Kisses from Katie

Katie has fallen in love with her life in Uganda, and she can’t imagine ever returning to the United States, even though her parents still expect her to return and go to college. However, she returns to raise money for her nonprofit and to visit family. On the plane ride to Tennessee, she thought she would be excited to be going back home, but instead “I realized I didn’t really feel I was going home; I was simply returning to the place I’d been raised, going to visit my family and friends” (83).

She can’t adjust back to life in the United States, and she feels estranged from her family and friends. They all think she should feel relieved to be back, but instead she feels like “my soul had been ripped from my body, that my purpose had suddenly been ripped from my being” (85). She feels upset to see the abundance of food that Americans have to eat and how much they waste when people in Uganda are dying from starvation.

Katie likens herself to the Velveteen Rabbit from the story she remembers reading in her childhood. In the story, a little boy loves his stuffed rabbit so much that it begins to fall apart. When the boy gets sick, the doctor recommends that the stuffed rabbit be thrown away. The stuffed rabbit’s lifelong wish is to become a real rabbit, and once he’s been reduced to tatters and thrown away, his wish comes true. Katie arrived in Uganda fresh and new, but soon “beautiful, dirty people who populated my life had loved all the polish and propriety right off me” (86). She realizes that her purpose for being back in America is to raise money and awareness for those who don’t have a voice in Uganda.

“One Day…May 7, 2008, Amazima Ministries”

Katie names her nonprofit Amazima, which means “the truth.” Her purpose, besides feeding, clothing, and educating Uganda’s neediest children, is to show them love so that they can understand God’s love for them. 

Back in Uganda, Katie feels overjoyed to be back with her daughters. She realizes that Uganda is home and that it’s where she can best fulfill the purpose God has given her in life. She also doesn’t feel as far away from her family in the United States because she realizes that people everywhere are essentially the same: “human beings are hungry for God; they long to live lives filled with purpose and love” (95). She doesn’t think she’s brave for doing what she does; she believes she’s just doing what she should according to God’s will.

While feeding and playing with the children in Amazima’s sponsorship program, Katie notices that Shadia, a little girl, and her siblings all have scabies. When she visits their home, she realizes why: All eight siblings sleep on a pile of rags, feces, and filth in a corner of a one-room shack. Katie cares for the children at her home until they are free from scabies. She believes that the reason more people don’t help others is because they are afraid that “if we gave everything away, we wouldn’t have enough for ourselves” (100). She doesn’t think everyone has to move to Uganda, but she does believe that everyone should be helping others in some way.

She recalls how one evening, while in the nearby town of Jinja, she saw a young boy standing in the rain by himself. She gave him a biscuit, juice, her sweatshirt, and enough change to get a ride home. A year later, she sees this same boy, and he remembers her. He tells her that he prayed for her every day after that encounter.

“One Day…Wednesday, July 23, 2008”

After caring for the siblings with scabies, Katie helps their aunt and dying grandmother clean the shack. Katie bleaches the home and gives the children actual blankets and mats to sleep on, and the relatives are speechless with gratitude. 

Katie balances running a nonprofit and being a mother. She adopts another little girl, Sarah, whose mother had just died. Eventually, she feels split between her life in Uganda and the promise that she made to her parents in America. She decides to go back to the United States to complete one semester of college to make her parents happy, and she intends to do the rest of her degree online.

“One Day…September 2, 2008”

Katie talks about how in the Bible, God often chose ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things, and she feels like an “ordinary person serving an extraordinary God” (118).