By Patty Huston-Holm
It was a bone-chilling 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 Celsius) outside my central Ohio home when at 12:30 p.m. my time, I started what would be a 90-minute conversation with Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I spoke into a computer while visualizing the difference in time (eight hours later) and outside temperature (much warmer at 75 F./23.8 C.) for one of Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) leaders and my friend of more than a decade.
“Today was a holiday,” she said.
January 26, 2026, marked the 40th anniversary of the National Resistance Movement Liberation commemorating when now Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took control from Tito Okello Lutwa. On a much smaller scale, it also marked a rare time when Dr. Bacwayo spoke more than listened.
“I am talking too much,” she said, laughing.
Dr. Bacwayo with a nephew’s wife and grandniece at church in a village on New Year’s day 2026
Knowing Dr. Bacwayo’s empathetic social work background and her own admission as an introvert, I recalled many times she listened as we walked around the UCU Mukono campus after our long work days. On this day and in this role reversal, however, I prodded for answers about her humble beginnings, her faith trek and her journey to her current status as Director of UCU’s Directorate of Post-Graduate Studies.
Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo was born among the Banyankole tribe in the western Uganda district of Ibanda. In her Runyankole mother tongue, the Kukunda part of her name means “love.” She was one of nine children (seven girls, two boys) to an Anglican pastor and a mother who supported the family with livestock and farming when Bacwayo’s father died in a car accident.
Bacwayo was seven when she lost her father. At that point, survival got harder as she and her siblings helped their mother, Beatrice Bacwayo, with harvesting matooke and raising goats and chickens. In addition to income-generating tasks, there were daily trips to a water well.
Being poor had the young Elizabeth thinking she wanted to work in a bank someday.
“I thought banks had money and if you worked there, you would, too,” she recalled, laughing.
Her second career choice was law, until she realized that some of the work might involve being less than truthful. Social work was third. She suspects her venture into social sciences evolved because she understood and disliked marginalization, especially due to poverty and gender.
Early on, Bacwayo, who has been single throughout her life, saw inequities for women in Uganda. Her father’s inherited property was taken by a surviving brother, leaving her mom and children to earn what they could from a smaller plot her late father had purchased separately. She didn’t know it then, but seeing how hard her mother had to work following the death of a spouse ignited Dr. Bacwayo’s later research, teaching and preaching about male-female and single-married differences.
Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo with her mother, Beatrice, in Sheema District on Jan. 1, 2026.
The conclusion of her bachelor’s degree in social work from Makerere University involved research on teen pregnancy. Women and AIDS was the focus of her dissertation for her master’s degree from Australian National University.
In a 2022 Thorny Croft Chapel message, she talked about the need for churches to realize the value and diversity of single people – divorced, widowed, never married – with a reminder that John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene and even Jesus are among many of the world’s impacting people who were and are single.
“The church messages are often focused on married people and families with the belief that if you are single, you must be missing something,” she said. “The perception is that if you are single, you are lonely. In fact, both married people and single people may or may not feel alone.”
I Corinthians 7 denotes that “both marriage and singleness are gifts from God,” she added.
Dr. Bacwayo’s New Zealand and Australia post-graduate studies among men and women from various cultures likewise helped form her belief in the importance of global connectedness and understanding that God loves and uses people from around the world.
“Jesus invites poor and rich, men and women, children, people of all races, personalities, introverts and extroverts, different tribes and languages, arrogant, timid and puts us all together to live in harmony,” she said during a 2023 Thorny Croft presentation about the importance of unity and growth in service. “Jesus called the disciples as individuals and built them together as a community.”
Dr. Bacwayo was saved – ‘’born again” is the term she uses – at age nine. She “stumbled” a bit in her adolescent years, but by early high school age, her faith was renewed. She credits the Scripture Union Christian movement for her rekindling.
Daily prayer, Bible study and community among believers has sustained her faith alongside career moves from lecturer to dean, associate professor and director. Her work with the post-graduate directorate involves administrative tasks, overseeing postgraduate supervision and coordinating across UCU’s 11 schools and faculties.
She has a CV with more than four pages documenting social science and development education, professional positions, research and presentations. In addition to New Zealand, Australia and Uganda, she has taught in Tanzania and Chicago, Ill., the latter of which she was a Fulbright Scholar at Trinity Christian College.
Her latest title is Head of Laity for the Anglican Church Diocese of Kampala. This designation in April 2025 was considered a milestone for female leadership within the Church of Uganda.
“My role involves serving as a liaison between professional clergy and lay people,” she said. “Both have an important role in the church.”
Dr. Bacwayo lamented that our conversation was delayed a week due to a funeral of a friend, Dorothy Kalengyo, wife of Rev. Canon. Prof. Edison Kalengyo. She participated at a vigil in the Kalengyo’s Mukono campus home and attended the burial in Kasese.
“I still struggle with dying,” Dr. Bacwayo said. “I know someone is going to a better place, but I’m sad they are gone.”
When looking back on her life of nearly 60 years, she said she is most proud to be a daughter, sister and aunt. Looking ahead, she has goals of leading and inspiring others to create spaces and an environment that genuinely cares for the well-being of people. Psalm 78:72 (“…shepherding with integrity of heart…”)
“To know what you prefer, instead of saying amen to what the World tells you you ought to prefer is to have kept your soul alive” is a quote from author Robert Louis Stevenson on the FaceBook of Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo.
“This means that people want you to conform, and you shouldn’t,” she said.
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