An architect, a pastor and gospel artiste

He started a church called Worship Harvest and located at Kati Kati in Naguru a Kampala suburb. He says the goal of the Church is modelling a different kind of leadership.

In Part XVI of Project Success, we track down Moses Mukisa, Uganda’s fourth best UACE science student of 1996. Now an architect, a pastor and gospel artiste, the former Busoga College, Mwiri student tells his story to Harriet Anena

The dream of becoming an architect occupied Moses Mukisa’s mind right from childhood.

After witnessing his uncle’s success in a similar field, Mr Mukisa did not have to look far from home for inspiration.

That desire to nurture a childhood dream and the inspiration would serve him in good stead later, when the climb became steep or when he stumbled during what he says was not always a smooth journey.

Born in a family of six and raised by a single mother, Mr Mukisa knew his chances of completing advanced level secondary school hang on his mother’s ability to provide. He recalls how hard it was for his mother, a teacher at a rural primary school, struggled to support him and his siblings after their father was murdered in 1984.

Despite those challenges, Mr Mukisa passed well enough in ordinary level to obtain admission to Busoga College Mwiri for his A-Level – where he did Physics, Economics, Mathematics and Fine Art.

At his new school everyone reported at the beginning of the term with or without school fees, but after one-month, the often-traumatising identification exercise for school fees defaulters would begin.
Everyone with fees arrears would be sent home for it.
“I was always among the culprits. My school fees were paid in four to five instalments every term and my mum was working really hard to pay my fees,” he says.
Inspite of Mr Mukisa’s mother’s tenacious efforts to ensure that he eventually had his recurrent school fees crises sorted out, he did not meet his side of the bargain for most of his A-Level.

“I was not really performing well in class; I was having real issues understanding complex mathematics in A-Level. It wasn’t like the O-Level mathematics,” he says.

Mr Mukisa says even with his long-held desire to pass A-Level exams so he could pursue architecture at university, he did not pass his mock exams.
He reminisces how frustrated he was when he got O in maths, E in Physics and E in Economics.

Moving forward
Nevertheless, Mr Mukisa applied for architecture, a new and competitive course then, at Makerere University.
“I took a very huge risk to apply for architecture because, with the kind of marks I was getting from senior five first term up to mocks, if the trend was to continue, there was no way I was going to be given architecture,” said Mr Mukisa.

Time was running out for him to prepare adequately for his final exams. But Mr Mukisa’s consolation was that he still had two weeks to go and set targets to read during weekdays and weekends.

But fate did not listen to his last minute resolve. Shortly before the exams, his mother passed away. All morale and determination was swept away by the death of a woman he says had come to personify “my world”.
“That was the defining moment. It was the moment where I was either going to lose it completely or something miraculous would happen,” he said.

Being the last born, and having grown up without a father, Mr Mukisa recalls how lonely he felt because to him, “My mum was my world.”

Just like many other people who find themselves in hard situations and with no one else to turn to often do, Mr Mukisa turned to God. Before sitting for his final exams, he prayed: “God help me, because my mum is now out of the picture. If I don’t pass, I don’t know anyone who is going to take care of me. If I don’t go to the university on government scholarship, this is the end.”

After completing his exams, Mr Mukisa went to live with his aunt in the village. When the results were released, joy and gratitude towards God was what Mr Mukisa knew. He had passed, with an A in Mathematics, A in Economics, B in Physics, B in Fine Art and a distinction in General Paper, making him the best student at his school and the fourth best in the country.