Where You Are Planted

Do you ever read about someone doing something so awesome, or extraordinary, and then think to yourself…what am I doing with my life?

I felt that way when I read about Katie Davis.  At the age of seventeen, she went to Uganda for a ten month trip to help teach kindergarten.  Upon her return to the U.S., she couldn’t get away from the pull she had to go back to Uganda. Most people thought she was crazy, including her own family.  Giving up college to go take care of poor kids in Africa?

In 2008, she started Amazima Ministries, which exists to feed and educate orphaned, vulnerable Ugandan children.  She is also now the adoptive mother of thirteen oprhans (at the tender age of twenty-two years old.)

Does this make sense?  This type of radical life?  Giving up everything you have and could have, to care for those who have nothing and will never have anything?  No, not to most people.  But after reading a few of Katie’s blog posts, it is obvious from Whom she draws her strength.

This still leaves me feeling very helpless in terms of reaching out where I am.  I have two kids, my husband has a job, we can’t go to Africa and take care of orphans.  But maybe that is not where we are called.  Maybe we are called to be here, right in the middle of the MOST suburban life you could imagine, to be advocates.  Maybe we are called to encourage our friends and family to think about sponsoring a child in another country.  Maybe we are called to foster kids right here in our own country, or adopt internationally one day.  Maybe we are raising children with a global view who will go out and take care of orphans in Africa one day like Katie does. Or maybe we will encourage a friend to help rescue trafficking victims in Thailand.  We don’t know our influence.

Bloom where you are planted, because there is a reason you were planted here.

________________________________________________________________________

The author of this post is Katie (not Katie Davis) who believes that she has experienced grace by knowing Jesus, trusting in Him as her ultimate hope. She is also a nurse and a mom who loves the orphaned, abandoned, and those looked down upon in our society. To hear more from Katie, check out her blog at: http://katiesprettylittlelife.blogspot.com/ or check out another of her posts here, Poverty vs. Indifference: An Advocate’s Hope or Art of Advocacy: Being Thankful When I’ve Never Been Without.

________________________________________________________________________

Amazima Ministries

If you would like to learn about Amazima Ministries: Helping to Educate and Empower the People of Uganda with God’s Love, check out their website here.

If you would like to learn more about Katie Davis, you can check out this current interview with her by clicking here.

This book, Kisses from Katie, has also been released by Amazima to share Katie’s story: