New York

Nashville

London

Toronto

Sydney

New Delhi

Howard Books A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright 2011 by Katie Davis All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Howard Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. First Howard Books hardcover edition October 2011 HOWARD and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Davina Mock-Maniscalco Journal entry backgrounds iStock Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davis, Katie. Kisses from Katie / Katie Davis, with Beth Clark. p. cm. 1. Davis, Katie, 1988- 2. OrphansServices forUganda. 3. OrphansUganda Social conditions. 4. OrphanagesUnganda. 5. Church work with orphansUganda. 6. Social work with childrenUganda. I. Clark, Beth, 1967 II. Title. HV1347.D38 2011 362.73092dc22 2011011683 [B] ISBN 978-1-4516-1206-6 ISBN 978-1-4516-1210-3 (ebook) All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

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Falling in Lovewith a Country

ometimes it hits me like a brick to the head: My life is kind of insane. I am twenty-two years old; I have fourteen children, eleven of whom are currently being homeschooled. We so often have extra people staying with usdying grandmothers, destitute refugees, or severely malnourished childrenthat I am forever doing a head count before I begin making meals. Most days, though, bumping along these red dirt roads in my sixteen-passenger van full of singing (or screaming) children, neighbors, and occasionally our pet monkey, seems completely normalso much so that I have a hard time writing about it. To me, there is nothing very spectacular about this everyday craziness; it is just the result of following Jesus into the impossible, doing the little I can and trusting Him to do the rest. Moving to the other side of the world and having a large family was never my dream or even my idea. But as I look back, I can see that God spent my whole life preparing me for the life He had planned for methe people He placed in just the right places at just the right times, and circumstances I could never fathom would eventually be for His glory. For years before I went to Uganda, I had fantasized about doing something incredible for God and others; what I

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have learned is that I can do nothing incredible, but as I follow God into impossible situations, He can work miracles in and through me. I first mentioned itthe idea of doing something outside the normto my parents in a serious way on my sixteenth birthday. To celebrate, my parents took me to eat my favorite food, sushi, at my favorite restaurant. It was a lighthearted occasion until I made a nervous comment that changed the mood completely: I think I will spend a year doing mission work after I finish high school and before I go to college. The smiles on my parents faces gave way to blank stares and looks of confusion. The happy chatter at the dinner table ceased and my comment seemed stuck in the atmosphere. Silence. I might as well have said I wanted to play quarterback in the NFL or fly to the moon. To them, taking a year to do mission work was about that far-fetched. It was completely unheard of in the Davis family and, I knew, probably unacceptable. My father had always been adamant about his desires for my life, desires rooted in his love for me and in his concern for my safety and well-being. As most parents do, both my mom and my dad wanted to do everything they could to guarantee me a successful, comfortable life, and they felt the best way to secure a good future for me was to provide me with a college education that would prepare me for a career. A few minutes after I mentioned taking a year off to have some kind of adventure besides college, my parents recovered from their shock and responded in the best possible way; they didnt say no. They simply said they were not sure about the idea, but they would think about it. I was convinced in my heart that my desire was right. I was ready to go; it was up to God to convince my parents. Sporadically over the next eighteen months, I remembered this conversation and searched the Internet for the word orphanage so I could investigate volunteer opportunities. I never had Uganda specifically in mind. As my senior year in high school grew closer, I began applying to volunteer at several orphanages I had found online. A

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home for babies in Uganda was the first to respond and say they were in need of volunteers. I was excited and my parents agreed to allow me to go over winter break during my senior year, hoping I would get it out of my system. Their only requirement was that I find an adult to travel with me. My parents may have been more clever than I gave them credit for. Of course, finding an adult who could take three weeks away from a job in the United Statesand who wanted to spend that vacation time, including Christmas, in Africa with meproved impossible. So I begged my mother to accompany me. When she realized how much I wanted to go and saw that I wasnt giving up on the idea, she said she would think about it. She soon realized this trip was not a whim but something about which I was deeply passionate, and because she is a woman who genuinely wants her children to be happy and fulfilled, she reluctantly agreed to the adventure. Before long, her reluctance turned into anxious enthusiasm and she became excited to be the person who would share this dream with me. In December 2006, my mom and I were on our way to Uganda, where we would spend three weeks volunteering in a home for abandoned or orphaned babies. During those three weeks, I lost part of my heart to a place Id never been before. I fell in love with Uganda as soon as I arrived. After I woke up the first morning of our stay, I looked around and saw glistening bright white smiles against ebony faces; I heard happy voices, lilting language, and gentle laughter. I saw strength and depth of character in peoples eyes. I found Uganda to be a beautiful land filled with beautiful people. Jinja, the city nearest to the village where I live today, sits nestled against the shore of Lake Victoria and at the source of the Nile River. Views of the lake and the river took my breath away when I saw them for the first time, and the explosion of color I saw as bumpy, vibrant, red dirt roads traversing the lush green landscape captivated me. The people who called this fascinating country home astounded me with their gracious kindness and gentle ways. I watched, wide-

