Musoke, Eriya Kiiza (1905–1960)

Eriya Kiiza Musoke was a pioneer of the Adventist work in northern Uganda. He was credited with the founding of Amuca Seventh-day Adventist Primary School in the Lango Sub-Region, Northern Uganda.

Early Life

Eriya Kiiza Musoke was born on June 20, 1905, in Buruuli, Uganda, to Joseph Mazimba and Luusi Namukambi. His family were members of the Museera Clan of the Rhinoceros Totem (Pyoko) of the Muruuli Tribe. His parents married very young in a typical African extended polygamous family traditional ceremony. Musoke was his father’s third-born child and his mother’s only child.

Marriage and Family

Musoke lived and prospered at Kisenyi in Kalungi Sub-County, Nakasongola District. He married a Muganda lady named Eseza Namugambe.¹ After his marriage with Eseza dissolved because of his marital infidelity, Mosuke relocated to Itumba-Budyebo in Nakasongola District, Buruuli, and later across Lake Kyoga to Namasale, Lango, Northern Region. He married Eva Namusa, but this union did not last because of his drinking problem.² He then married Yuniya Nakabworo Ganukurwa (1924-1994) in 1938. She was credited with establishing stability in Musoke’s home.

Yuniya, known as “the great mum,” was born to Mubworo Lugongerya son of John Kalyawo and Nakandya Manyaki, daughter of Thomas Muyigwa from Kabirabira in the present Kaberamaido District in Teso, Eastern Region, Uganda. She was a member of the Nakabbworo Clan of the Bush-back Totem of the Nakaruuli Tribe. She was raised a God-fearing and industrious woman, a member of the Anglican Church. These characteristics helped her to minister as a shepherdess along-side Musoke from 1938 until his retirement from active service in 1958. She remained a faithful shepherdess until her death in 1994. She bore Musoke seven children, three boys and four girls: Seezi Beesisira Musoke, Ruth Nalongo Musoke, Josua Musoke, Miriam Babirye, Musa Kato Musoke, Florence Tusubira, and Joyce Nakityo. By the time Yuniya married Musoke, his life appeared shattered. A womanizer and divorcee, he frequently picked verbal and physical fights with his fellow drunkards. Although a hardworking and prosperous farmer, his life-style led to financial hardships. In contrast to her husband, Yuniya had never been married before. She was young, vibrant, and determined to stay married, her husband’s shortcomings notwithstanding. Her spirituality was contagious.

Yunia’s influence in the home began to bear fruit. E. K. Musoke acquired a piece of land and settled at Namasale, Lango District, Northern Region, Uganda,³ where his subsistence farming and trade in fish improved the family’s food security and income. These were steps in the right direction; however, Yuniya’s spiritual influence started to work unconsciously on her husband.

From Drunkard to Minister of the Gospel

Musoke’s journey toward Adventism began in the late 1930s. Impressed to visit a distant relative, John Nsubuga, a Buganda chief, Musoke there encountered a certain Christian book, which had been translated into the Luganda language, entitled, Enkomerero eri kumpi? He was impressed by the message of the book. He tried to persuade his friend to give him the book. When his friend refused, Musoke nearly memorized it in five days.⁴

Upon returning home, Musoke bought a Bible and began to read some of the Bible texts referred to in the book. His biblical discoveries led him to understand the seventh-day Sabbath and conclude that he could not remain in the Anglican Church. He started to tell his friends about his discoveries. As a result of his self-appointed missionary labor, he would eventually have eighteen believers before the first Adventist evangelist visited. While he was converting people in Lango District, Northern Uganda, to Sabbath-keeping, he wondered whether there were other people who kept the Sabbath in the Lango District. There were none. In fact, Musoke did not even know there was any organization that kept the Sabbath at that point in time. Musoke and his followers were a company without organizational support.

