Peder Garnaas-Aryal reflects on his role in Mwendo Congo from the start

In 2014 I was living in my parents’ basement after recently returning from a year living in France when my parents (both pastors at Grace University Lutheran at the time) told me that a couple of people needed help interpreting from French to English for a presentation they were giving at church. The two people were Dr. Edwige Mubonzi and Pastor Kubisa Muzenende.  Liz Andress, one of the other eventual co-founders of Mwendo Congo, had met these two through her work teaching English and invited them to speak. 

So I arranged a time to meet with Kubisa after work one day to prepare for the presentation and we ended up spending a couple hours talking as he introduced me to all of the challenges that had been facing his country. That conversation, and the powerful invitation from Kubisa to help tell his story is ultimately what has kept me involved with Mwendo Congo for the last eight years.

They gave the presentation a few days after that first meeting, and in spite of my clumsy interpretation, many other people were moved by Edwige and Kubisa’s stories and their invitation to help. That first presentation was in April of 2014, and it led to more presentations around the Twin Cities, during which my interpreting skills improved and I learned more about the context of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through the telling and retelling of their stories. Then they invited me to travel to the DRC to experience those realities first hand and I found myself on a plane to the city of Bukavu in eastern Congo in November 2014. 

My involvement since then has at its core been the same as that first presentation: helping to tell the stories of people and their experiences in the DRC. After coming back from my trip I had been entrusted with more stories to share from other partners in the DRC. Our group of storytellers also grew, including Liz and others who were inspired through presentations and relationships to get involved, making Mwendo Congo into the organization it is today.

Over time the need for my interpreting decreased as Edwige and Kubisa’s English improved and as our organization grew to include more people equipped to share what they have learned about the DRC. We have also found ways to hear more directly from our partners in the DRC through the power of technology that makes us all closer even when the space between us is so large. It has been a joy to watch these developments and see the stories of Mwendo Congo and our Congolese partners continue to grow, and it is a privilege to have been invited to help tell that story.