Mwanje, Eriyasafu (1906–1987)

Eriyasafu Mwanje was an influential member of society as well as a church pastor and evangelist who planted several churches in Uganda.

Early Life

Eriyasafu Mwanje was born in 1906 in a village called Nnongo, Kaswa, Katikamu, Luweero District, Central Province, Uganda. His father’s name was Kaggwe Lubowa. His mother’s name was Elizabeth Nakabiri Kaggwe Lubowa. He had two siblings. Mwanje attended Ndejje Primary School up to Primary 6 and spent his childhood years being trained as a Royal Scout for the Buganda King at Bukalasa. Some sources point out that he had a degree of royal blood that qualified him to be a royal page in the Royal Palace. The same source points out that he spent his earliest youth years in the Palace. This was a step ahead, in those days, of his contemporaries. This type of training and vocation gave Mwanje the chance to see the Buganda king often. This vocation of being a royal page in the Palace proved very advantageous for Mwanje in his later work as an Adventist minister.¹ The king owned much of the land in the Buganda Kingdom. If one happened to be known by the king in those days, and there was a genuine need for land, the king was willing to donate it to that cause. To be closely associated with the king was a remarkable asset for Mwanje in those days. When he became a minister of the Gospel in the Adventist Church, he utilized his acquaintance with the king to acquire land to build churches and schools. The training he received as a royal scout included learning English in its curriculum. Thus, Mwanje was among the few natives who spoke and understood English. This, too, proved advantageous on his journey to becoming an Adventist minister.

Mwanje acquired for himself a large plot of land in his home village of Nnongo, Kaswa, where his parents and relatives lived. He entered into a business of extensive farming growing cotton and coffee as his major cash crops. In those days, colonial administration encouraged the natives to grow these two crops for revenue to fight and overcome poverty, which was rampant in African communities.² Although he was still young, Mwanje was educated and financially secure. Only one more step remained: to be appointed by the king to become a community leader on his behalf. Mwanje belonged to one of the powerful religious movements in Uganda in those days: Anglicanism. This was the religious movement the king belonged to. He married a lady who also belonged to Uganda's equally powerful religious movement: Catholicism. In those days, religious affiliation reflected both family and personal status. There was practically no room for small upstart religious movements to impress anybody of status. The earliest Adventist Church, in those days, was predominantly made of laborers, women, people of lower social status, and very few men of status. This made evangelism difficult because groups seemed more at home with similar groups. Since the laborers were the majority, they usually converted fellow laborers.

V. E. Toppenberg, an Adventist missionary in Uganda, realized that several young Adventist people in Uganda were educated and spoke English well. Therefore, the challenge was not a lack of educated young men of status in Uganda but how to attract them to the ministry. He believed that when the face of ministry changed in Uganda, the face of the Church converts would also improve.

Mwanje married Meriseni Zaweede. Her father’s name was Eremu Katula, and her mother’s name was Nakabiri. They had twelve children. After his first wife died in 1953, Mwanje remarried to Norah Kamanyiro. Her father was Sserere of Mityana. They had five children.

Conversion to Adventism

The village of Nnongo, Kaswa, near Katikamu, was practically a clan settlement. Mwanje’s parents, grandparents, and in-laws lived in that village. It was a cluster of relatives. Mwanje’s family got acquainted with Adventism through Mwanje’s grandfather Yonasani Kyabakola, who received Adventism on one of his trips. When he returned to the village, he called his relatives, including Mwanje, and told them about his new faith. Then, Kyabakola went to Kireka Mission and invited Toppenberg to come to his village and explain Adventism to his people. Toppenberg accepted the invitation. Toppenberg looked for young men in Uganda who could speak English and had the potential to be educated for further service and spread the Adventist message in Ugandan villages and small towns without the impediments of a language or culture. Little did Toppenberg know that this invitation would lead him to one young man whom he saw had the potential to fulfill his plan.

When Toppenberg arrived in the village of Nnogo, Kaswa, Mwanje greeted him. Toppenberg was surprised that, in the village he had come to, a young man could speak English so well. By the end of the conversation, Toppenberg liked Mwanje and asked him to be his translator when he presented Adventism to the group that had gathered to learn more about it. Mwanje readily accepted. Toppenberg came back to this village several times, teaching them Adventism, and a group of believers was formed. Mwanje was one of them. Toppenberg and this village group became such close friends that sometimes he slept in one of their houses to continue to shepherd the group.³

Because of the importance of this group to the future Adventist work in the area of Katikamu, which will become the 4^th Mission Station of Adventism in Uganda, the nucleus of the early converts in Nnongo, Kaswa, village near Katikamu, should be mentioned: Yonasani Kyabakola, Eriyasafu Mwanje, Ssegirinya (E. Mwaje’s brother), Elizabeth Nakabiri (mother-in-law of E. Mwanje), Meriseni Zaweede Mwanje (Mwanje’s wife), Eresi Namuyinga, Suleman Ssentongo, Eresi Besimensi Naburyo, Vasiti Nakafu, and Baluku. They were the first converts in what would be the Nnongo, Kaswa Church near Katikamu. Toppenberg baptized them in the River Lumansi in the Katikamu area.