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eyed, as cattle, goats, and chickens roamed freely through the villages while curious children wandered among the shacks and makeshift businesses (such as little stores that sell canned drinks or washbasins or airtime for cellular telephones). In the town, I saw the kind of everyday life that happens in every society, in its own way, take place as people shopped along Jinjas main streets, did their banking, or met friends and chatted on the sidewalk. When I went to the villages, I witnessed men and women shucking corn, cooking, talking among themselves, or simply sitting beside the road quietly taking in the happenings of village life. Whether I was in the town or out in a village, children were everywhere. When they saw a person with a different color of skin, they giggled and shouted. Some ran toward me with glee, others shrieked and fled at the sight of a foreigner. Those who werent afraid of me grabbed my hands eagerly, as though we had been friends forever. It was easy for me to fall in love with them and with their country, its enormous beauty juxtaposing extreme poverty. Most of our time was spent working at the babies home feeding, changing, teaching, and playing with the many children there. The children as well as the women who worked in the orphanage inched their way into my heart, leaving their little handprints all over it. I would never be the same. I left Uganda in tears at the end of our trip, the country and the people now a part of me. I cried all the way back to Tennessee and knew that someday I would return. I was forever ruined for comfort, convenience, and luxury, preferring instead challenge, sacrifice, and risking everything to do something I believed in. I realized it as I bathed babies and changed diapers in the babies home, as I met older children and threw stones into the river with them, and as I did everything I could do to meet the basic human needs so evident around me. My heart had found its joy as I served the beautiful people the world calls poor but who seemed so rich in love to me. I have no doubt that God was preparing a longing in my heart for Uganda many

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years before I could even find this country on a map; there is no other explanation for the instant love I felt for this place and these people. Though the red soil eventually wore off the soles of my feet, Uganda never left my heart and was never far from my mind. Upon my return to the United States to finish my last semester of high school I must admit I had become a bit obsessed with Uganda. I glanced at the clock during class to figure out what time it was there and daydreamed about what my friends in Uganda were doing. I talked about Uganda so much that Im sure all my friends in the States wanted to tell me kindly to shut up. I knew I had to get back. During my trip to Uganda, I met a pastor who had founded and ran an orphanage on the outskirts of Jinja. He was planning to open a kindergarten there and had asked me to be the teacher. The idea seemed a bit preposterous, as I had little experience teaching anything other than Sunday school, but he insisted I was the one for the job. Once I returned home, I realized I was prepared to do whatever I could to get back to my beloved Uganda, even if it meant suddenly becoming a kindergarten teacher. By the end of my senior year, after many conversations and ample opportunities to see that I was serious about returning to Uganda, my parents had finally agreed to my postponing college for one year. I promised to spend only one year in Uganda and, when that year was finished, to return to the States and enroll in college. In the meantime, though, I had agreed to teach kindergarten in a small slum village outside of Jinja, Uganda. Though many of my friends and much of my family did not understand my desire to be so far away for so long, no one could dampen my enthusiasm. Every once in a while I felt nervous, but more often than not I could hardly contain my excitement for this yearlong adventure. My dad, still unhappy that I was not going to college, never lost his fatherly concern for me. As a father who had worked to provide everything his only daughter had ever needed or wanted, he had many misgivings about the adventure I was determined to undertake. In

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fact, he refused to allow me to move so far away from home and stay for almost a year in a place he had never visited. So he decided to go with me to Uganda and stay for a week so he could survey every aspect of the place that so captivated me and make sure I was safe. The morning my dad and I left, I remember waking up in my beyond-comfortable bed in my parents house, in our upscale neighborhood. In this place where most ladies paid good money to have their hands and their lawns perfectly manicured and many people had no desire whatsoever to go to East Africa, I ate my last piece of peanut butter on toast as all my friends flooded the only home I had ever known to say good-bye one last time, all of us sobbing. Saying goodbye to my best friends, the boyfriend I was in love with and hoped to marry someday, and my little brother for almost a year nearly ripped my heart out. Part of me wondered how I could leave all this behind, but the other part of me was so ready to do it. The trip from the United States to Uganda is long, no matter which route a person travels. It is long through Amsterdam, long through London, long through the Middle East. I spent parts of the trip giddy with excitement and parts of it crying as I realized how long it would be before I saw my family or best friends again. My dad spent the entire first week of my year in Uganda trying to convince me to get on the plane back to the States with him at the end of the week. He didnt like the dirty conditions he saw; he didnt like the evidence of disease in so many places; and he didnt like the way some men looked at or spoke to a young white woman. He hated leaving me in this country so strange to him, but he could also see how happy I was there, and by the time he left, he knew that my heart was content and he was going home alone. The next few weeks were full of joy and frustration. I slowly settled into my room, no bigger than three-by-six feet, in the back of the pastors house. His home was on the orphanage compound, where 102 children, ages two to eighteen, lived. I cant really explain in words the love I felt for these children or

