The article below by Linda Espenshade of Mennonite Central Committee is reprinted with permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
In 1996, Mulanda \u201cJimmy\u201d Juma knew that Laurent Kabila was mounting an armed rebellion against the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo, then Zaire). Juma didn\u2019t know that Kabila\u2019s fighters were coming to Mboko village until they began shooting randomly in all directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 23-year-old university intern ran for Lake Tanganyika. He knew that dense trees and foliage along the lake offered hiding places because, when he was a child, his family would find safety along the lakeside when armed groups attacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI could see people falling down, people who I knew, as I was running away,\u201d said Juma as he recounted his life story in 2020. Two of his uncles and their families were already at the lake, so he hid with them. \u201cWhen I came out in the evening, the water in the lake was red. People who took boats to escape were shot in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the cover of darkness, they boarded one uncle\u2019s narrow fishing boat, about 15 feet long, and rowed south, away from the rebels. The waves were so big and the boat so full, it almost capsized even though they threw out everything they carried, even Juma\u2019s prized textbooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so Juma\u2019s journey as a refugee began \u2013 one of pain and suffering, but one that eventually, along with encounters with MCC staff, would lead him to years of studying, teaching and practicing peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image026.jpg\")
Today as representative for MCC in DR Congo, Juma\u2019s own experience gives him empathy as he works with church partners to help people in need, including many displaced by violence throughout the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In multiple locations, MCC supports food distributions, education and health care and provides opportunities for families to earn money until they can return home. While these interventions are essential to survival, Juma believes that the long-term solution to the suffering in DR Congo is to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With peace, he says, no one is forced from their home or separated from their family. With peace, people can use the rich resources of DR Congo to develop their lives and support themselves and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growing up amid violence<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/unnamed.jpg\")
As a child, here about 5 years old, Juma experienced hunger, war and his parents’ love. <\/strong>(Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nJuma\u2019s experience with violence as a young adult was far from his first. Before he was 10, his family lived in the bush along the lake, near the village of I\u2019amba, an area that was frequently attacked by armed groups seeking supplies or exerting power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The area was so unstable that Juma\u2019s parents designated a safe space for the family to meet if their village was attacked. The children knew not to use the same path twice because the soldiers or rebels might lay in wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were fleeing all the time when rebels came \u2026 to steal or to loot or whatever. We were used to it,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image028.jpg\")
Juma and his mother pose for a photo in 1985, in front of their home in I’amba Village. His mother gave birth to him in 1973 just after she crossed Lake Tanganyika from Burundi, where their family had been living as refugees for 10 years. <\/strong>(Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nDespite this environment, Juma said he felt secure in his parents\u2019 love. From his dad, Juma Lubambo M’sambya III, who was the traditional chief in the area and a self-made businessman, Juma learned about ingenuity, persistence, integrity \u2013 and the importance of education and relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His mother, Mwangaza Lotombo Wa M’landa, a leader of women in the church, taught him the importance of faith and going to church, even though attending meant walking through dangerous territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe other thing I learned was service,\u201d Juma said. \u201cWhenever my father would catch fish, one of them (mom or dad) would come to me and send us into the community to share the fish, just to give. Go to this family; now go to a different family. They really were teaching us a heart of service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image029.jpg\")
At 20 years old, Mulanda Jimmy Juma, right, finished high school and was ready to attend the university. He’s pictured here with his childhood friend, Delphin Kahindo. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nJuma thrived in school, despite attending sporadically because of the violence. At the top of his class through every level, he was able to attend university in Bukavu, where he studied regional planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During Juma\u2019s junior year, he was doing an internship with young people to strengthen development in Mboko, a town close to I\u2019amba. That\u2019s when the shooting began, and he left everything behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life as a refugee<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAfter living in a refugee camp in Tanzania with too little food and too much disease, Juma returned to DR Congo, but the fighting showed no signs of abating. Unable to study and unwilling to fight or recruit others to fight as village leaders asked him to do, he fell into despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image030.jpg\")
After Juma’s first encounter at a refugee camp in Tanzania, he returned to DR Congo, where this photo was taken in Bukavu in 1997 while he was walking with some friends. Soon after he would flee DR Congo again because the violence continued.<\/strong> (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou think you have a clear idea of what you\u2019ll do next. All that is shattered,\u201d Juma said. \u201cI lost hope. Lost direction. I didn\u2019t know what to do. We had to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He and a friend started walking \u2013 through Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. For more than a year, they endured being hungry, penniless and lost, but they survived because of the kindness of strangers, short-term jobs and stints in refugee camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his journey, he heard that his father died during a 1998 massacre of more than 1,000 people in the town of Makobola, where he attended secondary school. He sent letters to his mother through the Red Cross, but heard nothing back. So he lived with the uncertainty and a growing desire to avenge the deaths of those he had known and loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually Juma\u2019s journey took him to Durban, South Africa, in 1999. He found a home among many other refugees. But, in the racism that continued in the post-apartheid era, refugees often were targets of harsh treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using his leadership skills and proficient English, Juma began to advocate for better treatment of refugees with government officials, church leaders and influential members of political parties. \u201cI was not trained, but I was creative enough to use any opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a conference where he spoke, a participant told him about MCC, an organization that trained people in peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018Study peace? Is there such a thing as studying peace?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trauma and peacebuilding training<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAt the MCC office in Durban, where Juma came to inquire, Suzanne Lind, an MCC representative, told him about ways to study peace with MCC. She was impressed by Juma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was surprised by the gentle spirit, the shining eyes, the ease of conversing with Jimmy,\u201d she wrote in an email recently. \u201cI was impressed by Jimmy\u2019s insistence on learning more about peacebuilding and about helping those who had been traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image031.jpg\")
