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Skyrocketing Increase in Catholics at Mass Brings Troubles for the Carmelites Making Hosts in Kenya

According to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), an international Catholic charity since 1947, the number of people returning to Church in Kenya is skyrocketing, while the equipment used by the Carmelite nuns for baking Eucharistic wafers has broken down.

The 26 Carmelite Sisters, who live in the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the Machakos Diocese, support themselves through their work. While their principal vocation is prayer, the nuns bake unleavened communion wafers and create liturgical items, including vestments, for the local Church. The Machakos Carmelite monastery, the first in Kenya, was established by Sisters from Utrera, Spain, in 1999. There are now three Carmelite monasteries in the country.

The prioress of the monastery, Sr. Mary Thérèse Ndinda, believes the increase in participation is due to covid. “The experience of the pandemic has led many people to come back to Church.”

The wafer-baking equipment at the monastery is quite old and frequently breaks down. So the work has become especially difficult. Sr. Mary Thérèse said the nuns, who come from many countries including Spain, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Tanzania, could not afford new equipment, since their earnings barely cover their own very modest needs.

Kenya has a population of more than 55,300,000 which is 82.5 percent Christian, according to CAN’s 2025 Religious Freedom in the World report.