Former African church leader called by Ontario congregation

Pastor Roberson Mbayamvula, a church leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo—with wife Caris and children Joel, Divine and Merveille—holds a volume from the set of Believers Church Commentaries provided by Hagerman Mennonite Church, Markham, Ont., during his installation service on Dec. 16, 2012. Also pictured are Earl Smith, chair of the Hagerman discipleship team, front right, and Henry Paetkau, Mennonite Church Eastern Canada area church minister, back right, who led the service.

Photo by Mieke Rumansara

In January 2007, while Roberson Mwankin Mbayamvula, a church leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was attending a conference in Michigan, he and his wife determined that it was not safe for him to return home.

Being French-speaking, Mbayamvula went to the Canadian border in Windsor, Ont., three months later and applied for refugee status. Thus began a long, difficult period of separation from his family and adjustment to a new language, culture and climate in Canada. He also experienced the challenge of working with his hands after 19 years of being a pastor, seminary teacher and university chaplain in Kinshasa.

That difficult chapter is now behind him. On Dec. 16, 2012, Mbayamvula was installed as pastor at Hagerman Mennonite Church with his wife Caris and children Joel, Divine and Merveille at his side.

When Mbayamvula arrived at the refugee shelter in Toronto, he knew only a few words of English, but he did understand when a staff member said that Mennonites had helped him when he first came to Canada. Mbayamvula introduced himself as a pastor in the Congolese Mennonite Brethren Church.

Through providential personal connections, the staff member contacted Andrew Reesor-McDowell from Hagerman Mennonite Church, who visited Mbayamvula in the shelter and provided transportation for him to attend Hagerman beginning in May 2007. His contributions to the congregation—from teaching adult Sunday school to preaching periodically through a translator and serving on the discipleship team—began almost immediately.

Hagerman began looking for a new pastor in 2010, but the search committee discerned that the timing was not right to invite Mbayamvula to apply at that time, despite his obvious gifts, so Gary and Lydia Harder were called as interim pastors in 2011.

After Mbayamvula was finally reunited with his family early last year, and it became clear that the initial adjustments to a new language and culture were behind him, the search committee and Mbayamvula came to the conviction that God was now calling him to be Hagerman’s pastor. The congregation strongly endorsed the search committee’s recommendation.

At the installation service, the church provided Mbayamvula with a full set of the Believers Church Bible Commentaries, to help him develop an English library and to reflect the congregation’s desire to have preaching and teaching from an Anabaptist perspective. Λ