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INTRODUCING JULIET NAMUKASA THE POET

1 commentSeptember 1, 20206 min read

Hi there, as you know I blog once a week and it is always on Friday or Saturday. If you missed any ony my blogs, scroll down and you will find them. Read and Let’s grow together. Today is un usual but neccesary becuase I want to introduce to you the amazing woman I met in 2005 when I joined Redeemed of the Lord Evangslistic Church Makerere. The more I got to know her, the more I wanted her to be my Mentor. She is gifted in so many aspects and an amazing “Auntie” as everyone calls her espcially the peculiar ladies, she is such a selfless woman and very determined. She is a poet, a leader, a teacher, an amazing artist, a writer, a counsellor, a senga and so much more. She stops at nothing to reach her goal which makes her admirable. I have so much to tell you about her but let’s dig in.

She is Juliet Namukasa and often she adds her Petty name, Amooti because she is a Munyoro, omugahya hailing from Hoima district, Bunyoro Kitara. 1982 March, saw this young, irresponsible, disorganised, hurting girl surrender her life to Jesus as her personal Lord and saviour at Makerere Redeemed Church. She had just been sent away from the home where she was staying because she had become a handful of a child. The world had earlier robbed her of her sister, who was taking care of her having taken over from her mother who was taken ill. Juliet had just seen her mother for the first time in four years. Her mother had left home for Mulago hospital on clutches in 1977 but was crippled and could not get herself out of bed. Juliet’s world was shattered because to her, her mother was her hope but then in her condition, she could not fight for Juliet. That day, November 1981, Juliet spoke the most important words to herself, “Juliet grow up, mum will never be there for you again the way she used to”. But how was she to grow up save for Christ who showered her with His unspeakable love accepting her the way she was? She embraced His love and since then she is amazed by this Holy God who could love “the- Juliet” that was and is, and made her His own. Juliet call herself the Priceless Princess because of the value God attached to her life. Since 1982, going forward in Christ has been Juliet’s motto, where shall she go for Christ has the words of eternal life. Christ to Juliet is not about heaven. Even if heaven did not exist, she would still need Christ because it is in Him that her life has value and meaning.

Juliet Namukasa is a graduate from Makerere University with a degree in Economic and now a Chartered Management Accountant, she is passionate about community transformation. She is also passionate about the youth and now children. She calls herself a counsellor on theoretical aspects of marriage because she is not married but have sat at the feet of the great and learned. She loves singing though she does very little having lost my voice in 1993.

She loves studying God’s word and memorizing it, and that is where her whole journey into poetry started when she was at university. She saw Bency Nyabwolo- now Odoi presenting Psalm 8 in Mary Stuart Christian Union Fellowship. She told myself that she could do that too. But someone who could not cram, how could she memorise the big chuncks of scripture? The stage was yet to be set until at the end of her first year when she had to cram 44 lines of material in order to pass a computer science- course unit. If Juliet could memorise things she did not understand at all, how about God’s word which makes sense? She determined to embark on the challenge.. she then memorised her first Psalm- Psalm 145 which she presented during one of the outings and it was great. Having not done literature and hated poetry with a passion because she could not understand a thing, the book of Psalms and later Songs of Solomon in the Bible became her tutor. Her passion then became to make the word of God easy to relate to through artistic presentations. Juliet presented these in church, on outings, introductions and weddings.

Taking scripture recitals to another level started in 2006 during the annual Christmas church productions at Makerere Redeemed Church. Having lost her singing voice, Juliet still wanted to add value to God’s service and be able to serve Him in some way. So she tapped into scripture recitals every year. In 2009, she was challenged to present her first poem besides reciting God’s word and she did fairly well; thanks to Mr. John Emuna for pushing her out of my comfort zone of scripture recitals. With this success she wrote her first poem Olugendo lw’abanunule” when her church was celebrating 30 years of existence. This too was great and since then she has not turned back. Give Juliet your world and to you it will return poetically.

Juliet calls herself a self-styled poet because she has not learnt her art from anyone but rather have tapped into her natural gifting as a performer and her personality as a feeler. Thus Juliet is able to add flesh to whatever she chooses to present so that she can communicate. Anything she is able to relate to becomes easy to work through.

Today Juliet addresses various subjects and she sees herself communicating more of her feelings and issues of concern through poetry. Many people sing, but she sees herself, one day staging a worship evening of psalms poetically not through music. She sees myself on stages capturing the attention of many, taking them with her to explore the world on different subjects- social, political, economic, spritual etc.

Juliet’s desire is to have many people fall in love with poetry, that like music it will become a household source of both education and entertainment.