My name is Mark Douglas Walugembe, a Ugandan. I was born 42 years ago in Kampala city in a hospital called Nsambya Hospital. Growing up was not easy for me as I lost both of my parents when I was only 9 years old, in the same year. Before my parents passed, I always wondered why my Dad was never with us at our home. I remember visiting him with my mother in Nairobi, where he worked, 3 times all throughout my life. He also visited us only once at our home—you can imagine. It was at the funeral of my father that I discovered that he had 3 wives and that my mum was the youngest of them all. I also discovered that I had elderly siblings who were age mates with my mum. My Dad was presumably a wealthy man, but my 2 siblings and I did not benefit from his wealth at all. Five months later, my mum also passed on due to the same HIV-AIDS that had killed my Dad. In those years, HIV was very rampant, and many succumbed to it.
God, in His power, gave me parents (my aunt, who was a younger sister to my mum together with her husband) who took me on and raised me. I am grateful to them because they really sacrificed to raise me together with their children. However, being that I was an orphan, I felt discriminated against in their clan, and when I lacked anything or when I was presumably mistreated, I always cried out and asked myself why Dad and Mum passed. God provided through them to cover my education until I graduated amidst many challenges I cannot fully describe for now. One important aspect I can never forget is when I gave my life to Jesus in high school in 2003. This was a game changer in starting to discover who I was in Christ and what my purpose was.
In summary, in my journey of faith, I learnt that God is my Father—the Father to the fatherless—and my Helper. By His grace and sustenance, I was able to complete my Master’s and Doctorate degrees. I am currently serving at Africa Renewal University as the DVC Academic Affairs. He is a good God.
My Writing Journey
Throughout my childhood, I liked readers and reading. At an early age, I usually loved owning books and reading them. Actually, at one point, after growing up, I got a chance to access my mother’s will, and in it, one of her desires was that my aunties would keep and give me later in life her bookshelf. To me, this communicated volumes.
In school, I usually borrowed books from the library, and I liked doing research. This actually developed my gift of teaching and writing. I remember writing my first article in the school magazine at my high school. Actually, at some point in high school, I was awarded to be the best library user. I loved books and still do.
As a qualified teacher, I could also write and prepare simple notes for my learners after doing a lot of research. This, I did for over 10 years.
When I was pursuing my Master’s degree at PAC University in Nairobi, we had a very good lecturer that I will never forget. She trained us how to write academically and was very strict in her marking/scoring to the extent that the hard copy answer sheet we handed in could have a lot of written comments in red ink on how to improve our writing. At some point, I was encouraged by her when she stated that I was a good writer and could exploit using my gift. This is when I felt that I should be more intentional about writing. Due to the fact that I was doing leadership as a program, the Lord started placing it on my heart to write a book on leadership. This was in 2014.
Over the years since 2014, I had been doing research on different aspects of leadership. It was in 2019, when I was pursuing a Doctorate in Biblical Studies, that I started seeing gaps in integrating biblical leadership in secular leadership. I realised that there was a need to point leadership towards the Author and Architect of leadership (God Himself). The secular world was using principles drawn from God, and they were all over in their books, articles, and in motivational speeches but never acknowledged the source of these principles. Questions like: Why is leadership failing all over the world? Who influences what leaders do? Was there a beginning point of leadership? Will there be an end to evil leadership? Is it possible to justify that these principles were Biblical and existed centuries ago? And many others in this line lingered around my thoughts. This is how the book titled Biblical Leadership and Its Relevance Today: The Architect and His Perspective was birthed.
The book was published and launched in July of 2022. At the university where I serve, it was chosen in 2023 to be a reference book for integrating Christian leadership in the postgraduate school curriculum.
I have a calling of continuing writing more Christian literature on Godly leadership and defending the Bible as the ultimate source of Godly leadership.
