The Rev. Dr. Willy Mafuta is the pastor at Asbury United Methodist Church, 350 27th Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids. (Angela Holmes/SourceMedia Group)

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Rev. Dr. Willy Mafuta continues to live his lifelong dream in the country he loves.

“When I was little, I always dreamed of coming to the U.S.,” he says.

Mafuta, new pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church at 350 27th Ave. SW, grew up as a Baptist in the Congo in Central Africa.

Most of the movies he watched while growing up were American.

“It was a cultural fascination for me,” he says.

He learned English as a second language in high school and then self-taught himself the language as a college student in South Africa.

“The U.S. was always a place I wanted to be and spend the rest of my life,” he says. “The education attracted me.”

Although the U.S. has been battling economic woes, Mafuta has no regrets of becoming a citizen in 2010.

“Every country has its ups and downs,” he says. “It’s a trend every country goes through. America still has the largest economy in the world.”

Mafuta, in his 40s, grew up in a family of 11 children. His father wanted him to be a medical doctor, so he studied biology.

However, during his first year of college, a student riot caused the government to close schools, which made him rethink his future.

“I thought God was calling me to be spiritual,” he says.

After receiving a degree in theology from the L’Universite Protestante du Congo, he attended the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In 1995, his dream of living in the U.S. became a reality when he enrolled in Wheaton College, in the Chicago area, as an international student. There, he earned a master’s degree in Theology and Biblical Studies.

When he was looking at attending the University of Iowa for a second master’s degree in International Development, he wasn’t aware that only 3 or 4 percent of the state’s population is minorities.

“The way I work in my life, I don’t see race as an issue,” he says.

This attitude helped ease the transition from Burns United Methodist Church in Des Moines to the predominately white congregation at Asbury.

Mafuta and his wife, Elise, a Creston native, moved to Cedar Rapids in July.

The Methodist Church appoints pastors to where their gifts and talents would fit best, Mafuta says.

“The more we get to know each other, the less race becomes an issue,” he says. “People need to be exposed to different cultures. That’s my role at Asbury.”

He tries to incorporate African tales and lessons during his sermons, which has been welcomed by the congregation.

“It gives you another perspective of life, which is part of our American fabric,” he says.

The United Methodist Church has very few black pastors; only eight in Iowa.

But that shouldn’t hinder the relationship between pastor and congregation, he says.

“As human beings, we are all the same,” he says. “We have the same feelings but express them differently.”