Tim and Suzanne Lind, former MCC representatives in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, introduced Juma to MCC and encouraged his peacebuilding endeavors. They kept in touch over the years, becoming family to each other. In 2017, before Juma became a representative in DR Congo, he visited them in the U.S., where they introduced him to western Mennonites and churches. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs she learned to know him, she realized he was hesitant to talk about his own trauma, so she invited him to go to an MCC trauma healing program in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI came to discover that I was carrying this baggage of trauma for a long time,\u201d Juma said. \u201cLiterally, I really cried in that training as I shared my stories, painful stories. The whole group came to me, really embracing me and giving support. I felt relieved from there, really feeling like some weight is gone \u2013 less heaviness about some things that happened in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following year, MCC sponsored him to go to the African Peacebuilding Institute (API), a training institute for Africans who want to learn more about how to build peace in their communities and address trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learned about new ways and approaches of dealing with violence,\u201d Juma said, explaining that those allowed him to let go of his plan for revenge. \u201cI also learned an eye for an eye will only make people blind. I don\u2019t want to make more people blind. I actually want more people to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helping people to see<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nUsing every opportunity, Juma continued to study and promote peacebuilding even while he worked various jobs to support himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He believed the refugee youth in Durban needed to experience peace, so he carried out several peacebuilding programs over the next four years, one in cooperation with MCC. For it, he selected the most troubled youth, teaching them how to resolve conflict, manage their anger, communicate nonviolently and understand their trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were really changes in the lives of young people who did the training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also saw that people who attended his predominantly white church needed peace because racism against Black congregants was blatant. Although many of his Black friends left the church, he chose to stay after each racist incident, believing that transformation could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he worked with pastors to address the injustice, persistently built relationships, invited Black speakers and encouraged social interaction between races, attitudes changed. Smiles became genuine, hugs among Black and white people took place and by the time he moved to Zambia in 2006, he felt loved and accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image032.jpg\")
In 2015, African peacebuilders gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Africa Peacebuilding Institute, coordinated by Juma, to strengthen their skills for use in their home communities. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nJuma saw that peace could spread if people knew how to resolve conflicts and work for peace in their communities. So when Carl Stauffer, MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder, invited Juma to lead trauma healing groups and teach peacebuilding skills at API and other MCC-sponsored trainings, he eagerly agreed.In addition to his own experience and MCC training, he used the knowledge he gained from a master\u2019s degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution he earned from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He found more of his own peace when, in 2005, he learned that his parents were still alive. They reunited after he did an MCC training near DR Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Zambia, where he worked for Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, he saw that refugees and Zambians needed peace because resentment and conflict were growing between the two groups. In his free time, he and two other Congolese refugees \u2013 Kiota Mufayabatu and Issa Ebombolo \u2013 started a community peace club in the capital city of Lusaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image033.jpg\")
In 2013, Juma shares his dissertation with his father, Juma Lubambo M’sambya III, who always emphasized the importance of education throughout Juma’s childhood. Juma earned his doctorate in politics, human rights and sustainability at an Italian university, Scuola Superiore Sant’anna. (Photo by Etunyema Elongo Amissi<\/strong>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs refugees and Zambians came together to study peace, tensions eased between the two groups. More community peace clubs were formed, supported by MCC, and then spread to Zambian schools, under the leadership of Ebombolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma moved on to become a professor, to get married and to complete a doctorate in Italy. When MCC invited Juma to replace Stauffer as MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder in 2012, he accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this role, he mediated conflict within organizations, helped peace clubs to spread to South Africa and Nigeria, and coordinated training for many African peacebuilders at API. As he traveled around southern Africa, he encouraged API graduates, many whose training was sponsored by MCC, as they started peacebuilding projects wherever they lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor me, seeing these peace initiatives bubbling in the southern Africa region was joy,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stauffer, who is now associate professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, says Juma is a model leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image034.jpg\")
Carl Stauffer, former MCC peacebuilding coordinator in southern Africa, and Juma, who was his successor, taught a course, “Justice in Transition,” at the 2015 Summer Peacebuilding Institute.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cHe has overcome incredible obstacles in his life and has done so with godly ambition, integrity and great faith. He has exemplified the best of what MCC can offer in the realms of trauma healing, nonviolence, peacebuilding and justice work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith all his accomplishments, he could be working anywhere in the world, and yet he has intentionally and on principle decided to stay and give his time and energy to building \u2018just-peace\u2019 in Africa. His commitment to his people and the continent of Africa is unwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to DR Congo<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nIn 2017, Juma decided to return to DR Congo as an MCC representative, turning down a position he had been offered with the African Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reason I came back to Congo was to have an opportunity to contribute in a small way to peace and development here,\u201d he said. Very quickly he had the opportunity to offer both, even while his wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A violent conflict in the Kasai region in 2016 and 2017 had uprooted more than 1.4 million people, including about 50,000 Mennonites. Three different Congolese Mennonite denominations located in different parts of Kasai helped provide food, clothing and shelter, but they needed assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image035.jpg\")
Juma (right), talks with Pascal Birhahwa Muhindo, who is principal at the Katuze Secondary School in Mosho III village. MCC and the Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Congo installed latrines at his school. (Photo by Matthew Lester for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs Mennonite organizations around the world collected money to help them, Juma began to prepare the denominations to carry out large distributions. He soon realized that there were long-standing resentments among the denominations that discouraged their ability to work together. Peacebuilding had to be part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I began to organize workshops for members of the relief committees from the three denominations to attend the same workshops and learn the same things together,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The subject matter was practical \u2013 how to organize an assistance project so the implementation goes smoothly. In the process, however, a lot of anger and criticism was expressed toward MCC and each other. Juma responded peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe attitude of not pushing them back, not being angry at them and allowing them to speak their mind and feeling safe as they speak their mind, somehow began to create a relationship between me and the Mennonite churches,\u201d he said. And through interaction among the three relief committees, relationships were strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2020\/12\/image036.jpg\")
