email
from Adrien N. Ngudiankama to the past chair of AASPC, Prof. Wihelmina Kalu
- as of Dec. 5th, 2006

Dear Friends:

We are so saddened to hear the death of Professor Jean Masamba Ma Mpolo.
He died yesterday in Kinshasa.

Masamba, as we all know, is a chapter in the postcolonial African pastoral theological discourse. Many of us are so indebted to his scholarship, love and wisdom. He will be missed.

Prof. Kalu, please inform the African Association of Pastoral Couseling and Care and many of Masamba's friends. ..............

Please, inform friends and thank you for your prayers for the family.

Blessings, Adrien N. Ngudiankama

email
from Prof. Kalu

Dear Friends,
I am so so saddened by this. A loss of a close friend, strong brother in the faith and selfless worker in the vineyard. He was fruitfull and many of us are part of this. And so I thank God for Masamba's life and contributions to the World and Pastoral Care and Counselling.

Please let many in the Pastoral counseling Associations and Departments or Faculty all over the world or where you are, that might know him, have this information.
.................

Prof. Wilhelmina Kalu

A Tribute to
Jean Masamba ma Mpolo

by Emmanuel Y. Lartey
of Ghana and Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
(Colleague and friend)
(On behalf also of the African Association for Pastoral Studies and Counseling
-Association Africaine d'Etudes et de Psychologie Pastorales)

We mourn today the death of Professor Jean Masamba ma Mpolo, the doyen of African Pastoral psychotherapy, spiritual healing, counseling and liberation.
Born in 1936, Masamba lived for the proverbial 70 years, a life full of courage, grace and accomplishment. Dr Masamba studied for one of his Doctorate degrees in the US with the late Dr Howard Clinebell, guru of American pastoral counseling. In a conversation I had with Dr Clinebell in 2003, Clinebell declared that Masamba was one of the students from whom he learned a tremendous amount and who in fact helped to give him what became the passion of his life - an international concern for the welfare of all people everywhere.
From 1979 till 1986 Masamba was Executive Director of the Office of Family Education, of the World Council of Churches. In that capacity he initiated and spearheaded a number of programs that empowered and enriched the lives of parents, couples and families across the world.

It was during his tenure at the WCC that Masamba initiated the establishment of the African Association for Pastoral Studies and Counseling - a bi-lingual association devoted to the upliftment of pastoral studies and counseling from a distinctively African perspective. The Association was formed at the end of an ecumenical consultation held in February 1985 at the Limuru Training and Conference Center, Kenya.
Masamba chaired this inaugural conference that brought together 38 delegates from African countries with fraternal delegates from Jamaica, Germany and the USA.
That year he co-edited (with Dr Wilhelmina Kalu) a book entitled "Risks of Growth: Pastoral Counselling in the African Context" which was the forerunner to a number of publications that have helped to give a distinct voice to African practitioners of pastoral psychotherapy who draw on African religion and culture, psychology and Christian spirituality.
One of Masamba's earliest books (La libération des envoûtés, 1976) speaks of his life long passion for the liberation of all that are oppressed by any and every kind of bondage. Masamba was both a visionary and an activist, able to translate his visions and dreams into concrete plans and then implement these plans in programs that were of benefit to many people.
In July 1988, following his return home after several years in the US and Europe, the first international conference of the Association was held in Kinshasa, again under his chairmanship and inspiration. It was his hard work and negotiating skills that saw the publication of "Pastoral Counselling in Africa Today" (1991) - the first in the African Pastoral Studies series of Verlag Peter Lang - a volume he co-edited with Nigerian professor Dr Daisy Nwachukwu.
Throughout his work as an educator, pastoral counselor and therapist Masamba was a master example of an integrationist, weaving respectfully together African traditional concepts with western psychotherapeutic theories. Masamba was always in the forefront of the movement for taking African notions, perspectives and life experiences seriously. He believed that 'counseling is rooted in the socio-cultural, philosophical, political and religious contexts of the people for whom it is practiced' (1994).
As such he always situated his work in the realities of the life experiences of the people he worked with and whose liberation and wellbeing he so passionately believed in.

Among the many things we will miss Masamba for are his passion for human welfare and his courage in fighting for that with all the power and grace he could muster. He was a true African Christian traditional healer.

We salute Masamba, a dear brother, mentor, friend, wise counselor, teacher, inspirer and confidante. Sleep well, dear brother.

May God the Almighty welcome you home.
May God grant you perfect rest in God's eternal bosom.