When I first visited the Amazima site I was taken in by the picture in the header and the blog tagline…”on earth as it is in heaven.” I proceeded to read the post that I had linked to from Facebook. The story captivated me and I spent quite a lot of time perusing the blog and being more and more affected as I went. This website is testament to one girl’s desire to show the world love and to make one part of this earth as it is in heaven.
Amazima Ministries International was started by nineteen year old Katie Davis. Katie visited Uganda, East Africa in 2006 and was touched by the orphans she saw there. The plight of these children wasn’t something she could forget. In 2007 Katie gave up everything she had in the United States and moved to Uganda to minister to the poor. At an age when other girls are thinking about college, careers, and boys Katie could only think of those poor hearts that have no one to love them and nurture them.
The reality of how much Katie has sacrificed is evident in every post. She writes honestly of what one would consider the challenges of living in a third world country. Yet she takes it all in stride when the electricity is out for a week at a time or she finds she has a parasite in her digestive tract because of the unsanitary conditions she encounters. Nothing about her life is the same anymore.
What did you do Saturday night? My regular Saturday routine is to go to church with my Dad and have dinner with the family. It was my turn for dinner this week and I managed to cook dinner without burning up one of my modern appliances. Every Saturday Katie feeds 200 children dinner, she bathes them, and she loves them. They have a huge slumber party with children sleeping all over her house. In the morning she feeds them a warm, hearty breakfast and sends them home refreshed. Every Saturday night she does this. I cook dinner for my family of five only once every three weeks and sometimes that seems like a lot. I am in awe of this one young girl that I have never met.
Katie is 20 years old and she has a family here in the States that love her very much. She misses them and loves them. In Uganda this 20 year old has a family of 14 orphans that live with her and that she takes care of every day. This is a huge responsibility for anyone, much less a 20 year old living in a third world country. But every day she gets up and she continues on. She is determined to love these children with everything she has.
Among the many things she has learned while in Uganda is that there is no public school system and that it is expensive for children to go to school. Katie decided to change that so she created a sponsorship program that currently sends 400 children to school. She decided she needed to build a school for the children so she found land near her home that she can buy for $6,000 and she set out to find a way to raise the money. More information about helping Katie can be found on her website, Amazima Ministries International.
I knew there had to be some meaning behind the name of her foundation. Amazima is the Lugandan word meaning the truth of Christ. What an appropriate name for this ministry. Katie is out there every day showing the truth of Christ. She is his hands and feet in Uganda. She is His love pouring forth to the orphans who need it most. She has given her life over to Christ so that He can work through her. The truth of Christ is that if we all listened to Him our lives would probably be very different; I know mine would.
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