These four women, Kasengele Tshibitshiabu, Ntumba Bitu, Bilonda Kabengele and Mputu Muamalonga, who were displaced from their homes by violence in Kasai, are working together to fill the water trough for a piggery in the city of Tshikapa. The pigs are part of an MCC project Juma oversees that helps displaced people earn a living. (Photo by Kabamba Lwamba for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOver time, the three denominations conducted multiple distributions in the Kasai region and two continue to carry out farming projects with displaced people and trauma healing workshops today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma can relate to the pain he witnessed in Kasai and he longs for an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes I look back on my own experience of the situation I went through, and I don\u2019t want to see any other person going through it. I don\u2019t want anyone suffering the way I did. I don\u2019t want my children to suffer. I don\u2019t want women raped,\u201d he said. So, he is always asking himself what he can do to bring healing, to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While doing a needs assessment for MCC in 2010, he remembers asking a man who was living among rebel groups what the community needed to survive. \u201cGive us peace, and we\u2019ll do the rest ourselves,\u201d the man told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others in the community explained that they know how to grow crops, but when it comes time for harvest, the rebels and the soldiers take the crops for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I feel like I need to work for peace because that is what people really want. They don\u2019t want food. They don\u2019t want clothes. They want peace because with peace, they can take care of themselves and meet other needs,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those words encourage Juma to continue what has become a lifelong work of training peacebuilders and working to give people tools to resolve conflict. \u201cMaybe one day, if many people are doing what I\u2019m doing, we could have peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juma\u2019s experience with violence as a young adult was far from his first. Before he was 10, his family lived in the bush along the lake, near the village of I\u2019amba, an area that was frequently attacked by armed groups seeking supplies or exerting power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The area was so unstable that Juma\u2019s parents designated a safe space for the family to meet if their village was attacked. The children knew not to use the same path twice because the soldiers or rebels might lay in wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were fleeing all the time when rebels came \u2026 to steal or to loot or whatever. We were used to it,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite this environment, Juma said he felt secure in his parents\u2019 love. From his dad, Juma Lubambo M’sambya III, who was the traditional chief in the area and a self-made businessman, Juma learned about ingenuity, persistence, integrity \u2013 and the importance of education and relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His mother, Mwangaza Lotombo Wa M’landa, a leader of women in the church, taught him the importance of faith and going to church, even though attending meant walking through dangerous territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe other thing I learned was service,\u201d Juma said. \u201cWhenever my father would catch fish, one of them (mom or dad) would come to me and send us into the community to share the fish, just to give. Go to this family; now go to a different family. They really were teaching us a heart of service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma thrived in school, despite attending sporadically because of the violence. At the top of his class through every level, he was able to attend university in Bukavu, where he studied regional planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During Juma\u2019s junior year, he was doing an internship with young people to strengthen development in Mboko, a town close to I\u2019amba. That\u2019s when the shooting began, and he left everything behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life as a refugee<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAfter living in a refugee camp in Tanzania with too little food and too much disease, Juma returned to DR Congo, but the fighting showed no signs of abating. Unable to study and unwilling to fight or recruit others to fight as village leaders asked him to do, he fell into despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Juma’s first encounter at a refugee camp in Tanzania, he returned to DR Congo, where this photo was taken in Bukavu in 1997 while he was walking with some friends. Soon after he would flee DR Congo again because the violence continued.<\/strong> (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou think you have a clear idea of what you\u2019ll do next. All that is shattered,\u201d Juma said. \u201cI lost hope. Lost direction. I didn\u2019t know what to do. We had to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He and a friend started walking \u2013 through Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. For more than a year, they endured being hungry, penniless and lost, but they survived because of the kindness of strangers, short-term jobs and stints in refugee camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his journey, he heard that his father died during a 1998 massacre of more than 1,000 people in the town of Makobola, where he attended secondary school. He sent letters to his mother through the Red Cross, but heard nothing back. So he lived with the uncertainty and a growing desire to avenge the deaths of those he had known and loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually Juma\u2019s journey took him to Durban, South Africa, in 1999. He found a home among many other refugees. But, in the racism that continued in the post-apartheid era, refugees often were targets of harsh treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using his leadership skills and proficient English, Juma began to advocate for better treatment of refugees with government officials, church leaders and influential members of political parties. \u201cI was not trained, but I was creative enough to use any opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a conference where he spoke, a participant told him about MCC, an organization that trained people in peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018Study peace? Is there such a thing as studying peace?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trauma and peacebuilding training<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAt the MCC office in Durban, where Juma came to inquire, Suzanne Lind, an MCC representative, told him about ways to study peace with MCC. She was impressed by Juma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was surprised by the gentle spirit, the shining eyes, the ease of conversing with Jimmy,\u201d she wrote in an email recently. \u201cI was impressed by Jimmy\u2019s insistence on learning more about peacebuilding and about helping those who had been traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tim and Suzanne Lind, former MCC representatives in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, introduced Juma to MCC and encouraged his peacebuilding endeavors. They kept in touch over the years, becoming family to each other. In 2017, before Juma became a representative in DR Congo, he visited them in the U.S., where they introduced him to western Mennonites and churches. