Meet
the young woman who traveled to Uganda at 18 years old and ended up building a
legacy.
What started as a one-year trip to Uganda
eventually led Katie Davis to single motherhood and a passion for the people of
Uganda that would change her life forever.
In December of 2006, 18-year-old Katie Davis from Brentwood, Tennessee,
traveled to Uganda for the first time. She
was immediately captivated with the people and the culture.
Katie always had a servant’s heart, so it should have been no
surprise when she announced on her 16th birthday that she wanted to
spend a year doing missions work before she went to college, but her parents
were shocked at her desire to go to Africa.
“As most parents do, both my mom and my dad wanted to do everything they
could to guarantee me a successful, comfortable life, and they felt the best
way to secure a ‘good’ future for me was to provide me with a college education
that would prepare me for a career, “ Katie says.
After finishing high school, Katie convinced her parents to let her
spend a year in Uganda – as long as she promised to return home to attend
college. That was 2007. In 2008, after spending a year teaching
children at a Uganda orphanage, Katie founded Amazima Ministries, an
organization whose main purpose is child sponsorship.
Hundreds of children are now able to go to school and have the
medical supplies they need to thrive because of Amazima’s financial
support. It didn’t take long for Katie
to fall in love with the children she helped on a daily basis. She did not initially plan on adopting 13
children, but she followed her calling and confirmed she should love them and
give them a home as her very own. Nine years and 13 daughters
later, Katie is more in love with Uganda than when she first arrived.
In an interview in
2011, Katie said, “When people
come into my story from this side of things, they might say, “Oh, this girl has
this organization and all of these children – either she’s totally crazy or
she’s gotta be incredible. ‘I’m neither, but the story started with one open
door of going to this third-world country.
I said yes, and then God placed needs in front of me, and I tried to
meet them in the best way I could.”’
There simply are
not enough hours in the day to write about all that Katie has accomplished in
Uganda or the extraordinary way she choose a path less traveled, going against
everything her parents had prepared for her to have a “successful” life. I encourage you to read her book, Kisses from
Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption. What a humbling story. I encourage each of you to find your passion,
if you don’t already know what it is, and go after it! #likeaboss
You’re amazing, Katie Davis, we
are so inspired by you!
Learn more about Amazima here.
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