Toppenberg had another big task to tackle: the follow-up work to strengthen and expand the congregation. He asked Mwanje to oversee the newly founded village church on a voluntary basis. Mwanje did a commendable job, so Toppenberg asked Mwanje to be in charge of the small congregation in Mityana. Mwanje told Toppenberg that he had many acres of land with cotton and several other money-generating projects that he could not abandon to go to Mityana. Toppenberg then read Isaiah 6:8 to him. Mwanje was touched by the Lord’s cry of “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” and answered as Isaiah did: “Here I am, Lord, send me.” He packed his bags and went to Mityana. In so doing, Mwanje officially became a church worker in 1936.

Before Mwanje moved to Mityana, he had organized and strengthened his village church so much that it had become vibrant and mission-minded. They shared the Adventist message to the nearby communities through singing. People loved the Adventist hymns and songs. One day, in 1943m they went on their usual singing spree in the small town of Wobulenzi. The Sub-County chief by the name of Tito Damulira Mutuluki was in that town and enjoyed the singing very much. He invited the group to come to the Sub-County headquarters to sing for him and his staff, something the Adventist singing group gladly did. The Sub-County chief was impressed and donated, through a lease for 99 years,⁴ 39 acres of land at Katikamu to the Seventh-day Adventist Church to build a school. This place became the fourth Adventist mission station in Uganda and was placed under the leadership of R. L. Garber.

Ministry

Mwanje served in Mityana from 1936 to 1941. The Church at Mityana grew in numbers, and it improved in quality. Construction of a permanent structure was started. In five years, a vibrant church was functioning in Mityana town. In 1941, he was taken to Kamagambo Ministerial Training School for six months. When he came back, he was ordained that same year and sent to Kireka Headquarters from 1941 to 1948.

From 1948 to 1952, he worked at Najjanankumbi Church. Magdalon E. Lind, an esteemed Norwegian Adventist missionary in Uganda, had made an evangelistic campaign at Kibuye, one kilometer from a small hill called Najjanankumbi. Mwanje was the translator for that evangelistic campaign. Among the converts who helped acquire land and build the church at Kibuye were Nalongo Parma, Dyabe and family, Ssekiwala, Engineer Kalebu and family, Kibbedde, Mukajjanga Wasswa and his wife, Daisy Kitaka, Kisingiri Ssemakadde, and Ssetimba. When Mwanje became the group’s pastor, they did not have a house of worship and worshipped under a tree. There was no house for the pastor. The group asked the Parish chief to accommodate their pastor in one of his grass-thatched houses, something the Parish chief gladly did. Mwanje consulted his church members about how they should move forward. Nalongo Parma told him that her husband worked in the Palace, and he could connect them to the king and ask for this land. Since Mwanje had experience with the Palace from the time he served as royal page and royal scout, he knew how to approach the Palace and whom to talk to so that his request could reach the king in the shortest time possible. Sir Edward Muteesa II answered favorably to the request and gave one acre to the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Najjanankumbi.

From 1952 to 1963, Mwanje was transferred to Katikamu near his home village of Nnongo, Kaswa. In 1963-1964, he was transferred to Kireka, then from 1964 through 1969 back to Najjanankumbi. He retired in 1969. In his retirement, he was often called upon to conduct evangelistic efforts in different parts of Uganda. In 1969, he conducted successful evangelistic meetings in Lugazi town, where the present Lugazi Church was born. In the early 1970s, he conducted another series of evangelist meetings in Entebbe that planted the Entebbe Church. He converted Prince Jjuko, the brother of Sir Edward Muteesa II, and his entire family. He converted Dr. Samson Kisseka, who became the Prime vice-president of the Republic of Uganda in the late eighties and the nineties.

Mwanje died on September 29, 1987, at the age of 81, and he was buried in Katikamu, the land he worked so hard to acquire for the Church he served faithfully.

Notes

1. Florence Mwanje and Molly Mwanje Rutagarama, interview by author, May 8, 2023, in Kampala, Uganda.↩

2. Florence Mwanje and Molly Mwanje Rutagarama, interview by author, April 25, 2023, in Namasuba, Kampala.↩

3. Ibid.↩

4. Ronald Kayanja Mutuluki III, the grandson of Tito Ddamulira Mutuluki I, interview by author, May 15, 2023, in Katikamu, Luweero District.↩