February 27, 2014

I recently read the book Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. This book is about a young high school girl who feels Gods calling for her to go serve him in Uganda. After struggling with the idea, her parents decide to let her go, but her mom accompanies her. When she gets to Uganda she falls in love with the country and decides she must stay longer and longer, until eventually she ends up living there. Although her parents really wanted her to attend college she decides to listen to God’s call and stay in Uganda to serve. Katie taught kindergarten, started an organization to help kids who can’t afford school and serves just about anyone she can. She even ends up adopting 14 girls! Later she decides that she must please her earthly father as well as her heavenly Father because thats what He commands us, so she ends up taking a semester of college for nursing school but she misses Uganda so much she couldn’t wait to go back.  She struggles with the fact that where she grew up is so blessed compared to where other people are living in the world. She describes that in Uganda she feels at home for real because she is doing God’s call and is closer to him. In Tennessee she feels farther away from God and struggles with the fact that half the world has more than it needs and the other doesn’t have enough.

Near the end of the book one of Katies adopted girls named Jane’s birth mom shows up and decides she want her daughter back after abandoning her for four years. Katie describes this as “Practically ripping her heart out having to give a girl who’s been promised to have a forever mommy back to the one whose abandoned her” this is an example of a hyperbole because it’s an exaggeration as tough as it would be to give a child away. Each time in the book Katie adopt another girls she describes their personalities. Once she adopted Jane she says “Jane is also my like my little songbird”. This is an example of a simile because Jane may sing a lot but she is a human being and not a song bird. Another example is when Katie was treating seven little kids living in an abandoned house down the street and she says “Then, it hit me like a brick, these kids need a mom.” Because a brick didn’t actually hit her when she realized they needed a mom.

This book has really impacted me because by the way Katie is so dependent on God, the book has really drawn me closer to Him and taught me how to lean on him through everything as well as her connections to scripture. This book also made me more thankful after hearing about the living condition of these people on the other side of the world. It hurt me to hear about how there are two year olds and younger living in places like these that have experienced more pain and hurt than I or most people I know will ever experience in a lifetime. This book has also helped me to look differently at life. I strongly admire the way that Katie explains and accepts the poverty and sin of the world. Lately, that has been something I have also been questioning God about-the brokenness of the world. The way she also levels and humbles herself to the way she serves really connected me more to the understanding of the our theme for the school year of “Go”. I feel very strongly about this book and pray that God will help me to see the way he would like me to serve him. I would definitely recommend this book to all!