Kisses from Katie

by Katie J. Davis

  Clearly, from God’s perspective, those who are blessed with riches are supposed to share with the poor, meaning that those who don’t have the resources to get what they need can do so, to the point that the poor aren’t so poor anymore. I looked around, though, and these new friends of mine were still destitute. I wondered what the western world was missing and why so many Christians didn’t seem to be doing what God so obviously wants us to do where the needy are concerned.

  My conviction that I had to do something to help, coupled with my newfound understanding of school fees, made it easy for me to know what to do. The first step to helping this village was to get the children whose caretakers had defaulted on school fees back into school, or to get children who had never had the opportunity to go to school into school for the first time. If these children couldn’t get an education, they would grow up to live the same kind of lives their parents and grandparents were living—unable to secure a job and unable to send their own children to school, thus continuing the cycle of poverty. I knew that I myself could not change the village or the country of Uganda, but educated children could.

  I quickly figured out that I knew some people in the States who had leftover “olives from their trees” and “wheat from their fields,” people who would be willing to share their resources to put some of these sweet children into school.

  The fee to send one child to school for one term is very little to people who live in the First World. In fact, a child can go to school for one term for anywhere between US $10 and $50, an amount some families spend on weekend entertainment—and an amount that is astronomical and impossible for most families in Uganda.

  Lots of people I knew in the United States had a little extra to spare three times a year, but a single mother working two jobs in Uganda may make 80,000 shillings in two months. For that mother, this means half a year’s salary can send one of her children to school.

  Lack of education, as I see it, is one of Uganda’s greatest burdens and providing opportunities for schooling is one of its greatest needs. According to the CIA World Factbook and other sources, the population of Uganda in January 2011 was 33,398,682. Approximately 50 percent of those people are under the age of fourteen. The average life expectancy in Uganda is slightly more than fifty-two years of age and the median age in Uganda is fifteen.1 So Uganda is a nation of young people. Roughly half its citizens are adolescents, and there are few elderly people to pass on useful skills or simple life lessons to the young generation.

  Many of these young people are my friends. They are boys and girls I know personally because I laugh with them when they are happy and dry their tears when they’re sad or afraid. I feed them and bathe them and bandage their wounds. They are not anonymous, they are not statistics; they are people I love and people God loves. He wants the best for them, and so do I.

  Obviously the key to eternal life for these children is Jesus, but the key to a better life here and now is education. Children must learn to read and write, to add and subtract and multiply. They must learn about science and social studies and everything else school offers in order to be productive citizens in the future. Their nation needs them to move it forward, not hold it back. It needs them to be equipped to provide good leadership and support in positions of government, medicine, technology, social services, and other areas of society. Uganda truly has the potential to live up to its moniker, “the pearl of Africa,” if today’s children can gain the knowledge and experience they need to usher their country into a bright future.

  My friend Patrick had just lost his job and was going to be unable to pay school fees for his daughters in the upcoming term. I met Patrick when I worked at the orphanage. He is a quiet, respectful, hardworking man, but the first word that comes to mind when I think of him is dignified. He is extremely intelligent but one of the humblest people I know. He is a devoted husband and father and a faithful man of God. He would do absolutely anything for his children—if he could. He wanted desperately to send his daughters to school, but because he did not have a job during that time, even though he was eager to work, he could not afford to do so. Previously he and his wife had been using every penny they made just to pay their daughters’ school fees, so other things, like uniforms and school supplies, were not luxuries these girls had.

  I dug into my small savings account and for slightly more than $60 per child I was able to pay for everything. So for the first time in their lives these girls who wore the same dresses to school every day were able to have uniforms like all the other children at the school. Instead of taking notes on scraps of newspaper, they had notebooks. When I had finished paying the headmaster for everything, we called the girls into the office and gave them their new uniforms, books, and pencils. They put the new red dresses on right away. I have never seen anyone so happy or grateful. They were down on their knees thanking me; their father beamed with pride. And all of this for less than my family spent on groceries each week.

  I knew I had to make it possible for other children to feel this happy and for my friends and family at home to feel as joyful and useful as I felt. I lay in bed under my mosquito net that night, listening to the crickets chirp and dreaming of sending more children to school, teaching them the truth not only of a bigger world but of Jesus who loves and cares for them, who sees and knows them personally. I wanted to share with my wealthy friends the truth of the tragedy that was taking place on the other side of the world and the truth that we could do something to change it. I didn’t exactly know how to go about this, but what I did know was the smiles on those girls’ faces when they found out they would be able to continue going to school. I knew the gratitude of guardians who worked day and night to provide for their children and still could not afford school. I knew the faithfulness of the Lord who had brought me to this place and opened my eyes to this need.

  The Lord continued to show me more children who needed help. The next week, I walked twin girls home from school. They lived about two miles from the school and walked barefoot every day, over the rocks and mud, rain or shine. I soon found out that they lived with their three older siblings and grandmother, Maria. As we sat on her dirt steps, the grandma told me the children’s stories. Their mother had come to visit when the twins were about two years old and confided in her mom that she had recently tested positive for HIV. Feeling utterly hopeless and overwhelmed, the mother had left in the middle of the night, leaving her own mother to raise her five children.

