{"id":6720,"date":"2021-06-15T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/combonimission.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=6720"},"modified":"2021-06-10T17:54:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T16:54:55","slug":"vocation-story-brother-philosopher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/06\/15\/vocation-story-brother-philosopher\/","title":{"rendered":"Vocation Story: Brother Philosopher"},"content":{"rendered":"

He had always wanted to be a \u2018techie\u2019, but the surprise was round the corner. He met with philosophy and fell in love with it, to the point of becoming a philosopher. Bro. Jean-Marie Mwamba tells us his story. <\/em><\/p>\n

I was born in 1974, in Kolwezi, the capital city of Lualaba Province, in the south-eastern part of the DR Congo, in a Catholic family of eight children. From my childhood, my mother made me get used to going to morning mass with her. I have no doubt that this is where my desire to serve the Lord was born, first as an altar boy, then as a reader of God\u2019s word, and eventually, as a young man, to consecrate myself to God for mission as a Comboni Brother.<\/p>\n

Even today, I value the ministry of reading the Holy Scriptures during liturgical ceremonies. So much so, that I continue to be a \u2018lector\u2019 in my home parish. Whenever I go home for my holidays, I exercise with deep joy this apostolate as a member of the liturgical group.<\/p>\n

I did my primary and secondary education in Catholic schools. It was during secondary school that the desire to consecrate myself to religious life matured in me. It was a perspective that was constantly before my eyes during the years I spent at Mutoshi Technical Institute in Kolwezi, where I studied industrial electronics.<\/p>\n

After secondary school exams, I moved to Kinshasa to continue my university studies. In the capital city, I got to know the Comboni missionaries through the friendship I developed with one of them, a native of the Central African Republic, who had come to Kinshasa to finish his theology courses. He is now a priest. I will eternally be grateful to him, because it was through the many conversations, I had with him that I began to know and savour the Comboni charism and style of life.<\/p>\n

Through reading the life of Comboni and the testimonies of some Combonian missionaries, I was more and more motivated to become a Comboni missionary.<\/p>\n

Although my friend was studying to become a priest, the vocation of the religious Brother was still clear to me, but now it became an impellent call and commitment to human advancement.<\/p>\n

After some time of discernment, I began my training as a Comboni Brother. And here I must reveal an almost inexplicable \u2018conversion\u2019. I had always dreamed of continuing with my technical studies and acquiring a trade or technical profession. However, during the first years of Postulancy, I came across a science that fascinated me: philosophy. Its beauty bewitched me irreparably. A beauty that increased with the passage of time, mostly spent devouring books and philosophy texts. Today I am happy and proud to be a philosopher.<\/p>\n

After my undergraduate studies at the Edith Stein Philosophy School in Kisangani, in 2003, I was admitted to the novitiate at Kimwenza, in Kinshasa, where I spent two years. In 2005, after my first religious vows, I was sent to the International Centre of the Brothers, in Nairobi, to continue my formation. In agreement with the superiors, I was able to enrol in a graduate programme in philosophy at the Catholic University of the Eastern Africa (CUEA). Obtained the master\u2019s degree in 2008, then I was assigned to the Comboni Province of Togo-Ghana-Benin, as a member of the formation team of the institute\u2019s Postulancy, at Adidogom\u00e9 (western suburb of Lom\u00e9) and teacher of philosophy in the School of Philosophy.<\/p>\n

I have never limited myself to teaching philosophy. I always wanted to carve out time to devote to pastoral ministry. In Adidogom\u00e9, I worked with the parish youth group. In 2011 I went back to Kinshasa where I did my perpetual religious profession. Immediately after, I returned to Nairobi for my doctoral studies in philosophy at CUEA, which I finished by defending my thesis in November 2015. My superior appointed me as a teacher of philosophy at the Edith Stein Philosophy School in Kisangani.\u00a0 The following year, I was appointed Rector of that institution, a position that I hold to this day.\u00a0 And here I am now, a Comboni missionary Brother, engaged mostly in the field of teaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He had always wanted to be a \u2018techie\u2019, but the surprise was round the corner. He met with philosophy and fell in love with it, to the point of becoming a philosopher. Bro. Jean-Marie Mwamba tells us his story. I was born in 1974, in Kolwezi, the capital city of Lualaba Province, in the south-eastern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}