{"id":33079,"date":"2017-04-18T10:26:22","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T14:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=33079"},"modified":"2019-01-17T16:45:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T21:45:46","slug":"mcc-shares-michael-j-sharps-journey-toward-peace-dr-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/mcc-shares-michael-j-sharps-journey-toward-peace-dr-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"MCC shares Michael J. Sharp\u2019s journey toward peace in DR Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four months after Michael J. Sharp moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012, he joined a small delegation that for six hours climbed a mountain in South Kivu Province to meet a leader of a major armed group.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting was set up specifically for Sharp, a new Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) service worker, so that he could talk with the colonel about why refugees from the Rwandan genocide had militarized and roamed the forests of eastern DR Congo with their families for 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>This armed group, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (known by its French acronym, FDLR), is known for pillaging and burning villages; raping women; and fighting other militia groups, the Congolese army and United Nations forces. By 2012, the violence caused by FDLR and other armed groups had displaced more than 1.5 million people from their homes in the provinces of North and South Kivu.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"highlight highlight-right\">EMU hosts a service of remembrance <span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Saturday, April 29,<\/span><\/span> from <span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">5:45-6:30 p.m.<\/span><\/span> in Martin Chapel. Click <a href=\"http:\/\/hesstonmc.org\/mjmemorial\/\">here<\/a> to view the April 15 memorial service in Hesston, Kansas.<\/aside>\n<p>Sharp, whose last home in the U.S. was Albuquerque, New Mexico, went to eastern DR Congo to oversee MCC\u2019s humanitarian response to displaced people. Yet as a peacebuilder at heart \u2013 having learned about peace at home; in the Mennonite congregations, schools and universities he attended; and in master\u2019s studies in peacekeeping and conflict resolution in Germany \u2013 Sharp was keenly interested in stopping the violence that caused the displacement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read EMU coverage <a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/03\/peace-worker-michael-j-m-j-sharp-remembered-grieving-emu-community\/\">here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>His journey toward this goal, which continued in a later role with the UN, ended in late March in DR Congo, when he was kidnapped and killed while on a UN fact-finding mission in Kasai Province, in the center of the country.<\/p>\n<p>The men who traveled with Sharp in 2012 had been working on peacebuilding in eastern DR Congo as staff of MCC\u2019s partner, the Program for Peace and Reconciliation (PPR) of the Church of Christ in Congo (ECC). ECC, a network of Protestant denominations, was able to establish contact with armed groups because pastors who served in remote areas knew militants who attended their churches or lived nearby.<\/p>\n<p>Serge Lungele, then a PPR program officer and now co-facilitator of MCC\u2019s Seed program in DR Congo, and the Rev. Josu\u00e9 Bulambo, coordinator of PPR, remember that day\u2019s meeting. Lungele, who became close friends with Sharp in the three years they worked together, recounted how the conversation began.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHave you ever met an FDLR before?\u201d the colonel asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d Sharp said. \u201cThis is the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you see? Are they human beings or are they animals?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see they are human beings, as we are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the message I would like you to transmit to the U.S. and the international community \u2013 that FDLR, even if they are living in the bush, they are still human beings and they still need the right to live like other people are living.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The colonel\u2019s message about the value of each person fit into Sharp\u2019s own belief system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe (Sharp) had a very deep and primary commitment to the idea that if you approach other people as human beings, you can work through differences and that reconciliation is possible and desirable,\u201d said Tim Lind, who was MCC\u2019s representative in DR Congo with his wife, Suzanne Lind, during Sharp\u2019s term of service. The Linds now live in Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>Sharp\u2019s respect for every person he encountered was evident, said Suzanne Lind. \u201cHe was so compassionate about people at a level that was deeper than most of us because he didn\u2019t protect himself; he just jumped right in there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>In the Mubimbi and Shasha camps for displaced people, Sharp worked as a technical advisor with staff of ECC\u2019s humanitarian program. Together they oversaw a large food distribution and agricultural development response from MCC\u2019s account at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and additional MCC-sponsored food projects.