  Since then Jja Ja (grandmother) Maria had been doing any work she could get her hands on, working long days on a banana plantation and growing and selling her own cassava (a starchy vegetable that looks like a long, fat French fry) on the side. All this work gave her enough to send only the twins to school, with enough left over for a bit of food. I whispered to her about my plan to find sponsors for some of the children in the area and she fell to her knees. “I know that I am not alone in raising these children,” she said. “You see how God takes care of me? I am not alone. Today God has sent you to answer our greatest prayer.”

  And standing there in the stifling African sun, I had chill bumps. That is the greatness of our God, not just that He would put me there for Jja Ja Maria, but also that He would put her there for me, an example of true faith, complete trust, and real gratitude. All the time the people in that little Ugandan village claimed that I blessed them. I know, though, that they blessed me more.

  ONE DAY . . .

  November 22, 2007

  Peter is the rock on which God built His church. But first, Peter was probably the worst disciple ever. I am Peter.

  Jesus tells Peter that he (Peter) will deny Him 3 times; Peter says, “No! I love you, I could never deny you, Lord.” Yet we all know that Peter does in fact deny Jesus three times. I know in my heart and my soul and the core of my being that I love the Lord, that I would do anything for Him, go to the ends of the earth for Him, but how often do I forget to give the glory to His name? How often do I take compliments without givi
ng Him the credit? Do I, like Peter, deny Jesus the glory that is His?

  Jesus told His disciples that it was God’s will for Him to be arrested. He went willingly when the soldiers came to take Him, but enthusiastic, loving Peter raised his sword and cut off a soldier’s ear. “Put your sword away,” Jesus commanded. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” I am Peter. I have my own time frame. When I don’t see things happening, I try to make them happen. And Jesus says, “Put away your sword, put away your plans. Shall we not do what the Father has asked of us?” So like Peter, I put away my plans, my defenses, and watch as everything happens perfectly, in God’s own timing.

  After Jesus had risen, He appeared to His disciples while they were fishing. When Peter saw his beloved Savior, he excitedly jumped out of the boat and began swimming to where Jesus stood. Needless to say, the boat probably reached the shore long before Peter. I am Peter—excitedly jumping into things and then standing, sopping wet, at the feet of the Lord, smiling at my stupidity. I get excited, forget to think things through, and end up doing them the long way. Every time, though, just as with Peter, Jesus welcomes my soaking wet self into His arms and is simply happy to see me.

  I am Peter who made many mistakes, but I am Peter for whom God had great plans, whom God established to do His work. Peter is the rock on which Jesus built His church. The very night when Peter foolishly jumped out of the boat, Jesus reinstated Him in the presence of the other disciples.

  “Do you truly love me?” He asked. “Then feed my lambs.”

  “Do you really love me? Take care of my lambs.”

  “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep, and come follow Me.”

  For each time I deny God the glory that is His, for each time I follow my will instead of listening to His, for each time I jump ahead without first consulting my Lord, He asks, “Daughter, do you truly love me?” and I do.

  “Feed my sheep.” And I will. And I do.

  “Come follow me.” And I am, or at least I am trying.

  I am Peter. I mess up. I make mistakes, I am far from perfect, and God will use me. God will establish great things through me.

  You are Peter. God already knows that you will make a mess, but His plan for you is great. Go. Feed His sheep.

  4

  SAYING YES

  I was blessed. It wasn’t because of anything I did; it was because I serve an unbelievably gracious God who will honor a willing and obedient heart. My love for the people around me was not something I could muster up myself; it was God given, it came from the overflow of the love He had lavished on me.

  I hadn’t come to Uganda with a degree in education; I wasn’t a nurse; and I certainly didn’t consider myself a missionary. I had absolutely no idea what was involved in running a ministry and frankly did not possess the business knowledge or organizational skills required to do so. I was in no way qualified, but I was available.

  I have learned that something happens when one makes herself available to God: He starts moving in ways no one could imagine. God began doing things in me, around me, and through me as I offered myself to Him. I began each day saying, “Okay, Lord, what would you have me do today? Whom would you have me help today?” And then I would allow Him to show me. I would like to say that I had all kinds of great ideas about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. I would like to say my ministry was born out of a carefully thought-out plan. These things simply aren’t true, though. I was walking through life one moment at a time, blown away by what God could do through me if I simply said yes.

  My heart was on fire with a passion to say yes to God’s every request—to do more to help the people around me. Starting a ministry in Uganda wasn’t something I had in mind when I came here, but it seemed the only logical next step as people approached me needing help and I said yes to meeting their needs. As I prayed about what to do next and sought counsel from friends and family, I realized the only way to really be able to meet all the needs I wanted to meet in this community—to pay for children’s school, keep their bellies full, offer medical assistance, and most important teach them about Christ’s love for them—would be to start some kind of nonprofit organization.

