Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption
Page 23
This year, there has been watermelon juice on eager chins and early-morning giggles in bed and negative HIV tests. This year, there has been ice cream and clean, cold tile and peace that passes understanding and contentment, hands full or hands empty. There has been laundry flapping on the line, all pink, and there has been newborn baby warmth on my chest and there have been strangers who have become family.
All of these things, good and perfect gifts from a Father who just loves to love. All of the way, His strong arms carrying us.
A year ago I stood in my backyard and I screamed Jesus’ name as I gripped tightly a four-year-old who was about to be taken away. I cried His name and I pleaded for His mercy. And when they took her away anyway, when the court ruled not to give her back, it was so easy to believe the lie that He had not shown up. But faithful, intimate Jesus never lost the twinkle in His eye. He was there. I was still one of His favorite people, and He was waiting to surprise me.
Five months after Jane was taken from our home, she and her birth mother, Nancy, showed up at our gate. They were sick. Nancy had lost her job and they had been evicted from their house. They had nowhere to go and I had no choice but to open my door, and my heart, a little bit wider. We welcomed Jane back into our family, but this time, plus one.
Wounds from Nancy’s past made her defensive, deceptive, and untrusting. Jane was not the same little girl she had been just months ago; she was traumatized and confused, and my heart broke as I watched her play cautiously with her sisters and call two women Mom. I did not think I could do it. I did not think I had enough. Not enough love, not enough grace, not enough strength to deal with this. I had asked for my daughter back, but this was not how I had wanted it. And Jesus was asking for crazy trust, and crazy obedience.
I knew I was not to withhold my love from them, even though they would leave again and, of course, it would hurt again. As days went by of speaking love and healing over Jane and Nancy while filling them with good meals and good fellowship, I was able to find Nancy a job translating with Christine and helping her care for the sick in Masese. She began saving as she lived with us and soon it was time for her and Jane to be their own family, still close friends, but separate from our family. It felt like ripping my heart out all over again to watch them walk away, to go live in a house that is just down the street from ours, but I knew it was right. And He was enough where I wasn’t.
Today, Nancy is becoming a friend and Jane is blossoming as her daughter. We see them multiple times each week if not daily. They still eat at our table, Jane plays dolls with the girls, and I spend long hours on the couch praying with Nancy. Nancy has become filled with compassion over the plight of the Karimojong in Masese and the injustices they face. Yesterday, Jane brought me her kindergarten report card proudly, wrapped those sweet arms around my neck, and kissed my face before happily skipping off to walk home, hand in hand with her mother. And I believe with every fiber of my being that it is better this way.
My Jesus looks at Nancy with that twinkle in His eye, too. Because Nancy is one of His favorites. This Father, in His marvelous grace, had something so much better in mind. He did not just want Jane to have a family, He wanted Nancy to have one, too. He did not merely want Jane to know Him, He wanted Nancy to know Him, too.
“Surprise, I am right here. Surprise, it is just as I said it would be. Surprise, I am exactly enough, everything you need, all over again.”
I prayed and He could have pulled the answer right out of His pocket. But He didn’t, because He loves me too much and His way is better.
Just as a parent delights in playing with and surprising her children, just as I delight in throwing my already-pajama-clad clan into the van for a spur of the moment, late-night ice cream run or putting little gifts and notes of encouragement on their pillows, so He is with me. I can laugh with my Father because He is a parent who delights in surprising His children, a friend who loves doing something extra special for His closest pal. I can laugh with Jesus, because He is too good to me. Life changes in an instant and we are but grass that withers. And God holds all of the chaos in the palm of His hand, giving even the pain a purpose.
It is Christmas again, and last year we were minus one but this year we are plus two. Nancy tells Jane to eat her turkey because it will make her strong, but she never was much of a meat eater. And I smile watching Jane become her daughter and Nancy become a mother. In that moment in the backyard, God did not forget to rescue us. He just needed to rescue someone else with us.
A year later I can say, “Yes, this year has been the hardest yet. Really, though, it has also been the best. And I would do it all again if He asked me to.” Because faithful God did not let go of our hands. I am young and I know that the most difficult times are not behind us. But as I rest in Him and draw near I am learning much and I am remembering that I am one of His favorites. And even in the middle of a storm, even when I can’t see the good yet, He can. And He is looking at me with that twinkle in His eye, just waiting to surprise.
A NOTE ABOUT ADOPTION
Since the release of Kisses from Katie, I have received several inquiries about the Ugandan adoption process. While it is briefly described on page 61, I would greatly encourage all families who are currently living in the United States and desiring to adopt to do thorough research into the fostering, legal guardianship, and final adoption process before considering Ugandan adoption. The U.S. Department of State gives a description of the process here: http://adoption.state.gov/country_information/country_specific_info.php?country-select=uganda. The Children Act, detailing Ugandan law pertaining to children, can be found here: http://www.aclr.info/images/stories/uploader/Publication_files/Acts/The_Children_Act_Uganda.pdf.
