Katie Davis

I’ve never met Katie Davis. I feel like I know her very well. I’ve read her blog for some time and am in the midst of finishing her book Kisses from Katie. I highly recommend this book if you would like to be inspired, hear crazies stories, and blown away by her story. She graduated from high school in 2007, the same year I did. After begging her parents, they allowed her to spend one year in Uganda teaching kindergartens. Four years, she’s still there. I have no idea where to begin with this girl’s story, it’s so crazy.

            I have no doubt that the Lord wants me to adopt from Africa. What I’m not sure about is if He’ll ever want me to move there. It would be a difficult process, but after reading her story, I’d go for sure. She lives in Uganda and loves Africa for the same reasons I do. She loves it for the people, the need, and non-American instant gratification, money obsessed way of life. Most are grateful for everything they have and incredibly selfless.

            While she spent her year teaching, she lived in a tiny shack on the property of the school/orphanage. She taught 106 eager, beautiful children. However she noticed a big problem, many other children were not in school, because their children could not afford it.  Katie could not sit by and watch to she used some of her savings to pay for some of the children’s school.  And a few more. And then a few more after that.  Soon, she realized she needed help with paying for children to go to school so she consulted her parents and started Amazima Ministries. To have a non-profit, she needed a real address and not a tiny shack. She bought a large house with running water and electricity, a rarity there and went to work. The house was rather large for just one person, and she wasn’t sure why this house was the one for her. However, the Lord revealed to her shortly after it was meant to filled with people and children. Katie is the kind of person who stops on the side of the road to help someone. She’s also the type of person who would walk 13 miles to help someone.  She has done both numerous times.  During her first year, she brought into her home, three little orphaned girls and she decided to adopt them, at the age of 18. I told this is a crazy story. What gets even crazier is over the four years, she lived in Uganda, she’s adopted 11 other little girls. 

            Her journey to stay in Uganda after that first year was not an easy.  With a desire to obey her parents, she went college after the year she went to Uganda and struggled the entire semester. As much she Katie loved her friends, family, boyfriend, etc., she ached for Uganda. America was not longer her home. Her home was with her ministry and daughters in Uganda. After five months, she flew home and has lived there ever since. She has watched young child and old grandparents die. She’s watched families lose loved ones and she’s lost a lot of people she loved. She continues on. She never turns someone down and brings sick, diseased people into her home and cares for them. She’s one of kind and I truly admire her for what she believes, how she loves and lives, and her courageous spirit in spite of what others think. 

This is the website for her ministry: http://www.amazima.org/

(By the way this ministry has grown to house over 400 orphans and provides for all of them and other students to go to school.)

This is her blog address: http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/