Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis

This books was on the list for my church reading group. I was not particularly looking forward to it. I mean the title doesn't exactly grab you.

But the book is one of the most remarkable and mind-blowing stories I have read. It just does not add up. Katie was the senior class president and homecoming queen at her high school in the wealthy suburbs of Nashville. She went on a short mission trip to Uganda at Christmas break of her senior year. And her heart never left. Against the hopes and desires of her parents and friends and boyfriend, she returned to Uganda after graduation, promising that she would come back in a year and go to school

Well she never really returned in spirit. She started out teaching school in Uganda but ended up adopting 13 children--probably more by now--and starting a ministry. I can't tell you how unexpected this story is.

One of the biggest takeaways for me was the story of the mother whose culture told her that it was not her responsibility to care for her husband's child by an earlier marriage. The birth mother had died and the father and new wife nearly emotionally and physically starved the boy to death. Katie took him to her home (in Uganda) to wash his sores and diseases and give him food. He was skin and bones, listless, and covered in sores and filth. Eventually, after several attempts of returning the child to his home and then bringing him back to her house to clean and feed, the woman and father began taking care of him. Truly an amazing story that makes you wonder what your own culture has told you is acceptable. We are very blind to what our culture teaches us. Like fish in water, we just don't see it until someone or something shows us a higher reality.