<\/p>\n<p>As Sharp interacted with people in the camps, he was especially drawn to the children, said Fid\u00e8le Kyanza, a provincial director of ECC\u2019s North Kivu humanitarian program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe used to joke and play with the children. He talked to them in French. He helped them with math,\u201d Kyanza said.<\/p>\n<p>Sharp believed strongly in the value of MCC\u2019s educational assistance for all the children in the camps, Kyanza said. Since 2009, MCC has paid school fees for every primary student from the camps at local schools and provided school supplies to them and to community students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMichael gave a very sound foundation to the humanitarian program,\u201d said Tim Lind. However, Sharp\u2019s connection wth PPR constantly pulled him.<\/p>\n<p>With the Linds\u2019 blessing, Sharp expanded his assignment so that he could work with PPR\u2019s repatriation and disarmament initiatives.<\/p>\n<p>PPR leaders believed that a lot of violence in eastern Congo would stop if FDLR fighters would lay down their weapons and be voluntarily repatriated to their home country of Rwanda. They and their families could leave their destitute lives in DR Congo and become civilians at home, where the Rwandan government promised to allow them to live freely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea that you help the enemy find what is best for them and facilitate a move toward normal life was quite new and it grabbed him,\u201d Suzanne Lind said.<\/p>\n<p>With Sharp\u2019s experience in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, he was the team member PPR needed as it approached FDLR leaders to get agreement to this plan.<\/p>\n<p>Sharp\u2019s background and inclination to push into new initiatives were part of what motivated him to work with PPR, Tim Lind said, but he also had deep respect for PPR colleagues, including leaders and \u00a0 animateurs, specially trained pastors who went into the bush to explain repatriation, sometimes at great personal risk.<\/p>\n<p>In a few years, the repatriation program returned to Rwanda more than 1,600 combatants and 23,000 civilians and helped facilitate four public disarmaments of FDLR fighters.<\/p>\n<p>Bulambo said Sharp took every chance he could to advocate for the peaceful work of PPR, including with delegations from the U.S. and Europe who came to learn about DR Congo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was very important for us to have someone who could make the bridge between the West and Congo,\u201d Bulambo said. \u201cMichael was like that witness who was witnessing what we were facing. After he had the information from the fields, he could advocate with the U.S. and everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sharp believed that only God could make the work possible, Bulambo said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMichael was always reminding us to pray. Whenever we met with him, we always started with prayer, for our trips, the animateurs. We were also praying that God would touch the heart of the people in the bush so they could receive our message. Whenever he went to advocate, he asked us to pray as well so his message could be understood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sharp completed his MCC assignment and joined the UN in 2015. But he kept in contact with friends in PPR and MCC, even up until March 12 when he was kidnapped. He was found dead on March 27 along with UN colleague Zaida Catalan. Four team members who traveled with them remain missing.<\/p>\n<p>Sharp\u2019s former ECC and MCC co-workers and the MCC team in DR Congo feel this loss deeply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe started a journey with him,\u201d Lungele said. \u201cUnfortunately he left us before the end of the journey \u2013 sustainable peace in eastern Congo, sustainable peace in Congo in general and sustainable peace in the Great Lakes region of Africa. We pray that God will strengthen us so that we can continue this journey as a way to honor what we started with our brother.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To contribute to the Michael J. Sharp Memorial Fund for peacebuilding work in DR Congo, visit donate.mcc.org\/cause\/congo- peace.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reprinted with permission from Mennonite Central Committee April 12, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four months after Michael J. Sharp moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012, he joined a small delegation that for six hours climbed a mountain in South <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/mcc-shares-michael-j-sharps-journey-toward-peace-dr-congo\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">... read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about MCC shares Michael J. Sharp\u2019s journey toward peace in DR Congo<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,12503,8845,14145],"tags":[],"feature":[17241],"class_list":["post-33079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-cjp","category-emu-at-lancaster","category-peacebuilding-and-development","feature-news-feature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>MCC shares Michael J. 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