Amazima

One day while absent mindedly scrolling through the great world of Pinterest I stumbled across a huge gem; a blog called "The Journey" by Katie Davis of Tennessee. As i read some of the blog I found that Katie doesn't live in Tennesse anymore; she lives in a small village near Jinja, Uganda with the 13 Ugandan girls she's adopted, living life and running a minsitry she started called Amazima.

So inspired by her story and what she's done, I picked up her book "Kisses from Katie." WOW is all I can say. I'm still in the middle of the book, but I had to tell you about it because you should read it!!!

The stories in this book and on Katie's blog really put life in perspective. She tells real stories of her life in Uganda...some that are painful to read; ie: kids and families showing up on her doorstep that are inches away from dying of starvation. Helpless kids infected and dying from treatable diseases because they don't have running water, food, clean houses, clean towels, money for simple medications, or beds to sleep on.

The thing that struck me the most is the VAST difference between those people's lives and mine. As i read on I just cannot help but look at my blessed, privledged American life and be utterly grateful....and then utterly repentant for the things I take for granted. And then utterly confused at how I am living this life and they're living that one.

God loves ALL his children. God loves me and God loves those little babies on the other side of the world that I'm learning about.

Throughout the book are journal entries from Katie. This is part of one from May 7, 2008 that I will never be able to forget:

"The truth is that 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitues, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children.  And though at 1st glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians.

The truth is that if only 8% of the Christians would care for one more child, there would be no statistics left.

That is the truth.  I have the freedom to believe it. The freedom, the opprotunity to do something about it. The truth is that He loves these children, just has much as He loves me and now that I know, I am responsible."

Awareness equals responsibility. I feel responsible now that I am aware. One day Jesus will ask me what I did about these needy children that I knew about.  And I want to have an answer. It's not enough to know and pray. So, I am talking to Zach tonight about sponsoring one of these precious kids through Amazima.