In writing Kisses from Katie, it was never my intent to encourage adoption from Uganda specifically. My goal was simply to encourage readers to seek Jesus in how they can best love and serve the poor and vulnerable in their own communities and around the world. I am so blessed by Uganda and the family God has so graciously given me. I am praying for you as you seek after and say “yes” to Him.
A CONVERSATION WITH KATIE DAVIS
What aspects of your upbringing in Brentwood, Tennessee, prepared you for your most unconventional life in Uganda?
My father taught me that people want to be heard and understood, and he encouraged me to be genuinely kind and respectful to everyone who crossed my path. My mother taught me to be grounded in what I believe and to cling to that faith no matter what. They both were incredible examples of our Heavenly Father’s self-sacrificial love, and I am truly blessed to call them my parents. I spent a fair amount of time in high school volunteering at domestic violence shelters and halfway houses in Nashville. I cherished my time with the people there and carried many of the lessons God taught me during that time with me to Uganda.
You’re the founder of a thriving international nonprofit, an author, a single mother of thirteen young girls, and a care provider to more than six hundred needy children. When do you sleep? Seriously, how do you balance your professional obligations with the demands of a large family?
Well, I don’t sleep much. Truly, God has blessed me incredibly with so many people who help me carry out this calling. I do not do it alone. I have an incredible staff here in Uganda, a great board and staff in the States, and many volunteers. I have wonderfully supportive friends and family, both here in Uganda and in the United States, and an absolutely unbelievable Savior whose power is made perfect in my weakness! As a rule, though, I fill up on Jesus first, serve my children and run our household second, and then meet all the other needs that are thrown my way. My children are awesome ministry partners and love to serve alongside me. In my life, there is no separation between job, ministry, or home life—everyone is family and everything is done for Jesus, all the time. Each morning as we wake up, our goal is simply to be available: to one another, to the sick who come needing medicine, to the homeless man on the sidewalk, to the short-term missionary seeking community
in a new place . . . just available to share the love of Jesus with whoever God puts in front of us. I am so thankful for the opportunity to teach my children this.
How often do your parents and your brother journey to see you in Uganda? To what extent have they embraced your life’s work and your young family as their own?
I am so incredibly blessed by my family. They are hugely supportive and encouraging. Mom gets to spend the most time here, sometimes several months at a time, but Dad and Brad visit as often as they can (about once a year). When they can’t be here they call often and text nearly every day, just to let me know I am loved, supported, and prayed for. They adore the girls and it is mutual. One of our favorite things to do on a Saturday night is Skype with Jja Ja and Papa (this is what they call my parents)!
Your story is truly inspirational. Whom do you personally look to for inspiration and why?
Jesus Christ the Risen Lord and Savior. I try and I try to live selflessly and to love others as God loves them, and I still fall short. I would absolutely not give myself to such torture as a cross for this crazy, broken world, and I am so thankful to serve a King who did. He made Himself low, touching the sick and washing feet. I strive and I beg to be a little more like Him with each breath.
As a single woman in Uganda, why are you forbidden from adopting a little boy?
Forbidden is a little strong. The law of Uganda states that unmarried men and women must adopt children of the same sex; however, one can get away with adopting the opposite sex if the judge deems it in the best interest of the child. I have known a few single women to successfully adopt boys. Quite honestly, though, God has never brought me a little boy who I felt strongly was to be a part of our family.
You believe poverty and hunger could be eliminated if faithful people gave more of their surplus to those in need. Why do you think these problems are still so entrenched worldwide?
I also believe that God is sovereign. That just as He has intended, so it has happened, and just as He has planned, so it will stand (see Isaiah 14:24). While I think Christians are called to be doing more about the world’s hurt than many of us are doing, I also fully believe that God sees all who are hurting and suffering and knows what is right and best far better than I do, and He will use all of this mess for His good anyway. In the book and in my blog when I talk about people giving more I am speaking mostly to people who look at the poverty and hurt in this world and ask, “Where is God?” God is right here living inside the hearts of all who believe. So maybe the question is, “Where are we?”
You describe the adoption of your daughter Grace as a moment when you had to rely even more completely on God. Can you talk a bit about this experience and your journey as a parent and believer?