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs she learned to know him, she realized he was hesitant to talk about his own trauma, so she invited him to go to an MCC trauma healing program in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI came to discover that I was carrying this baggage of trauma for a long time,\u201d Juma said. \u201cLiterally, I really cried in that training as I shared my stories, painful stories. The whole group came to me, really embracing me and giving support. I felt relieved from there, really feeling like some weight is gone \u2013 less heaviness about some things that happened in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following year, MCC sponsored him to go to the African Peacebuilding Institute (API), a training institute for Africans who want to learn more about how to build peace in their communities and address trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learned about new ways and approaches of dealing with violence,\u201d Juma said, explaining that those allowed him to let go of his plan for revenge. \u201cI also learned an eye for an eye will only make people blind. I don\u2019t want to make more people blind. I actually want more people to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helping people to see<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nUsing every opportunity, Juma continued to study and promote peacebuilding even while he worked various jobs to support himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He believed the refugee youth in Durban needed to experience peace, so he carried out several peacebuilding programs over the next four years, one in cooperation with MCC. For it, he selected the most troubled youth, teaching them how to resolve conflict, manage their anger, communicate nonviolently and understand their trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were really changes in the lives of young people who did the training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also saw that people who attended his predominantly white church needed peace because racism against Black congregants was blatant. Although many of his Black friends left the church, he chose to stay after each racist incident, believing that transformation could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he worked with pastors to address the injustice, persistently built relationships, invited Black speakers and encouraged social interaction between races, attitudes changed. Smiles became genuine, hugs among Black and white people took place and by the time he moved to Zambia in 2006, he felt loved and accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, African peacebuilders gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Africa Peacebuilding Institute, coordinated by Juma, to strengthen their skills for use in their home communities. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nJuma saw that peace could spread if people knew how to resolve conflicts and work for peace in their communities. So when Carl Stauffer, MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder, invited Juma to lead trauma healing groups and teach peacebuilding skills at API and other MCC-sponsored trainings, he eagerly agreed.In addition to his own experience and MCC training, he used the knowledge he gained from a master\u2019s degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution he earned from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He found more of his own peace when, in 2005, he learned that his parents were still alive. They reunited after he did an MCC training near DR Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Zambia, where he worked for Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, he saw that refugees and Zambians needed peace because resentment and conflict were growing between the two groups. In his free time, he and two other Congolese refugees \u2013 Kiota Mufayabatu and Issa Ebombolo \u2013 started a community peace club in the capital city of Lusaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2013, Juma shares his dissertation with his father, Juma Lubambo M’sambya III, who always emphasized the importance of education throughout Juma’s childhood. Juma earned his doctorate in politics, human rights and sustainability at an Italian university, Scuola Superiore Sant’anna. (Photo by Etunyema Elongo Amissi<\/strong>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs refugees and Zambians came together to study peace, tensions eased between the two groups. More community peace clubs were formed, supported by MCC, and then spread to Zambian schools, under the leadership of Ebombolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma moved on to become a professor, to get married and to complete a doctorate in Italy. When MCC invited Juma to replace Stauffer as MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder in 2012, he accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this role, he mediated conflict within organizations, helped peace clubs to spread to South Africa and Nigeria, and coordinated training for many African peacebuilders at API. As he traveled around southern Africa, he encouraged API graduates, many whose training was sponsored by MCC, as they started peacebuilding projects wherever they lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor me, seeing these peace initiatives bubbling in the southern Africa region was joy,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stauffer, who is now associate professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, says Juma is a model leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carl Stauffer, former MCC peacebuilding coordinator in southern Africa, and Juma, who was his successor, taught a course, “Justice in Transition,” at the 2015 Summer Peacebuilding Institute.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cHe has overcome incredible obstacles in his life and has done so with godly ambition, integrity and great faith. He has exemplified the best of what MCC can offer in the realms of trauma healing, nonviolence, peacebuilding and justice work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith all his accomplishments, he could be working anywhere in the world, and yet he has intentionally and on principle decided to stay and give his time and energy to building \u2018just-peace\u2019 in Africa. His commitment to his people and the continent of Africa is unwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to DR Congo<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nIn 2017, Juma decided to return to DR Congo as an MCC representative, turning down a position he had been offered with the African Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reason I came back to Congo was to have an opportunity to contribute in a small way to peace and development here,\u201d he said. Very quickly he had the opportunity to offer both, even while his wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A violent conflict in the Kasai region in 2016 and 2017 had uprooted more than 1.4 million people, including about 50,000 Mennonites. Three different Congolese Mennonite denominations located in different parts of Kasai helped provide food, clothing and shelter, but they needed assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma (right), talks with Pascal Birhahwa Muhindo, who is principal at the Katuze Secondary School in Mosho III village. MCC and the Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Congo installed latrines at his school. (Photo by Matthew Lester for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs Mennonite organizations around the world collected money to help them, Juma began to prepare the denominations to carry out large distributions. He soon realized that there were long-standing resentments among the denominations that discouraged their ability to work together. Peacebuilding had to be part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I began to organize workshops for members of the relief committees from the three denominations to attend the same workshops and learn the same things together,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The subject matter was practical \u2013 how to organize an assistance project so the implementation goes smoothly. In the process, however, a lot of anger and criticism was expressed toward MCC and each other. Juma responded peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe attitude of not pushing them back, not being angry at them and allowing them to speak their mind and feeling safe as they speak their mind, somehow began to create a relationship between me and the Mennonite churches,\u201d he said. And through interaction among the three relief committees, relationships were strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These four women, Kasengele Tshibitshiabu, Ntumba Bitu, Bilonda Kabengele and Mputu Muamalonga, who were displaced from their homes by violence in Kasai, are working together to fill the water trough for a piggery in the city of Tshikapa. The pigs are part of an MCC project Juma oversees that helps displaced people earn a living. (Photo by Kabamba Lwamba for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOver time, the three denominations conducted multiple distributions in the Kasai region and two continue to carry out farming projects with displaced people and trauma healing workshops today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma can relate to the pain he witnessed in Kasai and he longs for an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes I look back on my own experience of the situation I went through, and I don\u2019t want to see any other person going through it. I don\u2019t want anyone suffering the way I did. I don\u2019t want my children to suffer. I don\u2019t want women raped,\u201d he said. So, he is always asking himself what he can do to bring healing, to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While doing a needs assessment for MCC in 2010, he remembers asking a man who was living among rebel groups what the community needed to survive. \u201cGive us peace, and we\u2019ll do the rest ourselves,\u201d the man told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others