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why I felt it. I think many people would have looked at them and seen only their filthy clothes, the ringworm on their heads, or the mucus that ended up in a crust around their nostrils. They would have looked around at the dormitories of the orphanage with its smooth, hard cement floor where rats and cockroaches made themselves at home and been a bit disgusted. By the grace of God, though, I didnt see these things. The truth is, I saw myself in those little faces. I looked at them and felt this love that was unimaginable and knew that this is the way God sees me. The children would run to me with gifts of stones or dirt and I saw myself, filthy and broken, offering my life to the God of the universe and begging Him to make it into something beautiful. I sit here in a broken world, small and dirty at His feet, and He who sits so high chooses to commune with me, to love me anyway. He blinds Himself to my sin and my filth so that He can forge a relationship with me. And this is what He did for me with these precious children. He blinded me to the filth and disease, and I saw only children hungry for love that I was eager to share with them. I adored them, not because of who I was, but because of who He is. I just sat right down on that cold, hard floor and snuggled my nose into their dirty necks and kissed their fungus-covered heads and didnt even see it. I was in love. From the moment I got there, I was busy, happy, and exhausted from rocking babies, reading to toddlers, playing with preschool-aged children, and entertaining the five- and six-year-olds. I spent mornings teaching kindergarten and spent most of my afternoons with the two- to six-year-olds at the orphanage because the older children attended school during the day and didnt return to the orphanage until about 5:00 p.m. I had come to Uganda loaded with paper, crayons, counting charts, and picture books, prepared to teach the twelve or fourteen kindergarten-aged children who lived at the orphanage. As I was in transit from the States, however, the pastor had decided he felt led to

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open the school up to the slum community surrounding the orphanage, and the villagers were quick to jump at the opportunity for an inexpensive education. Imagine my surprise, then, when I showed up to teach twelve children and 138 pairs of eyes stared back at me, a sea of 138 brown little faces crammed into the barn-turned-classroom (which smelled exactly like a barn and not at all like a classroom), all ready and eager to learn. As I made my way through the maze of little bodies sitting on wobbly benches, the room was silent. Finally, someone was unable to contain a giggle any longer, piercing the quiet with joy. Some of the other students started laughing, too, while others began to cry. The children didnt know what to do; they had never been to school before. And none of them spoke English. Some, never having seen a white person, trembled with fear and were hesitant to even look at me. Others, so intrigued by this new kind of person, cautiously petted my hair, tugged on my arms, and carefully examined my blue veins through my translucent skin. My students were respectful and obedient, but the language barrier, combined with the sheer number of them, made teaching anything seem almost impossible. I spent the first week just trying to come up with a good system of communication. This is a ball, I would say slowly, enunciating every syllable. Dees ees a boll, their squeaky voices echoed back. We would spend all morning repeating this exercise, only to have someone come up to me at the end of the day holding a pencil and proudly proclaim, Dees ees a boll! The language issues came as a bit of a surprise because I hadnt dealt with them while working at the babies home during my threeweek stay in Uganda. The babies home was located in the city of Jinja and many people there spoke English, so my mom and I never had trouble communicating. Besides, technically, English is the official language of Uganda, but the truth is that very few people outside the major cities speak English, certainly not in the small villages outside Jinja, such as the one in which I was living and working. What I

