Please welcome José LaMont Jones, newly appointed mission
co-worker to assist CPK with its primary and secondary schools.
José LaMont Jones is the newly appointed Presbyterian Church (USA) mission co-worker who will assist the Presbyterian Community of Kinshasa (CPK) education department. Jones and his wife, Evelin, will move to Kinshasa as soon as the pandemic restrictions allow it.
They will be the first PC(USA) mission co-workers to be sent to the DCR since the return of Dr. John Fletcher and his wife Gwenda, who served in Congo from 2009-2018.
Already on task from their home in the Dominican Republic, Jones is now learning language skills and getting to know the CPK and the context and culture of its work. This is preparing him to accompany the CPK in the development, support and implementation of strategic plans to expand and strengthen the churches’ primary and secondary education programs. As if that were not enough, he is also running sound and video for the Congo Mission Network virtual conference.
An educator for most of his career, Jones is warm in manner and a natural problem-solver. His life experience has prepared him for this job, where he will be involved in capacity building, programmatic evaluations, and improvements.
Jones comes from African American, Hispanic and Caucasian lineage. He speaks English and Spanish interchangeably, and is studying French with Evelin.
“I know that the educational process can be very positive or negative for students and so I have been on a mission all my life to make the process something that is both liberating and empowering for them. My goal is to take love and relate, to build relationships so that the same positive outcomes that I have realized here in the United States can happen there with my students in the schools in Congo,” Jones said.
“What I’ve found is that all people have three basic needs. They need to love someone, they need to be loved by someone, and have something significant to do. And so my goal will be to go in love and to help my students develop something that they can be proud of and can empower them to be significant contributors to themselves, to their families, and to society.”
Jones grew up in Dayton, OH, the son of an airman in the U.S. Air Force. He said the family moved frequently, living in Georgia, Texas, the UK, and Thailand. He was influenced by family members who were preachers, ministers, and active members of churches of various denominations, and said he felt an early call to share Christ’s love in the world.
Jones spent the early years of his career teaching middle and high school in San Diego California. He taught science at Samuel Gompers Secondary School, where he worked largely with underserved, urban kids from mostly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. There he began a lifelong trajectory of empowering youth and young adults to succeed in all educational fields, including medicine and science.
Most recently, he served as the Coordinator of the Hispanic Ministry of the College Hill Community Church in Dayton. For more about Jones, visit https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/missionconnections/jose-lamont-jones/