in the community explained that they know how to grow crops, but when it comes time for harvest, the rebels and the soldiers take the crops for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I feel like I need to work for peace because that is what people really want. They don\u2019t want food. They don\u2019t want clothes. They want peace because with peace, they can take care of themselves and meet other needs,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those words encourage Juma to continue what has become a lifelong work of training peacebuilders and working to give people tools to resolve conflict. \u201cMaybe one day, if many people are doing what I\u2019m doing, we could have peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cYou think you have a clear idea of what you\u2019ll do next. All that is shattered,\u201d Juma said. \u201cI lost hope. Lost direction. I didn\u2019t know what to do. We had to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He and a friend started walking \u2013 through Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. For more than a year, they endured being hungry, penniless and lost, but they survived because of the kindness of strangers, short-term jobs and stints in refugee camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his journey, he heard that his father died during a 1998 massacre of more than 1,000 people in the town of Makobola, where he attended secondary school. He sent letters to his mother through the Red Cross, but heard nothing back. So he lived with the uncertainty and a growing desire to avenge the deaths of those he had known and loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually Juma\u2019s journey took him to Durban, South Africa, in 1999. He found a home among many other refugees. But, in the racism that continued in the post-apartheid era, refugees often were targets of harsh treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using his leadership skills and proficient English, Juma began to advocate for better treatment of refugees with government officials, church leaders and influential members of political parties. \u201cI was not trained, but I was creative enough to use any opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a conference where he spoke, a participant told him about MCC, an organization that trained people in peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018Study peace? Is there such a thing as studying peace?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trauma and peacebuilding training<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAt the MCC office in Durban, where Juma came to inquire, Suzanne Lind, an MCC representative, told him about ways to study peace with MCC. She was impressed by Juma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was surprised by the gentle spirit, the shining eyes, the ease of conversing with Jimmy,\u201d she wrote in an email recently. \u201cI was impressed by Jimmy\u2019s insistence on learning more about peacebuilding and about helping those who had been traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tim and Suzanne Lind, former MCC representatives in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, introduced Juma to MCC and encouraged his peacebuilding endeavors. They kept in touch over the years, becoming family to each other. In 2017, before Juma became a representative in DR Congo, he visited them in the U.S., where they introduced him to western Mennonites and churches. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs she learned to know him, she realized he was hesitant to talk about his own trauma, so she invited him to go to an MCC trauma healing program in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI came to discover that I was carrying this baggage of trauma for a long time,\u201d Juma said. \u201cLiterally, I really cried in that training as I shared my stories, painful stories. The whole group came to me, really embracing me and giving support. I felt relieved from there, really feeling like some weight is gone \u2013 less heaviness about some things that happened in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following year, MCC sponsored him to go to the African Peacebuilding Institute (API), a training institute for Africans who want to learn more about how to build peace in their communities and address trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learned about new ways and approaches of dealing with violence,\u201d Juma said, explaining that those allowed him to let go of his plan for revenge. \u201cI also learned an eye for an eye will only make people blind. I don\u2019t want to make more people blind. I actually want more people to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helping people to see<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nUsing every opportunity, Juma continued to study and promote peacebuilding even while he worked various jobs to support himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He believed the refugee youth in Durban needed to experience peace, so he carried out several peacebuilding programs over the next four years, one in cooperation with MCC. For it, he selected the most troubled youth, teaching them how to resolve conflict, manage their anger, communicate nonviolently and understand their trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were really changes in the lives of young people who did the training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also saw that people who attended his predominantly white church needed peace because racism against Black congregants was blatant. Although many of his Black friends left the church, he chose to stay after each racist incident, believing that transformation could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he worked with pastors to address the injustice, persistently built relationships, invited Black speakers and encouraged social interaction between races, attitudes changed. Smiles became genuine, hugs among Black and white people took place and by the time he moved to Zambia in 2006, he felt loved and accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, African peacebuilders gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Africa Peacebuilding Institute, coordinated by Juma, to strengthen their skills for use in their home communities. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nJuma saw that peace could spread if people knew how to resolve conflicts and work for peace in their communities. So when Carl Stauffer, MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder, invited Juma to lead trauma healing groups and teach peacebuilding skills at API and other MCC-sponsored trainings, he eagerly agreed.In addition to his own experience and MCC training, he used the knowledge he gained from a master\u2019s degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution he earned from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He found more of his own peace when, in 2005, he learned that his parents were still alive. They reunited after he did an MCC training near DR Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Zambia, where he worked for Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, he saw that refugees and Zambians needed peace because resentment and conflict were growing between the two groups. In his free time, he and two other Congolese refugees \u2013 Kiota Mufayabatu and Issa Ebombolo \u2013 started a community peace club in the capital city of Lusaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2013, Juma shares his dissertation with his father, Juma Lubambo M’sambya III, who always emphasized the importance of education throughout Juma’s childhood. Juma earned his doctorate in politics, human rights and sustainability at an Italian university, Scuola Superiore Sant’anna. (Photo by Etunyema Elongo Amissi<\/strong>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs refugees and Zambians came together to study peace, tensions eased between the two groups. More community peace clubs were formed, supported by MCC, and then spread to Zambian schools, under the leadership of Ebombolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma moved on to become a professor, to get married and to complete a doctorate in Italy. When MCC invited Juma to replace Stauffer as MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder in 2012, he accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this role, he mediated conflict within organizations, helped peace clubs to spread to South Africa and Nigeria, and coordinated training for many African peacebuilders at API. As he traveled around southern Africa, he encouraged API graduates, many whose training was sponsored by MCC, as they started peacebuilding projects wherever they lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor me, seeing these peace initiatives bubbling in the southern Africa region was joy,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stauffer, who is now associate professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, says Juma is a model leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carl Stauffer, former MCC peacebuilding coordinator in southern Africa, and Juma, who was his successor, taught a course, “Justice in Transition,” at the 2015 Summer Peacebuilding Institute.