Kisses from Katie

“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.” 

When Katie first goes to Uganda during a high school missionary trip to volunteer in an orphanage, she sees and feels no distinction between herself and the children she’s come to help. Instead, she immediately loves them, and this feeling makes her understand God’s love in a deeper way. 

“And in that 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.” 

Before this moment, Katie comforts a little boy named Derek who hurt his head. She feels grateful that God put them together in this moment, and that she was able to be there to comfort him in his pain—had she not been there, he would have presumably been alone with no one to comfort him. This is one of the first instances in which Katie fully realizes her responsibility and role within the community; She understands that God has put her there to love and care for the neediest children—to be a mother to the motherless.

“The physical environment of Uganda is one huge paradox: amazing, breathtaking beauty juxtaposed against immense poverty and desolation. My life—especially my emotions—hung in the balance between absolutely loving my new life in Uganda and battling severe loneliness.” 

Katie says that after moving to Uganda, her new life is full of contradictions. Despite feeling like God has called her to Uganda and that she’s living her purpose, she also misses her family back in the United States. Her loneliness in Uganda is compounded by the fact that no one speaks her language, and the Ugandan way of life is so far removed from her own experiences. What keeps her going, however, is the understanding that God will see her through, no matter the difficulty she’s facing.

“As I thought about the discrepancies between the culture I came from and the one I now lived in, I could not stop thinking about my life and the lives of many of my friends from the States—and being appalled by our luxuries when people on our same planet were living in such poverty and need. I began to realize huge flaws and gaps in my faith, a wide chasm between what I proclaimed to believe and how I was actually living.” 

This is the moment that changes the course of Katie’s life. After living and working in the orphanage in Uganda and observing firsthand the differences between the United States and Uganda, she knows that she can no longer go back to her former way of life. What she’s seen and experienced has changed her so much that she is no longer who she used to be. Moreover, she realizes that she needs to do something more. This realization is what eventually leads her to start a nonprofit that uses her connections and resources from the United States to help the most impoverished and sick Ugandans. 

“Everywhere I looked in the Bible, from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of Revelation, people who believe in God are supposed to share with the poor. Helping the poor is not something God asks His people to do; it is something that, throughout all generations, He instructs us to do.” 

Katie’s understanding of the Biblical call to help the poorest in a society is what ultimately drives her ministry and personal conviction in Uganda. She believes that she’s not unique—according to the Bible, everyone is supposed to help the poor. Since she’s doing the will of God according to His word, she knows that even in the most difficult times He will help her get through. 

“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.” 

Here, Katie acknowledges the interconnected nature of the spiritual and physical realms. Only God can save our souls, she believes, but education is what allows a person to succeed in society. She notes that one of the biggest impediments for children in Uganda is being born into poverty without the resources to afford the necessities of life, including food, shelter, and education. This understanding is one of the factors that leads Katie to found her nonprofit, which sponsors the poorest Ugandan children so that they can go to school and receive a healthy meal each day. 

“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.” 

Katie admits that she didn’t come to Uganda with any skills—she came only with a desire to help. This desire and willingness to follow where God leads is what ultimately allows her to successfully start the nonprofit. The more she trusts in God, the more He equips and strengthens her for the work He’s called her to do. 

“I knew that God had brought me to Uganda not just to change my heart for Him and for the poor but to make me Mommy. I am Mommy when I gather the girls into a large circle for a family meeting and when I watch them all run and play in the local swimming pool or picnic beside the Nile River.” 

Many things happen because of Katie’s move to Uganda—not only does she start a nonprofit, but she also adopts many orphaned or abandoned Ugandan girls. However, as much as she’s changed the landscape of Uganda, she finds the people have changed her even more. She fully embraces her role as Mommy—the one who provides comfort and love to those who otherwise have no mother. 

“As I sat up late that night trying to keep her alive one minute, one breath at a time, I had to ask myself, Why do I have so much? And why have I always had so much? Why do my family and friends have so much? And do they even know that far, far away from the luxuries of the western world, a little songbird of a girl is fighting for her life? The roles could have so easily been reversed. I wondered how God had chosen me to be born into such luxury when this little girl had been born into such hopelessness.” 

In this moment, Katie is trying to save a little girl who is deathly ill with malaria. During the darkest hours of the night, she contemplates one of the most difficult to understand injustices in the world: how some people are born into luxury and never seem to suffer, while others are born into poverty and seem to suffer since the day they’re born. She doesn’t know why God allowed her to be born into luxury while so many young children die alone in Uganda, but this fact fuels her more urgently to help everyone she can.