One day Musoke’s village chief sent him on an errand to a small town five miles away. The chief gave him an old bicycle. It had neither brakes nor a bicycle bell. Musoke was apprehended by a policeman for riding a bicycle in a dangerous mechanical condition. The policeman took him to jail. Precisely how long he stayed in jail is unknown, but it may have been a few days. To pass the time, Musoke opened a conversation with his jailor by enquiring whether he knew of anyone who kept the seventh day Sabbath. “Yes,” said the jailer. “The Seventh-day Adventists do.” Evidently, the jailer was from Mbale, a town in eastern Uganda where there was a Seventh-day Adventists mission station at Kakoro. The jailer, dumbfounded by Musoke’s excitement over this information, released him immediately.⁵

The Adventist mission station at Kakoro had been established in 1934 by a Danish missionary named Roy Andersen. In 1936 he was replaced by a Norwegian from Bergen, M. E. Lind, who worked tirelessly for many years in Uganda.⁶ It was Lind who received Musoke’s first letter, addressed to “To the Missionary who keeps the Bible Sabbath, Mbale.” The postmaster, correctly supposing the letter was intended for the Adventist mission, had added the post office box number. Musoke’s letter informed Lind of the converts he had already made and ended with the plea, “I have started to preach this message and I have two converts who keep Sabbath. Can you come here and help me?”⁷

As Lind and his assistant, Luka Kaddu, were busy translating Sabbath School materials for delivery to the local churches, they did not respond to his first letter. But Musoke was persistent. Two or three weeks later, he wrote another letter addressed to the missionaries who keep the Bible Sabbath at Kakoro near Mbale. This time, the letter was urgent, terse, and tense; it carried a desperate tone, ^“when are you coming?” When Lind received the second letter, he “felt pained in [his] heart.” This time Lind and Kaddu replied and sent literature.⁸

After a third letter was received, Luka Kaddu was dispatched immediately because Lind was committed to an evangelistic campaign for another three weeks. Kaddu was charged with the task of bringing back a full written report. He returned a month later to give the written report to Lind. The last desperate letter mentioned twelve converts, but by the time Kaddu reached the place, there were eighteen, and by the time he left to return to Kakoro, Mbale, there were twenty-eight.⁹

When Lind followed up Kaddu’s visit, he was welcomed by many people. Lind taught them for several days concerning the truth of God’s Word. The people pleaded for a teacher; however, the mission did not have anyone available. Instead, Lind brought Musoke to the Kakoro Mission Station, where he was given intensive instructions in leadership and evangelism for three weeks, and sent back to Lango Sub-Region.⁸ This is the first formal schooling recorded in Musoke’s story. How he learned to read and write earlier in life is unknown. After three weeks Musoke “graduated” and was baptized by M. E. Lind (in 1939), and officially became an Adventist church worker. He was charged to go and preach the Word more confidently than ever before, mainly in Lango Sub-Region in northern Uganda. Lango Sub-Region was characterized as unentered territory.

E. K. Musoke’s Evangelistic Activities

Musoke, now officially a Seventh-day Adventist Church worker,¹⁰ began his duties at Namasale/Amolatar, Lango Sub-Region, Northern Uganda, to preach Adventism. From Namasale/Amolatar he was transferred to Amuca on the outskirts of Lira town in Lango Sub-Region. He stayed in Amucha for over a decade and built a church that became a center of Adventist activity in Northern Uganda. E. K. Musoke had a vision for Adventist education as a very important tool for evangelism. He did not know how to start a primary school, so he asked G. W. Kasozi-Tamale, a renowned educator of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to assist him in starting a primary school at Amuca. Kasozi-Tamale readily agreed to help. Their proposal was accepted by the leaders at Kakoro Mission Station. The school opened by Musoke and Kasozi-Tamale at Amuca eventually comprised twenty acres of land on which the Seventh-day Adventist Church operated a primary and a large secondary school, a dispensary, and AWR Radio station, and the Northern Uganda Field offices.¹⁰ After fifteen years of evangelism in Northern Uganda, Musoke had established two churches and eight Sabbath School branches with a total church membership of five hundred believers.

