Photo: John Sharp, father of MJ Sharp, embraces David Zounmemou, Arms Expert, Security Council Group of Experts on the DR Congo, a former colleague of MJ’s in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the April 15 memorial service in Hesston, Kansas.

Close to 500 people turned out for the April 15 memorial service for Michael (MJ) Sharp, the United Nations worker who was abducted last month in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and later found dead, along with UN colleague Zaida Catalan of Sweden and four Congolese nationals. The service, held at Hesston (Kansas) Mennonite Church, included reflections on Sharp’s life from his sisters, friends and representatives of Mennonite Central Committee and the United Nations, plus a meditation by Doreen Miller, Sharp’s aunt.

Sharp’s obituary stated, “Michael Jesse Sharp, 34, of Albuquerque NM died MJ died as he lived: fully engaged.”

Michael J. “M.J.” was born October 29, 1982, to John E. and Michele Miller Sharp in Elkhart, Indiana.

He is survived by his parents John E. and Michele Miller Sharp of Hesston, Kansas; two sisters: Erin Sharp and her husband Alex Levene and two children, Oscar and Lucy of Denver, Colorado; and Laura and her husband Nick Enzinna Sharp and son Jesse of North Newton, Kansas.

M.J. lived in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, 1983-1989, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, 1989-1995, and Middlebury and Goshen, Indiana, 1995-2001. He graduated from Bethany Christian High School, Goshen, in 2001, and attended Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, where in 2005 he earned a BA in history and a minor in German. After graduating from EMU, Sharp worked for three years with the Military Counseling Network in Germany, a project of the German Mennonite Peace Committee to serve U.S. soldiers based in Europe who sought discharge from military service for conscientious objection or other reasons. In 2010 he earned an MA in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution from Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany.

From 2012 to 2015, Sharp was Eastern Congo Coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee in the DRC. Here he worked with such agencies as the Program for Peace and Reconciliation of the Congolese Protestant Council of Churches and Friends’ Peace House of the Evangelical Friends Church in Rwanda, to send peacebuilders into the forest unarmed to persuade rebels to release child soldiers, disarm, and repatriate. From 2015 to 2017, he was an Armed Group Expert on the United Nations Group of Experts. He was also appointed Coordinator for the Group of Experts in 2016 and was serving in these capacities when he, Catalán and their four Congolese colleagues were seized while investigating recent atrocities and possible human rights violations in Kasai Central Province in the DRC.

For more, see http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Sharp,_Michael_Jesse_(1982-2017).