When Penelope Nankunda joined UCU in 2017, she attended an overnight prayer service at a hill about a kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the Mukono Campus. Penelope, ending her three-year program in 2021, shares this account to warn first-year students about religious activities outside UCU.
By Penelope Nankunda
The year before I joined the Uganda Christian University (UCU) main campus in Mukono in 2017, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. My hunger to know God was at its peak. I was willing to satisfy this hunger at any cost. That is when I met a person I will call Alex.
Alex (not his real name) had been coming to our first-year classroom at the University for close to three weeks. He came off as someone eager to spread the good news of the Lord. He did this through sharing his personal testimonies, scripture readings, praying and inviting my class to his Friday overnight prayers on a nearby hill with many names – Monkey Mountain, Prayer Mountain, etc.
I was captivated.
Alex was a very powerful speaker, seemingly well conversant with the word of God and very charming in an unsettling, Gothic manner. I desired to spend more time in the presence of God as well as seek a strong spiritual family to sustain me through my three-year academic journey at UCU. An overnight prayer event appeared to be a good opportunity to make that happen. After weeks of contemplating, and with a combination of excitement and guilt for this delay in what I perceived as my new-found journey in Christ, I prepared for the Friday overnight on the hill.
It was a decision I later regretted.
On that Friday evening after my dinner at 8 p.m., I rushed back to my bedroom to gather some things. At 9 p.m. I grabbed my black leather jacket in which I stuffed a handkerchief and my student passbook and ran for the door.
By 11 p.m., I was at the venue – a heavily dense forest with close to 30 meters (98 feet) of cleared trees with a cut-out tree trunk at the center. The weather had changed at the top of the hill and the atmosphere was now chilly with the moon as the only source of light. Slowly analyzing the scene, panic began to set in.
I was then informed that the overnight did not only consist of students from UCU, but also Kyambogo and Makerere University, and so we were to wait until they arrived.
At 11:30 p.m., the headlights of two vehicles slowly emerged up the hill pointing towards my direction, before parking nearby. Out of the vehicles, which were taxis, hopped out two dozen university students.
Amidst all the chatting and laughing, a male voice called out to all the students to form a circle. However, before forming the circle, we were told to place our bags, phones and coats onto the cut bark of the tree.
Once the circle was formed, a short man walked to the middle of the circle and began to sing some familiar songs of praise. He clapped his hands and sang as the rest of us followed. The sky grew darker. Now, I could only see people’s eyes.
Thirty minutes into the singing, I suddenly noticed a white Toyota Ipsum drive up the hill and park under a tree near our circle. Out of the vehicle came a tall, thin man dressed in a long dark overcoat (as though a tuxedo), a cap and what seemed to be gum boots. He walked towards the circle and stepped into the center, standing with a strong presence of command, hands held behind his back.
The singing was immediately brought to a halt as the song leader requested that we welcome our pastor with a thunderous clap.
“You are welcome to another mighty overnight; I am happy to see you all here,” said the pastor with a loud husky voice. “God loves you all, and it is because of this God that we are all here today. Therefore, open your hearts and receive his spirit today.”
As we resumed singing, the pastor pointed at me. Two young men walked towards me and instructed that I approach the pastor. I slowly walked up to where the pastor stood, right at the center of the circle. He took hold of me. He began to pray in tongues placing his hand on my chest, while bending me backward as though wishing for me to fall, but I did not. In less than a minute, he released me to return to where I was standing in the circle.
I resumed singing as I watched him call my neighbors. I saw students fall to the ground while others screamed, as the pastor placed his hand on their chests while praying, just as he had done to me.
Once he had finished praying for all the students, the pastor pointed at me again. I walked towards him. This time, the pastor whispered in my ear “open up your heart and let the spirit in. You are not opening your heart.”
I remained silent as he began to pray again, placing his hand on my chest and pushing me backwards, but again I did not fall. He released me.
At past Midnight, the pastor preached to us about a new way in which we were going to worship God. He explained to us that this way of worship was directed at calling the Holy Spirit, that it was new to most believers and three-dimensional. He then instructed us to make a circle around the incompletely cut tree bark where our properties sat and begin to rotate around the tree bark until he told us to stop.
As we rotated around the tree bark, the pastor told us to begin imitating how leopards roar in order to invite Jesus the lion of Judah. Everybody, it seemed, except for me began to roar loudly as they rotated around the tree bark.
The whole night was full of such strange activity as different groups of people performed different rituals. This was not the Jesus I knew from worship on the UCU campus. At one point, a few other students and I attempted to leave the hill but failed, because Alex followed us and nudged our return. I could only leave at sunlight.
Needless to say, this is not an experience I repeated. While I realize there are different ways that different people come to Christ, this is not the means endorsed and provided by UCU. In fairness, there is much good on that hill, including tent housing for the homeless.
I am narrating this account to advise other students to be more discerning to avoid falling prey to religious activities outside the University.
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