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cHe has overcome incredible obstacles in his life and has done so with godly ambition, integrity and great faith. He has exemplified the best of what MCC can offer in the realms of trauma healing, nonviolence, peacebuilding and justice work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith all his accomplishments, he could be working anywhere in the world, and yet he has intentionally and on principle decided to stay and give his time and energy to building \u2018just-peace\u2019 in Africa. His commitment to his people and the continent of Africa is unwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to DR Congo<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nIn 2017, Juma decided to return to DR Congo as an MCC representative, turning down a position he had been offered with the African Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reason I came back to Congo was to have an opportunity to contribute in a small way to peace and development here,\u201d he said. Very quickly he had the opportunity to offer both, even while his wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A violent conflict in the Kasai region in 2016 and 2017 had uprooted more than 1.4 million people, including about 50,000 Mennonites. Three different Congolese Mennonite denominations located in different parts of Kasai helped provide food, clothing and shelter, but they needed assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma (right), talks with Pascal Birhahwa Muhindo, who is principal at the Katuze Secondary School in Mosho III village. MCC and the Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Congo installed latrines at his school. (Photo by Matthew Lester for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs Mennonite organizations around the world collected money to help them, Juma began to prepare the denominations to carry out large distributions. He soon realized that there were long-standing resentments among the denominations that discouraged their ability to work together. Peacebuilding had to be part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I began to organize workshops for members of the relief committees from the three denominations to attend the same workshops and learn the same things together,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The subject matter was practical \u2013 how to organize an assistance project so the implementation goes smoothly. In the process, however, a lot of anger and criticism was expressed toward MCC and each other. Juma responded peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe attitude of not pushing them back, not being angry at them and allowing them to speak their mind and feeling safe as they speak their mind, somehow began to create a relationship between me and the Mennonite churches,\u201d he said. And through interaction among the three relief committees, relationships were strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These four women, Kasengele Tshibitshiabu, Ntumba Bitu, Bilonda Kabengele and Mputu Muamalonga, who were displaced from their homes by violence in Kasai, are working together to fill the water trough for a piggery in the city of Tshikapa. The pigs are part of an MCC project Juma oversees that helps displaced people earn a living. (Photo by Kabamba Lwamba for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOver time, the three denominations conducted multiple distributions in the Kasai region and two continue to carry out farming projects with displaced people and trauma healing workshops today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma can relate to the pain he witnessed in Kasai and he longs for an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes I look back on my own experience of the situation I went through, and I don\u2019t want to see any other person going through it. I don\u2019t want anyone suffering the way I did. I don\u2019t want my children to suffer. I don\u2019t want women raped,\u201d he said. So, he is always asking himself what he can do to bring healing, to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While doing a needs assessment for MCC in 2010, he remembers asking a man who was living among rebel groups what the community needed to survive. \u201cGive us peace, and we\u2019ll do the rest ourselves,\u201d the man told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others in the community explained that they know how to grow crops, but when it comes time for harvest, the rebels and the soldiers take the crops for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I feel like I need to work for peace because that is what people really want. They don\u2019t want food. They don\u2019t want clothes. They want peace because with peace, they can take care of themselves and meet other needs,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those words encourage Juma to continue what has become a lifelong work of training peacebuilders and working to give people tools to resolve conflict. \u201cMaybe one day, if many people are doing what I\u2019m doing, we could have peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As she learned to know him, she realized he was hesitant to talk about his own trauma, so she invited him to go to an MCC trauma healing program in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI came to discover that I was carrying this baggage of trauma for a long time,\u201d Juma said. \u201cLiterally, I really cried in that training as I shared my stories, painful stories. The whole group came to me, really embracing me and giving support. I felt relieved from there, really feeling like some weight is gone \u2013 less heaviness about some things that happened in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following year, MCC sponsored him to go to the African Peacebuilding Institute (API), a training institute for Africans who want to learn more about how to build peace in their communities and address trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learned about new ways and approaches of dealing with violence,\u201d Juma said, explaining that those allowed him to let go of his plan for revenge. \u201cI also learned an eye for an eye will only make people blind. I don\u2019t want to make more people blind. I actually want more people to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helping people to see<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nUsing every opportunity, Juma continued to study and promote peacebuilding even while he worked various jobs to support himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He believed the refugee youth in Durban needed to experience peace, so he carried out several peacebuilding programs over the next four years, one in cooperation with MCC. For it, he selected the most troubled youth, teaching them how to resolve conflict, manage their anger, communicate nonviolently and understand their trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were really changes in the lives of young people who did the training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also saw that people who attended his predominantly white church needed peace because racism against Black congregants was blatant. Although many of his Black friends left the church, he chose to stay after each racist incident, believing that transformation could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he worked with pastors to address the injustice, persistently built relationships, invited Black speakers and encouraged social interaction between races, attitudes changed. Smiles became genuine, hugs among Black and white people took place and by the time he moved to Zambia in 2006, he felt loved and accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, African peacebuilders gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Africa Peacebuilding Institute, coordinated by Juma, to strengthen their skills for use in their home communities. (Courtesy photo)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nJuma saw that peace could spread if people knew how to resolve conflicts and work for peace in their communities. So when Carl Stauffer, MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder, invited Juma to lead trauma healing groups and teach peacebuilding skills at API and other MCC-sponsored trainings, he eagerly agreed.In addition to his own experience and MCC training, he used the knowledge he gained from a master\u2019s degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution he earned from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He found more of his own peace