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learned during that time, though, is that love knows no language. Although we were not able to speak to one another, we found many other ways of communicating; the children seemed to know I loved them, and I knew they loved me too. God did eventually send a wonderful translator and three marvelous Ugandan women to teach beside me. I am certain that I learned much more from my students and fellow teachers than they did from me. As much as I learned from others, there were certain aspects of adapting to a new culture that I simply had to figure out as I went along, things like how to calculate quickly how many Ugandan shillings equaled one American dollar or trying to ride sidesaddle on a piki. (A piki is a motorcycle and serves as the primary mode of transportation for many people in and around Jinja. Many men have their own businesses as piki drivers. They can be found congregating in groups in the middle of downtown Jinja or hailed, like taxis in the United States, along the side of the road.) Days were spent learning to communicate, laughing hysterically with my students, and trying to laugh at the frustrations that came with this new job. Afternoons were spent with the children at the orphanage playing tic-tac-toe and hangman in the dirt, having my hair tugged in all different directions, and getting covered in the red dust that I was learning would never wear off my feet. One of my greatest joys was the orphanages time of praise and worship to God with all 102 children who lived there. During this time, which lasted for about an hour before the children went to bed, they sang with all their hearts, laughed, cried, and prayed in a language I couldnt understand. They were simply being with Jesus and I could feel Gods presence there more strongly than I ever had before. I marveled at Gods huge love for us as I cradled little babies late into the nightthat even these children, the least of these, were created by Him specifically for a very special purpose. There were many moments of great joy: singing of Jesus love with

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the older children as we took a walk to the river to throw stones, cuddling with babies from the orphanage in my twin bed at five in the morning, jumping for joy in church with people so full of Gods love that they could not hold still. However, there were still many moments when my patience was challenged. Through the frustrations, God taught me to laugh at myself, my ways of doing things, and what used to be important to me. He taught me that when doing my best was still not enough, that was when He took over; and because of His great grace and love, even in the frustrating moments I was filled with an inexplicable happiness and peace, my daily proof that I was living my purpose. I laugh now to think how stressed out I was about geckos in my bed, children eating erasers, and learning to cook beans on an open fire, wash my laundry by hand with bar soap, or bathe outside in a bucket. Every day, though, as I looked around at beautiful, expectant faces with huge coffee-brown eyes hungry for the love of Jesus, I knew that I was here just to love, and the rest I would figure out in time. Sometimes, in the midst of all the loving, praising the Lord, and energy and laughter the children around me seemed to exude, I forgot that these children had been orphaned, that they had horrible sorrow and tremendous pain in their pasts. One day, I was reminded. Six-year-old Derek, a shy little boy with the face of an angel, fell and bumped his head. He looked so determined not to cryhere children are taught to be big and toughbut against his best efforts, tears began to flow. I pulled him into my lap, and almost as quickly as they had started the tears stopped. But what was left, the sorrow in those eyes beyond the tears, I will never forget. The eyes that peered out of that six-year-old face were a hundred years old and had seen more tragedy in their short lifetime than most ever will. I was filled with grief for this beautiful boy. I cradled in my arms a child who had seen his parents and siblings killed and had more than likely been forced to kill others himself in the war in northern Uganda. This child

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had known what it meant to be truly starving, to be totally lost, to be utterly hopeless. And in that same moment of sadness, I was blown away by the greatness of our Lord, by the fact that God in all His mighty plans had cared enough for this child, had cared enough for me, to put us together in that moment. The God who created the heavens and the earth knew that on a rainy day in Uganda a little boy would bump his head, and the pain would be deeper than just that bump. God had put me in just the right place and given me the privilege of loving this child, gently rubbing his back and holding his hand, in a way he had not been loved in a long time, if ever. By the grace of God, I was blessed with the gift of being able to hold and hug this child, eventually tickling him until those sorrowful eyes brightened a little, and Derek threatened to erupt with laugher. We sat there like that for quite some time, and Derek never spoke. When I asked him if he wanted to go play now, he shook his head and looked at me with a face that read No, can I stay here forever, and when we finally got up for dinner, those big brown eyes were full of gratitude. God reminded me again that day that I have one purpose, in Uganda and in life, and that is to love. I could ask for no greater assignment. Even though God reminded me in powerful ways at times, like on that day with Derek, that I was called to Uganda, there were still times in those early days when I wondered Why me? Why would God choose me to do this? But as I think through my life, I see how blessed and loved I have been. I think it is only normal that God would ask, even require, me to share this love with others who may not know it. Luke 12:48 says, From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. And I have been given so much. So this is why my everyday, crazy, chaotic life seems so normal. It is simply an ongoing, ever-changing result of what it looks like to try to love like Christ in my life. This is the spot on the map where God has asked me to do the things I dolike pour out my heart for chil-

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dren who are hungry or alone, to try to help people leave harmful work and learn skills that will help them care for their families, or to assist women who are struggling to raise their children alone. This is the place where I am supposed to follow Jesus, obey Him, and make my best effort, with His gracious help, to treat people with dignity and care for them unconditionally. To say yes to each and every thing He asks of me, to each person He places in front of me.

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