A few weeks ago, I attended a conference in Atlanta and had the privilege of hearing from Katie Davis, a remarkable young woman with a story full of so much sacrifice that I found it almost impossible to believe.
This remarkable young woman from Brentwood, Tennessee had the kind of life that teenage girls envy: student body president, homecoming queen, a boyfriend, a sports car, and plans to head to college. She turned her back on all of it to launch a sponsorship program for needy children in Uganda. Today, at age 22, she is the mother of 14 girls (yes, you read that right) and leads a child sponsorship ministry that cares for over 400 children, providing them with an education, food, and medical care.
Her story blows me away. I don’t have a category for someone like her. Yes, she's young, but wow, her sacrifice and humble trust in God inspires me. For those of us living in the USA who claim to follow Christ, it is easy to learn a lot about Jesus without really doing what he said to do. In her book, Kisses from Katie she writes, "As I learned more and more of what Jesus said, I liked the lifestyle I saw around me less and less...Slowly but surely I began to realize the truth: I had loved and admired and worshipped Jesus without doing what he said.”
For her personally, this realization led to her serving the poor in Uganda. She writes, “I fell in love with a beautiful country of gracious, joyful people and immense poverty and squalor that begged me to do more. It was happening in so many ways, and I couldn’t deny it. I wanted to actually do what Jesus said to do.”
“So I quit my life.”
Not all of us who follow Christ will be led down a path that leads to a third world country, but her response to Jesus’ command to take care of the poor and sick sure makes me want to reexamine how I live my life and makes me want to live with more intentionality w
You can learn more about her ministry here, follow her blog here, and learn more of her story by watching the video below.
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