  I felt nervous and excited as I realized this was God’s next step for me. I knew that starting this organization meant I would probably spend a great deal of my life in this place and represented a major, long-term commitment to Uganda. I was anxious because it felt so permanent, so concrete, but it was a commitment I knew God wanted me to make. So I started the complicated process of investigating what I needed to do and enlisted my parents (who by now were becoming more supportive of my life in Uganda) to help with the paperwork stateside. In addition to that, they were busy raising funds to help send children to school.

  The beginnings of a school sponsorship program were well under way. It was already happening thanks to the generosity of people my parents knew in the States. We simply needed to formalize the organization. Even though my parents had many concerns about my being in a Third World country and were still determined for me to earn a college degree, they could not deny my passion for the work in Uganda. Because of their love for me, they were selfless enough to help me start a ministry. They loved me enough to help me live my dream, even if it didn’t match their dream for me. As my mom and dad handled the administrative aspects of establishing the ministry as an official nonprofit organization, or NGO (nongovernmental organization), I set about clearing the biggest hurdle that stood in my way: finding a physical address for my work.

  Having a residential address to serve as an office is a requirement for registration as any type of ministry in Uganda. The tiny room where I lived on the orphanage compound was not an acceptable address. I began looking for a self-contained, one-room place elsewhere to meet this requirement and serve as an office space. I knew that even one room might be more than my budget could handle, but God had other plans.

  I searched and searched for a small place but couldn’t find one. What I did find, after weeks of looking, was not at all what I had in mind. Situated behind a sturdy fence made of concrete blocks and accessed through a heavy gate, this was no one-room studio or cottage or bungalow, but a real house, with a large porch stretching across the front and four bedrooms inside. The landlord showed it to me excitedly as I shook my head; this was not what I was looking for and surely it would cost too much. It was far bigger than what I wanted or needed, but as the landlord continued to decrease the rent, so that it was almost the same price as a one-room place, I felt the Lord nudging me to take it. I had enough money saved to afford it for a brief period of time, and my parents agreed to help me. Even people I had never met found out about my work and sent money to help meet expenses. I couldn’t deny the fact that God was providing, nor could I imagine why in the world I would need a house of this size, but I knew by then to listen.

  At the time, I knew I loved Uganda, felt at home here, and wanted to make a difference in this country. But my long-term plans were not clear. I had a promise to fulfill to my father—to return to the States and complete my college education. I was in love with my boyfriend, whom I had left behind in the States. Beyond that, I didn’t know what the future held. I thought the house would function more as an office for the NGO and as a place for me to stay during the many trips I planned to make to Uganda.

  My new house was about two miles from the orphanage where I lived and taught kindergarten. I could walk between the places, along a rocky railroad track that runs alongside Lake Victoria, if I wanted to take the scenic route. Or I could hire a piki and bounce my way across the pitted, dusty roads from one place to the other. In my new place, I would be close enough to old friends that I could reach them quickly, but I would also be far enough to have the space I needed to start my own organization and establish an identity separate from my work as a kindergarten teacher.

  Even though I liked the idea of moving to the house in the village, it wasn’t easy. I would be the only white person in the vill
age, and perhaps the only person who spoke English. I would be a curiosity to my neighbors. I was still a bit scared of the prospect of living all alone in a building so big and even spent many nights sleeping at the orphanage after I had officially “moved.” For a few weeks, I went to the house to clean and organize during the day, but retreated in the evenings to the comfort of my 102 little friends and rickety metal twin bed.

  I was excited to start this new adventure that God had planned for me, but at the same time I had grown quite comfortable at the children’s home. I had made friends among the staff members and children, whom I could count on for lavish displays of affection and outbursts of joy every single day. Although I would continue teaching kindergarten for the remainder of the school year, moving into the new house meant leaving behind my constant interaction with some of those people and some familiar aspects of my life at the children’s home. I felt I had just gotten settled and into my routine and was being uprooted again.

  The morning I moved out of the orphanage, I opened my Bible to the story of Sarah and Abraham in Genesis and it was a source of great encouragement as I embarked on the next phase of my life in Uganda. God had promised Sarah and Abraham that they would be the parents of a great nation, yet at the age of sixty-five Sarah was still childless. She was beginning to doubt. Leaving behind her homeland, she and her husband moved hundreds of miles south to the land of Canaan, the place where God had told them he would fulfill His promise. The land was full of God’s promises but barren of all things cherished and familiar.

  Finally tired of waiting, Sarah tried to take matters into her own hands by letting her husband sleep with her servant, and though the outcome was a child, this was not the perfect child God had promised, the one who would make her the mother of a nation. Years later, at the age of ninety, Sarah finally gave birth to her promised child. She called him Isaac, meaning “The Lord has filled me with laughter.” Despite her frailties, little faith, and self-reliance, God accomplished His purpose—and Sarah was filled with joy.