AUBURN — An Auburn psychologist who escaped the vicious fighting that has ravaged his native Congo died Monday in a crash on the Maine Turnpike.
Dr. Justin Nsenga Submitted photo
About six months ago, Dr. Justin Nsenga, 49, moved to Auburn from Lewiston. He worked for Quality Care Access, a South Portland-based home health service firm for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“He did a good job. He was a man you could rely on,” Dr. Jovin Bayingana, co-owner of the 175-employee firm, said Wednesday.
Nsenga grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo but found a safer environment in nearby Rwanda beginning in 1994.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and communication at the National University of Rwanda.
After working as a widely traveled journalist in Rwanda, Nsenga came to the United States as a refugee in 2004. He once told the Portland Press Herald that he became a cleaner at a hospital here.
After bringing his wife and children to the United States in 2005, Nsenga earned a master’s degree in community mental health and counseling from Southern New Hampshire University.
Nsenga, who spoke five languages, then founded Partners for Refugee Empowerment in Texas, providing assistance to refugees seeking to resettle.
He earned a psychology doctorate in trauma and disaster relief counseling in 2016 from Northcentral University in San Diego.
Nsenga “was a very bright person, very smart,” Bayingana said.
He said Nsenga’s sudden death is “a very big loss” for his company, his family, and the community.
In a public Facebook post in December, Nsenga praised his wife, Florence, on their 21st wedding anniversary and spoke happily of the home they created for themselves and three children, which he described as “A safe place for everyone to grow and glow.”
“We tried to make our home a place to live, love, laugh, and have a shoulder available to lean on when needed,” he wrote.
Nsenga died shortly before noon Monday while southbound on the Maine Turnpike, near the Gray-Cumberland line, according to Maine State Police.
An announcement sent by the state to the news media said a tire fell off the driver’s side of a GMC Sierra pickup traveling north on the turnpike and bounced over the median. The tire then hit the 2018 Mercedes-Benz sedan that Nsenga was driving.
Nsenga died at the scene, officials said.
Efforts to reach Nsenga’s wife or three children — Rapha, Rachel and Shalom — were unsuccessful Wednesday.
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