Mennonite Weekly Review

ELKHART, Ind. — After more than three years of exploration and joint discernment, two Congolese Mennonite conferences and Mennonite Church USA are preparing to take a step toward closer relationships.

A delegation of 12 MC USA representatives plans to visit leaders and congregations in the Democratic Republic of Congo for two weeks in February.

Delegates from the Congo Evangelical Mennonite Church, or CEM; the Congo Mennonite Church, or CMCO; and MC USA first met at the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in 2003 to explore a new church-to-church relationship.

“We didn’t know where this conversation would eventually take us, but we wanted to be open to where the Spirit would lead us,” said Jim Schrag, executive director of MC USA.

The delegation will divide into smaller groups to visit Congolese Mennonite congregations and communities in different parts of the country.

“We want to get as broad of an exposure as possible to our brothers and sisters in Congo,” said MC USA moderator-elect Sharon Waltner.

This past March, in connection with the MWC General Council meeting in Pasadena, Calif., two Congolese leaders — Adolphe Komuesa Kalunga, national president of CMCO, and Matthieu Shimatu Kapia, vice president of CEM — visited with churches in the Chicago area, northern Indiana and central Kansas.

MC USA, CMCO and CEM already have many historical connections. Both Congolese conferences grew out of the work of the Congo Inland Mission — later known as the Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission — in the early 20th century. Since the early 1960s many MC USA members have served with the Congolese Mennonite churches through Mennonite Central Committee.

This new relationship reflects the desire of the U.S. and Congolese national conferences to relate to each other more directly as churches rather than only through mission and development agencies.

For MC USA, the growing relationship reflects the priority to become a mission-centered church by developing global connections.