A Read Worth The Time And Challenge

I finally finished a book I've been reading for about a year now called "Kisses From Katie." No, it's not a romance novel so you can keep reading!

My wife recommended it (actually she didn't stop talking about it for weeks) and so I finally downloaded it and picked away at it whenever I could.

So, now maybe I won't stop talking about it for weeks.

The book is written by a woman named Katie Davis who visited Uganda in her late teens and was touched so deeply by the suffering and need of the people there that she couldn't not do something about it. Within a short time she went again to Uganda permanently.

Here is the web site of the organization that she started and runs in Uganda.

The book is heavily laden with talk of God and how her experiences with the poorest, most hungry, most destitute, sickest, and most people has both revealed much about God to her and how greatly her work there has been the means for her to mature in ways that would have not been possible any other way.

To be honest it took me so long to read it because every time I did I would walk away completed wrecked over how much stuff I have, how much I want more stuff, and yet how little I appreciate the people that truly matter.

She has a wonderful way of writing that allowed me, if it is possible, to see what she sees day in and day out. Frequently chapters are separated by a journal entry of fears, joys, and sadness that she experienced along the way.

Here are just a few of the quotes that really struck me as I read. The whole book has been a real challenge to emulate her response to the needs of the truly needy rather than just internalize some measure of academic understanding that such a need exists.

While visiting her family in the United States: "I hadn't realized what a transformation had taken place while I had been in Uganda, the spiritual richness I had experienced in material poverty and the spiritual poverty I felt now in a land of material wealth."

"I can miss the will of God. [There was a] rich young [man that met Jesus who] certainly did. He didn't fall dead, as [others in the Bible who ignored God] did; and maybe he went on to live a great life, but it wasn't the life he could have lived had he said yes to what Jesus was asking of him."

"We must know sorrow to be able to fully appreciate joy. Joy costs pain, but the pain is worth it. After all, the murder [of Jesus] had to take place before the resurrection."