Kisses from Katie

(Amazima Ministries is not the organization I will be going to Africa with but her book has helped me transition into a state of loving the longing I have for Kenya rather than resenting it)

It's amazing to see God work through other people in their love for something. I recently read a book called Kisses From Katie it is by Katie Davis. She is a 23 year old from Brentwood, Tennessee . She went to Uganda when she was 18 and immediately fell in love. Katie started Amazima Ministries " God laid it on Katie's heart to start a child sponsorship program, matching orphaned and vulnerable children who are unable to afford schooling with sponsors anywhere in the world. Sponsors pay $300 per year to send one child to school, providing school supplies, 3 hot meals each day, spiritual discipleship, and medical care. Originally planning to have 40 children in the program, Katie had signed up 150 by January 2008. Today the program sponsors over 400 children." (taken from http://www.amazima.org/katiesstory.html) Through her book Katie talks about her life in Uganda and how she slowly begins to adopt some girls, and soon legally becomes a mother to 14 little girls. This is INSANE! There is a video where she talks about people's response to her life and how some people talk about how wonderful her life is because she has found what God wants her to do, her response is that "well I didn't find it, it was in the bible and so as someone who calls them self a Christian its very apparent that you are to love the Lord your  God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, and myself doesn't want to be starving and so I don't want other people in the world to be starving." Katie has learned to live in the presence of the Lord no matter where He sends her.

Falling in love with a country seems like a weird concept for most but for people who have the calling for it, it is truly magical. I think for me my biggest fear of going and doing what God has called me to do is, the feeling of coming back, the feeling of leaving home, leaving the place where I know that Jesus is calling me to is not the place that I spend the other 9 months of 2012. This summer I will spend 3 months about 9,542 miles apart from the people who love me the most, from the place where I can get in a car and do whatever I want, from the place where I can take a shower whenever I want and however long I want. Yet the other 9 months I will spend away the place where I call home, the place that I belong.

Thank you Jesus for love. Thank you Jesus for grace. Thank you for the passion for your children you have given me. Thank you for loving me and giving me all I have. Thank you for giving me the most amazing opportunity to minister to your people in Kenya.

"I have learned that I will not change the world. Jesus will do that. I can, however, change the world for one person. So I keep stopping and loving one person at a time. Because this is my call as a Christian." Katie Davis

-E