Dr. John Jusu, Sierra Leone

"A far different man from the campus radical he was in his undergraduate days, John remains passionate about issues of justice and poverty. But instead of advocating violence, John believes transformation will come through the church and through education."

Had you met John Jusu in the early 1980s, you would have encountered a student revolutionary, passionate about radical change in his country of Sierra Leone. John felt "burned" by the church in his earlier years and sought change through violence and Marxist ideals. With ideological connections and some support from North Korea, Muammar Gadaffi in Libya and Fidel Castro's Cuba, John was ringleader and spokesperson for a group of campus radicals intent on overthrowing the government.

However, just as they were to set their plan in motion, the Lord intervened. Discovering their plot, school administrators expelled all of John's friends, leaving him isolated and alone on campus. Confronted one day by a Christian leader on campus, John was challenged to consider why he had been spared expulsion. Was it because the Lord had a plan for him, and if so, would he not do well to find out what that plan was? Troubling words for this campus radical. Over the next few years the Lord revealed that plan as John began to return to the faith of his childhood. He soon became a teacher in the Christian school near his hometown and a leader in the church. Ironically, this school had originally rebuffed his application to teach there because of the trouble he had caused many years earlier as a student. In fact, his behavior was so bad that one former teacher said she would pack her bags and return to the U.S. if he were allowed to join the faculty! God not only softened her heart, but paved the way for John to teach science and become chaplain of the school. Today, John and that teacher, now retired, are close friends.

One day, years later, as the bloody, diamond-funded civil war began to spread through Sierra Leone causing banks, stores and other institutions to close, John was roaming the city to seek food for his wife and child. Accosted by a van load of men on the street, he immediately recognized them as his former radical friends from his undergraduate days at the university who still addressed him by the code name they had used years earlier. Now part of a new, violent rebel movement, they wanted John to join them as spokesperson for their drive to seize control of the government. With rifles pointed at him and faced with the decision to either join them or die, John begged for one more night to return home to care for his wife and daughter. Reluctantly, they let him go, telling him that he must meet them the next day at the very same time and place, or he would be killed. Reaching into a bag, they handed John a clump of U.S. dollars to help him purchase the needed supplies for his family. That night, instead of returning to the agreed upon rendezvous, he and his family fled to Guinea, becoming refugees.

John and his wife eventually found their way to Nairobi where John studied at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST). John continued to teach and minister in Kenya, joining the faculty at NEGST, where he ultimately served as the Academic Dean. An articulate communicator, John's leadership abilities were quickly recognized by the seminary administration and he was supported by NEGST to attend Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL, where, with CISF's support, he will soon complete his PhD in Educational Studies.

A far different man from the campus radical he was in his undergraduate days, John remains passionate about issues of justice and poverty. But instead of advocating violence, John believes transformation will come through the church and through education. In fact, John has ambitious goals for the church on his continent. Upon graduation, John will return to the faculty at NEGST and will continue work he began five years ago to develop needed curricula and training materials for grass roots leaders across Africa. In South Africa, he helped develop a training program for church members to care for AIDS patients in the name of Jesus. The practical impact of such training can be seen in the story of two young women working as janitors in a hospital who took his course. After their shifts at the hospital, they would visit patients in the AIDS ward. Noticing the impact their care and concern had on the patients' well being, hospital administrators and doctors requested that these two young women take nursing courses. They have now been promoted to jobs caring for the patients on the AIDS ward instead of cleaning floors.

In Kenya, John has developed and implemented a basic pastors' training course. Many pastors in Africa will never attend seminary. Even with the ability to take time away from work and the money to enroll, most lack the educational background needed for formal education. It is not uncommon for a person to come to faith in Jesus Christ, begin sharing with friends and neighbors and rather quickly have a "church" meeting near their home, and be called upon to fulfill many duties we would normally associate with a pastor. Such is the case for one man who attended John's course in Nairobi. This man lives in an area called Kibera—the largest slum in Africa. Located in the heart of Nairobi, Kibera is about three-fourths the size of Central Park and home to nearly a million people. One of the poorest places on the planet, Kibera consists of mud, dung, cardboard and corrugated metal "buildings" that often collapse due to the unstable ground, largely made up of trash and dirt. An auto mechanic who had come to faith in Christ attended one of John's basic training seminars after finding himself the "pastor" of a forty-person church that met each week near his shack in the slum. The training has given him skills to better share from God's word and be a pastor to his friends and neighbors who look to him for help in knowing God.

John's passion for education as a key for advancing the Kingdom is seen in almost everything he does. Last year he joined with another CISF alumna, Dr. Rose Galadima, to turn her doctoral work on the training of women into a curriculum that will now be used to develop leaders for the church in three different African countries. He continues to push NEGST to adapt their curriculum to incorporate both African resources and thought, and to serve pastors across their continent.

Even with a transcontinental ministry, John has a heart for his native country of Sierra Leone. Two years ago, John returned home to visit his family during one of his ministry trips to Africa. While there, he noticed nearly two dozen children who could not go to school because they lacked the fees and uniforms to do so. Believing strongly in the importance of education, John took them on as his personal mission, assuming personal financial responsibility for their education. When he returned to Trinity, he shared this story with colleagues and professors. By simply collecting the quarters from his friends' spare change, he has been able to provide uniforms and pay the school fees for those young people in his village. John also cares for a number of nieces and nephews in Sierra Leone whose parents have died, a common family practice in this part of the world. He and his wife, Titty, collect clothing and other materials to send back to Sierra Leone for distribution through the churches. Last year, he helped plant a cassava farm for his village, ensuring that everyone would have enough to eat in the coming years.

Ultimately, John plans to return to his native country of Sierra Leone. After fulfilling commitments to NEGST and other ministries in Africa, John intends to take on education reform in his war-torn home country, perhaps one day serving Christ and his country as Minister of Education. John still has big goals for his life and an even bigger passion for justice and for the poor. But unlike the life he left behind, God has turned this campus radical into a key servant for the good of Christ's Kingdom in Africa.