In 1954 Musoke was called to the Central Uganda Province, where he worked for the remainder of his life. His first activity in Central Province was at Kiwesa (1954-55), Kazaalabagenyi (1955-56) in Masaka county. He then moved to Katikamu (1956-58) in Bulemezi-Luweero District as the district church pastor. His final position was in Kiwamirembe (1959) before he retired at Kyali-Buzzibwera, He died in Kyali-Buzzibwera on December 25, 1960, at the age of 55.

When Musoke died, he left many of his children still in primary school except the eldest, Seezi Musoke, who graduated from Bugema Missionary College, and Ruth Musoke, who was in secondary school at Katikamu Seventh-day Adventist School. Yuniya’s dedication to her family, perseverance, hard work, and spirituality kept the home together. After her husband’s death, she remained a true steward of the family estate: the land at Kyalugondo and the home at Kyali-Buzibwera, Wabusana Sub-County in Luweero District. She used the income from these properties to pay the children’s school fees at Bugema and Katikamu Adventist institutions. Some of Musoke’s children continued to work for the Adventist Church.¹¹ Yuniya was a devoted Christian in the Seventh-Adventist tradition. When Yuniya grew tired of walking long distances to go church at Kiwamirembe, she mobilized fellow believers around Kyali-Buzzibwera, to start a branch Sabbath School. It became the Nazareth Seventh-day Adventist church.

Sources

Lewis, G. A. “The Miraculous Story of One Little Book.” Missions Quarterly, Second Quarter 1948.

Lind, M. E. “God’s Strange Ways.” Missions Quarterly, Second Quarter 1948.

Lind, M. E. “How Eriya Found the Truth.” Southern African Division Outlook, March 15, 1944.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Takoma Park MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1954.

Notes

1. George Rwangire Magana, interviewed by the author, Kigalama, Uganda, January 19, 2023.↩

2. Musa Kato Musoke, interviewed by the author, Bugema, Kampala, January 26, 2023.↩

3. M. E. Lind, “How Eriya Found the Truth,” Southern African Division Outlook, March 15, 1944, 1.↩

4. M. E. Lind, “How Eriya Found the Truth,” Southern African Division Outlook, March 15, 1944, 1; G. A. Lewis, “The Miraculous Story of One Little Book,” Missions Quarterly, Second Quarter 1948, 10-12.↩

5. George Rwangire Magana, interviewed by the author, Kigalama, Uganda, January 19, 2023.↩

6. Yona Balyage and Nathaniel Mumbere Walemba, “Lind, Magdalon Eugen (1910–1985) and Kezia (Sørbøe) (1909–2013),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, March 30, 2021, accessed June 7, 2023, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=AFD9&highlight=lind.↩

7. M. E. Lind, “God’s Strange Ways,” Mission Quarterly, Second Quarter 1948, 12-14.↩

8. M. E. Lind, “God’s Strange Ways,” Mission Quarterly, Second Quarter 1948, 12-14.↩

9. M. E. Lind, “God’s Strange Ways,” Mission Quarterly, Second Quarter 1948, 12-14.↩

10. Musoke was a licensed minister, but was never ordained. See “Uganda Mission Field, Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Takoma Park MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1954), 186.↩

11. For example, Seezi Besisira Musoke gave his entire estate, including his store building, at Makerere Kikoni, in Kampala, to the North Buganda Field. Some of the funds, he emphatically stated, that the Estate would generate would be for evangelism in North Buganda Field. Joshua Musoke served as Education director of Central Uganda Conference (2000-2006). Musa Kato Musoke was instrumental in having the Uganda Bible Society translate the Bible into the Ruruuli-Runyala tribal language. He also translated 400 songs and Hymns into Ruruuli. (Musa Kato Musoke, interview with the author, Bugema, January 26, 2023.)↩