“Adoption is a redemptive response to tragedy that happens in this broken world. And every single day, it is worth it, because adoption is God’s heart.” 

Soon after Katie moves to Uganda and starts to establish her nonprofit, she begins legally adopting orphaned or abandoned girls in the area. However, las with so many other areas of her life, she doesn’t think she’s doing anything extraordinary—she believes that she’s doing what God has called her to do. The Bible says that God has adopted us as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, so Katie believes that adoption is close to God’s heart.

“I’d been hurt and scarred and banged around a bit in the past year, but God was using all those things to help me become real. My stuffing was coming our because I’d been loved to tatters. I was coming to understand that what it means to be real is to love and be loved until there is nothing left. And when there’s nothing left, and we feel we’re all in pieces, God begins to make us whole. He makes us real. His love sets us free and transforms us.” 

Before this moment, Katie tells the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, who desperately longs to become a real rabbit but is only able to do so after he’s been essentially torn apart. After coming back to the United States, she likens herself to the Velveteen Rabbit after seeing how much she’s changed since leaving. After moving to Uganda, she feels like she’s been torn apart and rebuilt, but through the experience, God has transformed her into a real and genuine reflection of Himself. Through the sorrows, grief, and joys of the move, He’s made her new.

“People are people. They all need food and water and medicine, but mostly they need love and truth and Jesus. I can do that. We can do that. We can give people food, water, medicine, love, truth, and Jesus. The same God created all of us for a purpose, which is to serve Him and to love and care for His people. It is universal.” 

After going to the United States and coming back to Uganda, Katie is more aware than ever of the differences between the two countries—

namely, between luxury and poverty. However, she’s also more acutely aware of the similarities among all people. While the circumstances and experiences between the people in the United States and Uganda might be vastly different, humans anywhere in the world need the same essential things to survive. Besides food, water, shelter, and medicine, she believes, all people need to know the love of God. 

“I had to ask myself why I was so afraid of a relatively small animal. I’m not sure I ever answered that, but I did begin to think about how often, as human beings, we are crippled by our fears. We are afraid of change, of loss, of being hurt. We cling so tightly to what we have because we are afraid of what would happen if we didn’t have these things anymore.” 

Katie contemplates the complexity of the fact that she’s fearless in the face of difficult situations yet terrified of rats. Part of the answer to this complexity is that she trusts in God to see her through the big moments but allows fear creep into the small moments—like when she’s trying to sleep and hears a rat in her room. She realizes that fear is a common human experience, but it’s not what God wants for our life. Moreover, people are so controlled by fear that they let it prevent them from helping others in need, which is the biggest tragedy, because if people could overcome their fears to help others, then maybe everyone would have what they need.

“In Uganda, because I was so physically ‘poor,’ I was completely dependent on God and spiritually as wealthy as ever. As I sit here writing, I am frustrated with my own stupidity, my human willingness to step back into dependence on stuff and these places I swore I detested.” 

Back in the United States for college, Katie contemplates how the atmosphere of comfort and luxury has allowed her to become dependent on things instead of God. She notes this in stark contrast to her experiences in Uganda, where her physical poverty forced her to rely solely on God to meet her needs. This idea of the connection between physical poverty and spiritual riches is a theme throughout Katie’s story.

“At times, while I was attending college in the United States, I wished I were still living in the hungry, needy circumstances in which I lived in Uganda. Sometimes I felt it was easier to cling to Jesus in that state of having nothing than it was to cling to Him while surrounded by the abundance of America. Although I was not physically hungry or in need, my soul was thirstier than ever.” 

Like the previous quote, this moment emphasizes Katie’s feeling that it’s more difficult to rely on God when a person’s needs are fully met than when a person is without. When she was in Uganda living in relative poverty, she clung desperately to God knowing that He would see her through every circumstance. But when she is back in the United States, her every physical need is met, and she finds herself relying less on God because she falls into the lull of comfort. Frequently throughout her story, she points out this idea that being comfortable in wealth and luxury makes one feel farther away from God. 

“I spent the next few weeks walking around the six villages our program serves, visiting our children and even adding some. Visiting the villages is always pure joy for me. I relish being surrounded by the raw human need that seems to be on display everywhere, a true reminder of our immense need for a God and Savior. I stand in awe of the gratitude and happiness people express over their simple lives.” 

When Katie returns to Uganda, she promptly returns to her work. She feels at home in Uganda because she believes that she’s fulfilling her purpose according to the will of God in her life. She thrives amidst the poverty and sickness, feeling joy in serving people and loving them. She believes that her actions show people the love of God, and that loves helps lead people to Christ. She’s also always quick to point out how much she learns from the people of Uganda. Although they have so little, they remain joyful in their love of the Lord and life. 

