Mennonite Weekly Review

NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — Abe Regier sat down at a feast on Thanksgiving Day 2008.

Pictured from left, upon arrival in Tshikapa, Congo, are Harlan Bartel, Abe Regier, Muzenze Kamassa Jonas, Chuck Regier, Fremont Regier, an unidentified man, Frederick Kamassa and Chuck Kamassa. Chuck Kamassa, who is named for Chuck Regier, and Frederick Kamassa are sons of Muzenze Kamassa. The matching shirts were made by Mama Thembo, Muzenze’s wife. — Photo provided by Chuck Regier

He was, says his grandfather, Fremont Regier, “the fourth generation to eat roast pig on this very spot.”

The spot was Nyanga, a remote village in south central Congo. In 1965, Fremont Regier’s father, Alfred Regier of rural Whitewater, had come to Nyanga to visit his son, daughter-in-law Sara and two grandchildren, including older son Chuck (Abe’s father).

“There was a wedding feast,” Fremont remembers.

Fremont, Chuck and Abe, who all live in Newton or North Newton, along with Harlan Bartel of Newton, spent nearly a month in Congo last November. For the three older members of the group, it was a time to recall the past.

“The story begins in 1955 with two farm boys who had a call from God to Congo,” Fremont said. He served two years with Pax — Mennonite Central Committee’s overseas alternative service program for conscientious objectors to war — in the village of Mutena. (His co-worker, Larry Kaufman, died in a drowning accident in Congo in 1956.)

Fremont returned to Congo in 1965, with Sara and two of their three children, Chuck and Heidi (Nathan was born in 1967 in Kansas), this time to Nyanga. Working with Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission and the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Regiers did community development work, including health, nutrition, adult education, gardening and agricultural extension. Bartel was in Nyanga as a Pax man from 1968 to 1971.

Chuck had not been back to Congo since the family left there in 1976. But he had always hoped to reconnect with where he grew up. The trip last fall came at a good time for Abe, who was at the end of a Mennonite Voluntary Service term.

The four spent the first week of their trip in Kinshasa. This was longer than planned, because the day they arrived the wife of Adolphe Komuesa, president of the Mennonite Church in Congo, died, and they stayed for part of the wake and the funeral.

However, “it was a good introduction to the country,” Chuck said. Abe added: “We had a better chance for our systems to get used to eating musa twice a day.” Musa, a Congolese staple food, is a thick porridge eaten with a spicy vegetable or meat sauce.