when, in 2005, he learned that his parents were still alive. They reunited after he did an MCC training near DR Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Zambia, where he worked for Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, he saw that refugees and Zambians needed peace because resentment and conflict were growing between the two groups. In his free time, he and two other Congolese refugees \u2013 Kiota Mufayabatu and Issa Ebombolo \u2013 started a community peace club in the capital city of Lusaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2013, Juma shares his dissertation with his father, Juma Lubambo M’sambya III, who always emphasized the importance of education throughout Juma’s childhood. Juma earned his doctorate in politics, human rights and sustainability at an Italian university, Scuola Superiore Sant’anna. (Photo by Etunyema Elongo Amissi<\/strong>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs refugees and Zambians came together to study peace, tensions eased between the two groups. More community peace clubs were formed, supported by MCC, and then spread to Zambian schools, under the leadership of Ebombolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma moved on to become a professor, to get married and to complete a doctorate in Italy. When MCC invited Juma to replace Stauffer as MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder in 2012, he accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this role, he mediated conflict within organizations, helped peace clubs to spread to South Africa and Nigeria, and coordinated training for many African peacebuilders at API. As he traveled around southern Africa, he encouraged API graduates, many whose training was sponsored by MCC, as they started peacebuilding projects wherever they lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor me, seeing these peace initiatives bubbling in the southern Africa region was joy,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stauffer, who is now associate professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, says Juma is a model leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carl Stauffer, former MCC peacebuilding coordinator in southern Africa, and Juma, who was his successor, taught a course, “Justice in Transition,” at the 2015 Summer Peacebuilding Institute.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cHe has overcome incredible obstacles in his life and has done so with godly ambition, integrity and great faith. He has exemplified the best of what MCC can offer in the realms of trauma healing, nonviolence, peacebuilding and justice work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith all his accomplishments, he could be working anywhere in the world, and yet he has intentionally and on principle decided to stay and give his time and energy to building \u2018just-peace\u2019 in Africa. His commitment to his people and the continent of Africa is unwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to DR Congo<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nIn 2017, Juma decided to return to DR Congo as an MCC representative, turning down a position he had been offered with the African Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reason I came back to Congo was to have an opportunity to contribute in a small way to peace and development here,\u201d he said. Very quickly he had the opportunity to offer both, even while his wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A violent conflict in the Kasai region in 2016 and 2017 had uprooted more than 1.4 million people, including about 50,000 Mennonites. Three different Congolese Mennonite denominations located in different parts of Kasai helped provide food, clothing and shelter, but they needed assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma (right), talks with Pascal Birhahwa Muhindo, who is principal at the Katuze Secondary School in Mosho III village. MCC and the Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Congo installed latrines at his school. (Photo by Matthew Lester for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs Mennonite organizations around the world collected money to help them, Juma began to prepare the denominations to carry out large distributions. He soon realized that there were long-standing resentments among the denominations that discouraged their ability to work together. Peacebuilding had to be part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I began to organize workshops for members of the relief committees from the three denominations to attend the same workshops and learn the same things together,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The subject matter was practical \u2013 how to organize an assistance project so the implementation goes smoothly. In the process, however, a lot of anger and criticism was expressed toward MCC and each other. Juma responded peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe attitude of not pushing them back, not being angry at them and allowing them to speak their mind and feeling safe as they speak their mind, somehow began to create a relationship between me and the Mennonite churches,\u201d he said. And through interaction among the three relief committees, relationships were strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These four women, Kasengele Tshibitshiabu, Ntumba Bitu, Bilonda Kabengele and Mputu Muamalonga, who were displaced from their homes by violence in Kasai, are working together to fill the water trough for a piggery in the city of Tshikapa. The pigs are part of an MCC project Juma oversees that helps displaced people earn a living. (Photo by Kabamba Lwamba for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOver time, the three denominations conducted multiple distributions in the Kasai region and two continue to carry out farming projects with displaced people and trauma healing workshops today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma can relate to the pain he witnessed in Kasai and he longs for an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes I look back on my own experience of the situation I went through, and I don\u2019t want to see any other person going through it. I don\u2019t want anyone suffering the way I did. I don\u2019t want my children to suffer. I don\u2019t want women raped,\u201d he said. So, he is always asking himself what he can do to bring healing, to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While doing a needs assessment for MCC in 2010, he remembers asking a man who was living among rebel groups what the community needed to survive. \u201cGive us peace, and we\u2019ll do the rest ourselves,\u201d the man told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others in the community explained that they know how to grow crops, but when it comes time for harvest, the rebels and the soldiers take the crops for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I feel like I need to work for peace because that is what people really want. They don\u2019t want food. They don\u2019t want clothes. They want peace because with peace, they can take care of themselves and meet other needs,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those words encourage Juma to continue what has become a lifelong work of training peacebuilders and working to give people tools to resolve conflict. \u201cMaybe one day, if many people are doing what I\u2019m doing, we could have peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juma saw that peace could spread if people knew how to resolve conflicts and work for peace in their communities. So when Carl Stauffer, MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder, invited Juma to lead trauma healing groups and teach peacebuilding skills at API and other MCC-sponsored trainings, he eagerly agreed.In addition to his own experience and MCC training, he used the knowledge he gained from a master\u2019s degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution he earned from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He found more of his own peace when, in 2005, he learned that his parents were still alive. They reunited after he did an MCC training near DR Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Zambia, where he worked for Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, he saw that refugees and Zambians needed peace because resentment and conflict were growing between the two groups. In his free time, he and two other Congolese refugees \u2013 Kiota Mufayabatu and Issa Ebombolo \u2013 started a community peace club in the capital city of Lusaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As refugees and Zambians came together to study peace, tensions eased between the two groups. More community peace clubs were formed, supported by MCC, and then spread to Zambian schools, under the leadership of Ebombolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma moved on to become a professor, to get married and to complete