‘God has brought me to help students’

By Patty Huston-Holm
Uganda Christian University (UCU) alumnus and staffer, 44-year-old Kisa Rogers Jimmy, is forthcoming about the worst and the best of himself. 

The best started when he turned his life over to Christ at age 28. 

“I was ‘born again’ 16 years ago,” said the now-married father of three. “I accepted the Lord on Jan. 20, 2010. Before that time, I didn’t walk a straight line.”

The worst was in his teens to late 20s.

“I was living on the streets, drinking local beer with 60% alcohol and smoking marijuana and kat,” he said of his former failed life. The average alcohol content in commercially made beer is 4%-to7%. In East Africa, the kat/khat plant is a stimulant  whose effects can include hallucinations.

Kisa (second from left) with UCU-Mukono Residential Assistants after a fire safety training

Without hesitation, Kisa shared this youthful imperfection and his Pentecostal faith walk during an interview in April – just as he has countless times with UCU students, including male residents in Nsibambi, Kodwo and Maxine Ankrah and Florence halls on the UCU Mukono campus. Under the official title of Assistant Male Custodian (formerly called “warden”) for 500 male residents of the three living quarters, Kisa has the role of reinforcing cleanliness and safety and orchestrating furniture and facility repairs and replacements.

But the man many students affectionately call “Uncle Roger” does more than the on-paper responsibilities. He uses his own life missteps and accomplishments to open conversation doors.

He knows that  most students residing on UCU campuses have had experience living away from their parents at primary/secondary boarding schools. But university life with more autonomy, self-reliance and personal freedom requires adjustments.

“God has brought me to help students. They are confused, tempted, anxious,” Kisa said. “It’s important for me to share my testimony. I’m not a counselor or a pastor but a mentor who understands.”

Like the younger men and even now, Kisa’s education and career journey has had uncertainties and challenges. 

The third-born of seven children in Uganda’s central region village of Kitanda, Kisa’s father was an accountant for a brewery while his mother did part-time tailoring, mostly making traditional gomesi dresses.  The family name, Kisa, means “kind” in the Alur mother tongue – one of five languages that the younger Kisa speaks.  The other four are English, Luganda, Acholi and Swahili. 

Like many young people, Kisa completed secondary education at St. Joseph’s College Ombaci in Uganda’s northern village of Arua with uncertainty about his adult journey.

He had early thoughts of being a journalist stimulated by his interest in a British “world panorama” news show. One particular news event he recalled was the American invasion into Iraq in 2003. Kisa was age 19 and was known for following the news about this short, one-month war, reporting it to others “like a newscaster.”

Next, he thought of police work until realizing the abundance of bribery. According to Afrobarometer, three-quarters of Ugandans needing police assistance in 2024 reported paying a bribe. 

His third choice was teaching that he did with a diploma in secondary education from Kyambogo University before realizing the pay would not support him and his family. Africapay.org/Uganda, an affiliate of the WageIndicator Network, reports that beginning secondary education teachers typically earn between sh382,232 ($102) and sh1.75 million ($471) per month. 

Ultimately, Kisa’s academic career choice was with UCU’s School of Business. He received a bachelor’s degree in Human Resource Management from UCU in 2022.

Currently, he juggles time and money to complete his post-graduate work in business administration. Only completion of his dissertation remains. He is researching how Covid and Uganda’s nearly two-year lockdown impacted small businesses.

Kisa has been working at UCU for 10 years – first as an office cleaner and attendant and now as a male custodian. Much of this time he also worked in construction and organizing prayer meetings, among other activities. From cleaning desks to organizing workshops, no job has been too small or too large.

Off-campus, his wife, Dorothy Nankya, and three daughters, ages 5, 7 and 10, see the husband and father who likes watching old movies and dancing – “pretty much all over the place,” he said, laughing.

On campus, it is with student guidance that he seems to have found his serious niche.

Kisa recalled one law student who struggled with grief and financial difficulties after his father was injured in a car accident.

“I offered him spiritual support and encouragement to apply for a Resident Advisor position on campus,” Kisa recalled. “Ultimately, this led to him becoming a Junior lecturer with the School of Law.”

Stories like this, then, are part of Kisa’s story and legacy, unfolding still. He has toyed with the possibility of putting his personal testimony on YouTube to reach more young people, especially if they are struggling with drug and alcohol dependence.

“Overcoming addiction requires persistence and a fighting spirit,” he said. “Relapses can occur but full recovery is possible and rewarding.”

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