Katie had it all. She was homecoming queen, class president, top of her class, she drove a cute sports car.
But God was growing a desire in her. She loved and admired and worshiped Jesus. Now she was being urged to do what He said.
Her adventure began in December of 2006 when she and her mom went to Uganda, volunteering in an orphanage for three weeks. She returned to the States to finish high school but her heart was back in Uganda. Her parents agreed to let her postpone college a year so she could teach kindergarten in a small village outside of Jinja, Uganda.
She enlisted the help of her parents for the paper work (to establish a nonprofit organization) and soliciting of funds to send kids to school ($60 per child). She has to have an address for her NGO so she rented a house, soon visited by the scores of children she helped. Then she began adopting.
She had planned to be there only a year and then return to the U.S. for college and the normal American life. But a “normal” life after that year in Uganda was impossible. At her parents request, she returned to America and college. She was nineteen and “mommy” to eight children in Uganda. She lasted one semester and then went back. She hasn't sat in a lecture hall since but has learned lessons beyond value.
Katie is now twenty two years old and has fourteen children. She has learned that you don't have to have a degree in education or medicine to help others. She has learned that something happens when you make yourself available to God.
Why does she do this? She does it for Jesus. “I adopt because God commands me to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress.” (73) She is honest about the cost, the weariness. But she also shares the reward – she knows she is doing what Jesus wants her to be doing.
Read this book and be challenged. You will have to ask yourself what your life would look like and what would happen for the kingdom, should you accept and commit to Jesus' command.
The nonprofit Katie set up is Amazima Ministries (Amazima means “truth” in Luganda.)
Go to www.amazima.org to see how you can help.
Read Katie's blog at www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com.
Find out more about this book at www.simonandschuster.com/kissesfromkatie.
Howard Books (a division of Simon & Schuster), 264 pages. Publisher information.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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