So much has happened since then that I hardly remember that time in my life as being difficult. In the last nine months, I have had a child I intended to adopt return to her biological mother; I have fostered newborn babies whom I fell in love with and then gave to another mom; I have had at least twelve different homeless people or families live in my house and two of them die of terminal illness. I have held mothers’ children in my lap as they breathed their last, and I have had to walk thirteen precious little souls through all this pain. Yesterday I looked deep into a mother’s eyes and told her that I remember what it feels like to go home without your baby. That I know what it feels like to wake up each morning and not want to be this woman. That we can only hurt this deep because we loved, were loved, and that love is how we keep living sometimes. Life just gets harder, but there is purpose in the hard. That is how God’s grace works, I think. I believe I am at my wit’s end, that this must be the hardest moment of my life, and He carries me. Then I reach the harder moments, laugh at myself for once thinking I had done the hardest moment of my life already, and remember how He carried me. He always carries us. The hard places, the desert places, they mold us and they teach us who we really are—broken and completely dependent on God’s grace to give us one more day.
How do you combat the inevitable spiritual droughts in your life? How do you sustain your personal relationship with God?
I believe that the Holy Spirit lives in me and with me, and I talk to Him throughout each and every day. I murmur my thanks and my frustrations and my joys and my sorrows to God, who is alive and with me always. There are always hard moments and then moments that are harder still, but there are no droughts when we drink from a well that never runs dry.
What would your readers be surprised to know about you?
Most days, I am kind of a mess. People who read my blog assume that because I am able to express my heart well, I have it all together. This is not true. The laundry piles, and I go to bed with dirty dishes still in the sink. My tongue hurls unkind words at my children before I have even thought about what I am saying. I can’t even find my keys some days. We do not have it together around here. But my prayer is that as we invite people into our home and into our mess they feel free to be real—to express their weakness and their filth and know that they belong because we too are broken and in need of a Savior’s grace. I pray that in our brokenness we would shine Jesus to everyone who comes into our home and be an example of His redemptive love.
I also love to cook. The more people around my table, the better. Some days, it is just me and my thirteen daughters who circle our huge table, but more often than not there are at least five or six extra—a homeless person in need of a warm meal, a family who has taken refuge in our guest room, a lonely grandmother in need of a family, or maybe a friend of one or two of my girls. This kind of hospitality was not always easy for me (nor was learning to cook for twenty or thirty people at a time). This lifestyle of sharing and inviting others in—to sit at my table, to rest on my couch, to shower in our bathrooms, and to sleep in our beds—goes against everything our culture teaches about valuing personal space and privacy. I used to find it inconvenient, disruptive, even uncomfortable. But God continued to stretch me more and more and to teach me that this interruptible, public lifestyle is the way He desires me to live and to love. So we welcome all to our table. And I smile while I chop pounds and pounds of vegetables, praying that as people are filled physically at my table they will be filled spiritually in our home.
How has your blog, www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com, opened your life up to the world? What has it enabled you to share?
I never meant for my life to be so public. My blog was originally for only a handful of close friends and family and I truly expected it to stay that way. Sometimes if I think about it too hard it can be a little scary how much people know about my life and my family, how many people can see my heart and my weakness just laid bare on the Internet. I believe in hard honesty, though, and my hope is that even one person will see the Savior through my life or be encouraged in his or her walk through my words. The notes and comments I get from readers bless my heart and encourage me. I am so thankful for the Body of Christ.
You have written that we are called by God to “love with abandon.” How has that path changed you as a person?
There is truly no greater gift than to give yourself away. The more we give the more He fills, and this is fullness of joy. I give and I trust Him, and as I trust, I overflow with joy and peace (see Romans 15:13). We pour out and He fills us, time and again.
Few people would change their lives as you have. What would you like readers of Kisses from Katie to take away from your book and your experience?
I would like them to know that God uses us in our brokenness. We simply have to be willing. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that my life would look like this—I am a normal, flawed, selfish, ungraceful human being. Why would He use me? Because He created me in His image and delights in me and can pour His wholeness and perfectness and extravagant grace into any open hand or heart that is surrendered to Him. If He can use me, He can use anyone.
Mom and me with the children at the orphanage on our very first trip (Christmas 2006)
Fatuma,
Ato, and Maria taking a break from learning (2007)
My first kindergarten class, hard at work! (2007)
Hellen and Mommy (2008) Photograph by Renee Bach
Sisters walking home arm in arm: Sumini, Mary, Scovia (2008)
Our big pot of beans that we cook for Saturday Bible studies (2008)
One of the sponsored-children packages (2008)
With some of the children in our sponsorship program (2009)
The market (2009)
Serving up food with Christine (2009)
Dancing with a friend in Masese (2009)
The children of Masese (2009)
Hungry children waiting for their food, even in the rain (2009)
Napongo and Alapea, our Karimojong friends
Jane and Grace (March 2009)
Agnes and Auntie Christine (August 2009) Photograph by Kristin Laughlin
Dad, Jane, and Agnes (August 2009) Photograph by Kristin Laughlin
With my not-so-little brother, Brad, and Gracie (August 2009)
Suzanne on her first trip to adopt Josephine, and me with Patricia (September 2009)
Removing jiggers and bandaging feet (2009) Photograph by Kristin Laughlin