a doctorate in Italy. When MCC invited Juma to replace Stauffer as MCC\u2019s southern Africa peacebuilder in 2012, he accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this role, he mediated conflict within organizations, helped peace clubs to spread to South Africa and Nigeria, and coordinated training for many African peacebuilders at API. As he traveled around southern Africa, he encouraged API graduates, many whose training was sponsored by MCC, as they started peacebuilding projects wherever they lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor me, seeing these peace initiatives bubbling in the southern Africa region was joy,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stauffer, who is now associate professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, says Juma is a model leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe has overcome incredible obstacles in his life and has done so with godly ambition, integrity and great faith. He has exemplified the best of what MCC can offer in the realms of trauma healing, nonviolence, peacebuilding and justice work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith all his accomplishments, he could be working anywhere in the world, and yet he has intentionally and on principle decided to stay and give his time and energy to building \u2018just-peace\u2019 in Africa. His commitment to his people and the continent of Africa is unwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to DR Congo<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nIn 2017, Juma decided to return to DR Congo as an MCC representative, turning down a position he had been offered with the African Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reason I came back to Congo was to have an opportunity to contribute in a small way to peace and development here,\u201d he said. Very quickly he had the opportunity to offer both, even while his wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A violent conflict in the Kasai region in 2016 and 2017 had uprooted more than 1.4 million people, including about 50,000 Mennonites. Three different Congolese Mennonite denominations located in different parts of Kasai helped provide food, clothing and shelter, but they needed assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma (right), talks with Pascal Birhahwa Muhindo, who is principal at the Katuze Secondary School in Mosho III village. MCC and the Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Congo installed latrines at his school. (Photo by Matthew Lester for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs Mennonite organizations around the world collected money to help them, Juma began to prepare the denominations to carry out large distributions. He soon realized that there were long-standing resentments among the denominations that discouraged their ability to work together. Peacebuilding had to be part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I began to organize workshops for members of the relief committees from the three denominations to attend the same workshops and learn the same things together,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The subject matter was practical \u2013 how to organize an assistance project so the implementation goes smoothly. In the process, however, a lot of anger and criticism was expressed toward MCC and each other. Juma responded peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe attitude of not pushing them back, not being angry at them and allowing them to speak their mind and feeling safe as they speak their mind, somehow began to create a relationship between me and the Mennonite churches,\u201d he said. And through interaction among the three relief committees, relationships were strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These four women, Kasengele Tshibitshiabu, Ntumba Bitu, Bilonda Kabengele and Mputu Muamalonga, who were displaced from their homes by violence in Kasai, are working together to fill the water trough for a piggery in the city of Tshikapa. The pigs are part of an MCC project Juma oversees that helps displaced people earn a living. (Photo by Kabamba Lwamba for MCC)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOver time, the three denominations conducted multiple distributions in the Kasai region and two continue to carry out farming projects with displaced people and trauma healing workshops today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma can relate to the pain he witnessed in Kasai and he longs for an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes I look back on my own experience of the situation I went through, and I don\u2019t want to see any other person going through it. I don\u2019t want anyone suffering the way I did. I don\u2019t want my children to suffer. I don\u2019t want women raped,\u201d he said. So, he is always asking himself what he can do to bring healing, to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While doing a needs assessment for MCC in 2010, he remembers asking a man who was living among rebel groups what the community needed to survive. \u201cGive us peace, and we\u2019ll do the rest ourselves,\u201d the man told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others in the community explained that they know how to grow crops, but when it comes time for harvest, the rebels and the soldiers take the crops for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I feel like I need to work for peace because that is what people really want. They don\u2019t want food. They don\u2019t want clothes. They want peace because with peace, they can take care of themselves and meet other needs,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those words encourage Juma to continue what has become a lifelong work of training peacebuilders and working to give people tools to resolve conflict. \u201cMaybe one day, if many people are doing what I\u2019m doing, we could have peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Mennonite organizations around the world collected money to help them, Juma began to prepare the denominations to carry out large distributions. He soon realized that there were long-standing resentments among the denominations that discouraged their ability to work together. Peacebuilding had to be part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I began to organize workshops for members of the relief committees from the three denominations to attend the same workshops and learn the same things together,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The subject matter was practical \u2013 how to organize an assistance project so the implementation goes smoothly. In the process, however, a lot of anger and criticism was expressed toward MCC and each other. Juma responded peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe attitude of not pushing them back, not being angry at them and allowing them to speak their mind and feeling safe as they speak their mind, somehow began to create a relationship between me and the Mennonite churches,\u201d he said. And through interaction among the three relief committees, relationships were strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over time, the three denominations conducted multiple distributions in the Kasai region and two continue to carry out farming projects with displaced people and trauma healing workshops today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juma can relate to the pain he witnessed in Kasai and he longs for an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes I look back on my own experience of the situation I went through, and I don\u2019t want to see any other person going through it. I don\u2019t want anyone suffering the way I did. I don\u2019t want my children to suffer. I don\u2019t want women raped,\u201d he said. So, he is always asking himself what he can do to bring healing, to bring peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While doing a needs assessment for MCC in 2010, he remembers asking a man who was living among rebel groups what the community needed to survive. \u201cGive us peace, and we\u2019ll do the rest ourselves,\u201d the man told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others in the community explained that they know how to grow crops, but when it comes time for harvest, the rebels and the soldiers take the crops for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I feel like I need to work for peace because that is what people really want. They don\u2019t want food. They don\u2019t want clothes. They want peace because with peace, they can take care of themselves and meet other needs,\u201d Juma said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those words encourage Juma to continue what has become a lifelong work of training peacebuilders and working to give people tools to resolve conflict. \u201cMaybe one day, if many people are doing what I\u2019m doing, we could have peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"