By Our Reporters
During his Labor Day (Wednesday 1st May) popular Salt TV Program (called Emisingi) that airs every Monday-Friday evening (8-9pm), Pastor Aloysius Bugingo centered his message on the Biblical Book of Esther. He made specific reference to Chapters 1 and 2. In there is a story of Esther (a Jewish orphaned virgin girl born among the exiles) who in very strange circumstances gets chosen to become Queen for King Xerxes (aka Ahasuerus).
Xerxes, who ruled over 127 provinces, held a banquet to which VIPs from his Kingdom were invited. Deep into the feast, the King got drunk and sent for his extremely gorgeous Queen Vashti to come and display her beauty to the envy and enjoyment of the King’s guests.
Vashti refuses to come over and this defiance was perceived as unprecedented disrespect that naturally left the King in great humiliation and extreme anger. With counsel from palace advisors, the King directs a beauty pageant of sorts to enable him identify a virgin for perfect replacement to take defiant Vashti’s place as Queen.
It was a prolonged search process and in the end, Esther (an orphaned foreigner) is chosen and becomes Queen for King Xerxes. Esther’s biological father Abihail and mother had died, leaving her to grow under the care of her adoptive father Mordecai. The two were actually cousins (as Abihail was Mordecai’s uncle). Esther had been born Hadassah in the Jewish family. Briefly that is the background from which Bugingo (who faces a storm resulting from marital misunderstandings with wife Teddy Naluswa Bugingo) derived his message for the Wednesday Emisingi program.
TACKLES JESSICA KAYANJA
In a bid to show solidarity with Teddy Naluswa, whose media interviews have since cast Bugingo in bad light depicting him as a bad spouse and father, Jessica Kayanja (wife to Ps Robert Kayanja) came up with a social media a hashtag HADASSAHMUSTSTAY (trying to liken Naluswa to Biblical Esther).
Renowned for being one you can never step on and walk away with it, Bugingo says he has been provoked and has a right to bring the battle to Jessica Kayanja’s backyard. He says her hashtag is ill-conceived and exposes Jessica Kayanja’s limited understanding of Biblical scriptures. He says it saddens him that Jessica, who has never been Naluswa’s friend, is all of a sudden portraying herself as very concerned.
“I have been with Teddy for all these years and Jessica has never been her friend anywhere. They [the Kayanjas] always make their celebrations including the 25 years in marriage and we are never invited as the Bugingos and we never took offence because they aren’t supposed to. I’m now wondering why she is maliciously coming up with this hashtag. The motive is not to be of help to Teddy but to simply escalate things and undermine the ministry work I’m involved in. I hope Teddy doesn’t get duped to think Jessica is fighting for her. No. They just see this as an opportunity to destroy my church ministry but they won’t succeed. What has been happening at Canaan, seeing the numbers that have never been seen before, is proof they are going to die in their movie,” Bugingo said.
“I’m not one person who fears anyone. She has declared war on me and I’m going to fight back and take it to her backyard. I have been provoked yet I have never meddled in their marriage with Ps Kayanja even when there are things I know that haven’t been going well between them. She has crossed the red line and we are going to fight back.”
Bugingo clarified that his response to Jessica’s efforts to mobilize and incite women against him while pretending to be in solidarity with Naluswa, shouldn’t be misconstrued to be a war between him and Ps Robert Kayanja or between his House Prayer congregation and that of Rubaga Miracle Center. He said he will be tackling Jessica Kayanja personally because there is no proof that her provocative hashtag is representative of what the rest of the Miracle Center membership thinks of his marital fallout with Naluswa.
“I have felt obliged to school her on Bible scriptures because her hashtag is clearly indicative she doesn’t actually understand the Bible. The story of Hadassah or Esther doesn’t support Teddy. It’s actually against her because her disobedience and approach is similar to that of Queen Vashti who had to be de-crowned to pave way for Esther. So I want to caution all the women Jessica has been mobilizing using that hashtag that as you contribute comments, be aware that you are actually promoting a situation of a new Esther-like Queen coming into your marriage to take your crown,” Bugingo said during the Luganda program.
BEGS PS KAYANJA
Saying he has never had any problem with him as a leader of Rubaga Miracle Center, Bugingo called on Ps Robert Kayanja to “sit down your wife Jessica and teach her Biblical scriptures afresh.” He added that there are many wives who are constraining the growth of their husband’s Christian Ministries because they act unreasonably. “They declare themselves Pastors because they are married to a Pastor but in actual sense they aren’t because they have limited understanding of the Biblical scriptures. Jessica falls in that category and she therefore became a pastor by default. I politely request Ps Robert Kayanja to sit her down and teach her these things because it’s very embarrassing when someone of her status, very much expected to know the Bible, turns out not to understand things as basic as the story of Esther,” he said.
MANY ARE TORMENTED
Saying he was speaking for many Church Ministers, Bugingo said many preachers are leaving very deprived lives because of the hell their very possessive wives have created around them. “They are everywhere asking who are you? What were you talking with the pastor? They are everywhere in the corridors grabbing every female that emerges from the pastor’s office. They then survive on blackmail when you protest they say ‘by the way I will put you in newspapers’ and this is creating psychological torture and constraining many pastors from effectively doing ministry work. Many are suffering silently fearing to be put in the newspapers but for me I’m different. I will stand firm and carry on with ministry work because we are called to do this work for God and not our wives.”
LUCKY NALUSWA?
Bugingo advised Naluswa to resist being misled by people like Jessica because actually the situation she talks about of Bugingo tormenting and abandoning her in the house isn’t anywhere near the worst experience when compared to what many marrieds are silently going through. “They must actually be laughing at Teddy who doesn’t know how lucky she is. Somebody leaves you with a mansion and cars and you are there mocking fellow women whose relationships have ended in very much worse situations. You [Teddy] may never get the sympathy you are looking for instead many fellow women are going to condemn you for being very unreasonable,” said Bugingo who Naluswa says wants her out in order to move on with someone else.
He said he had so far been motivated by the fact that the ongoing storm had only made House of Prayer worshippers more resolved to meet for fellowship. Specifically he said since the story started coming out, the lunch hour crowds at Canaan Land have only swelled and detractors will end in total disappointment. “There are people I know [fellow pastors] who are moving everywhere to ensure every media house jumps on this story. They are the ones distributing the recording of Teddy’s interview in the hope there will be chaos and the Canaan Pentagon project stalls. Far from it, we are more resolved and we are going to realize our dream even much faster than they think and then the glory of the Mighty God that we serve will be manifested like never before,” said Bugingo who also had no kind words for the state-owned Vision Group. “I stood up to them when they misreported about my fellow pastors and they have teamed up with my adversaries to take this as payback time but I won’t be moved. We shall in the end have the last laugh.” (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com)
