Christ,” she said. “No event on this Earth – not even death – will ever take that away from us.”


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