“As I lay in bed in disbelief at the end of another beautifully exhausting day, I marveled with God at the ‘impossible’ things that happen in my life. And I realized, when have you ever read a story of God’s great work that made a lot of sense, a story that didn’t seem a little over the top, a little impossible? Not often. Radical, extraordinary love just doesn’t make sense in a fallen world; that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. But it is the very nature of God.” 

In this journal entry, Katie contemplates her life. While others look at her experiences and think they’re unbelievable and crazy, she believes that the seemingly impossible events that happen in her life are only possible because of God’s radical love working in her life to reach others. She admits that God’s love looks extraordinary in the context of our fallen world, and that’s why people look at her life in disbelief. 

“I believe in miracles and mostly I believe in love, God’s love—big, extravagant, unconditional. His love moves mountains and changes the world, love that is freely given, that we may also freely give it to others. I wrote to friends and family all over the world and many believers joined our family in asking God to heal Grace.” 

Before this moment, Katie adopts a toddler named Sarah, whom she renames Grace. Grace can’t walk or talk. After taking her to various doctors and receiving the grim news that her condition will probably only get worse, Katie begins reaching out to everyone she knows in the hopes that they can all pray for Grace’s recovery. Grace does eventually learn to walk and talk, beating the odds the doctors gave her, and Katie acknowledges that miracles happen and they are a result of God’s vast love.

“Lesson: Everything can teach you something. God so deeply, passionately, desperately loves us. He so intensely longs for His lover, the church, to come back to His teachings of giving everything we have to serve the poor, of living in community. He wants to woo us, each one of us, as we are the body who make up the church.” 

In this chapter, Katie talks about all the different lessons she’s learned from God while in Uganda. Here, she acknowledges how much God loves us. For her, God’s love is manifest in every facet of her daily life in Uganda. His love is why she’s in Uganda at all and able to share His love with the children around her. She sees her actions as an extension of the love that God has shown her.

“My heart was being broken. The situations with Michael and Patricia and so many other children were breaking it every day. While I never lost my love or compassion for the children, I did sometimes lose my patience with the circumstances in which they were living.” 

Katie acknowledges one of the ways her work in Uganda breaks her heart. She loves and helps as many children in need as she can, but there are too many for her to help them all. Sometimes, even when she tries to help, the child may still die. While these situations are heartbreaking, her love for the children and the conviction that every single life matters are what keep her going.

“What the Bible does not mention, but what must be true is that, years later, Lazarus still died. The people Jesus healed were inevitably sick again at some point in their lives. The people Jesus fed miraculously were hungry again a few days later. More important than the very obvious might and power shown by Jesus’ miracles is His love. He loved these people enough to do everything in His power to ‘make it better.’ He entered into their suffering and loved them right there.” 

Here, Katie acknowledges that Jesus’s miracles were and are demonstrations of His might and power, but at the heart they are signs of His love. His individual miracles didn’t end suffering for each person forever, but they did show each person how much He loved and cared for them on a personal level. She knows that we aren’t supposed to save every person in the world, but we are called to love everyone in the selfless kind of way that God first loves us.

“I shudder to think what I could have missed in life because of my disobedience. I am so thankful that God in His grace does not allow me to win. Because usually, the fight is not really about what He is asking me to do. It is not about the bathtub. It is about me, trying to figure out just how much control I have over my little life. At this point, not much.” 

Before this moment, Katie tells the story of how one of her youngest daughters, Grace, refuses to take baths. It’s only after much convincing and stern reinforcement that Grace begrudgingly gets in the bath. By the end, however, she’s having so much fun that she doesn’t want to get out. Katie likens this story to her experience with God. She so often doesn’t want to go where God is leading her, thinking that she knows a better way, but when she trusts in God everything turns out well because he always knows best. 

“That night, as I lay in bed, I was sad. I missed Jja Ja Grace’s sweet personality and her kisses and her whispers in my ear. More than I was sad, though, I was so thankful for our time with her; and I remain full of love and deeply thankful for her. I am thankful for what we learned from her and what she learned from us, thankful that God sets the lonely in families, and brought her into ours. And I am beyond thankful that she is now safe with Him.” 

Katie experiences death a lot throughout her story, but she always remains joyful amidst her sadness because she knows that the person is now with God and away from their former suffering. This is especially true of Jja Ja Grace, who was suffering with AIDS and tuberculosis. Although Katie and her family are sad to not have her in their life anymore, Katie is thankful that they could show her God’s love before she died.