Kisses from Katie

In this chapter Katie turns 20, and she reflects on all that’s happened in the last year. When people ask her how she’s accomplished so much, she always says, “It’s just a little bit of coffee and a whole lot of Jesus” (131). She doesn’t take credit for what she’s done because she believes that it’s by God’s grace that she’s able to do anything. After finishing one semester of college, she decides that it’s not for her and she’s eager to return to Uganda.

“One Day…December 29, 2008”

She believes that God often does give us more than we can handle, because it’s only when we’re in over our heads that we fully surrender to Him—and in this surrender, He meets us and takes over.

Back in Uganda, Katie is once again overjoyed to reunite with her daughters. She had been gone “for only four months, but it felt like a lifetime. I didn’t have words to adequately express the deep joy I felt over being home” (139). Soon after her return, a biological sister of two of her daughters joins their family. While in the United States, Katie raised enough money to sponsor over 200 children. She once again sends her friend Oliver to find the neediest children to receive sponsorship. Looking at the children who have been in the program for a year, she’s amazed at how much healthier they look and how much they’ve grown. Seeing this gives her a “renewed sense of purpose and energy” (142).

One morning, her children wake her up and tell her that they’ve found some children who need help. They take her to an abandoned house where seven starving, filthy, and sick children are lying on the floor. She nurses the children back to health, and their parents are eventually located. The youngest, Jane, isn’t a biological sibling and was abandoned. Katie adopts her.

“One Day…Sunday, February 8, 2009, God of the Impossible.”

While others look at Katie and wonder if the stories she tells are real, she assures them that yes, they are real, and it’s all because of God. 

Katie says that during this season of her life, the theme “seemed to be ‘more.’ God was expanding everything, including my family” (155). She adopts another daughter but then decides she has to say no to any more adoptions because she feels at capacity. However, an elderly woman starts coming by, begging Katie to take her two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter who can’t walk or talk. Katie says no, feeling incapable of caring for a special needs daughter. However, one night she hears God tell her that her next daughter’s name will be Sarah. After caring for a little girl in the sponsorship program named Tibita, Katie is surprised to learn that the elderly woman who had been coming to her door is also Tibita’s grandmother—and the two-and-a-half-year old’s name is Sarah. She ends up adopting her but renames her Grace, and she also adopts her sister, Tibita.

“One Day…Monday, February 9, 2009”

She recalls a moment when the power was out and she was serving dinner to her daughters in the dark. As everyone is sitting down to eat, she realizes that Joyce is missing. She panics but come to find out she fell asleep under the kitchen table. She also recalls how a rat died behind the oven and she had to clean up its rotting corpse. 

Although she didn’t finish college, Katie believes that “following God is an education of its own” (171). In this chapter she talks about all the lessons God has taught her: “God cares about my feelings” (172), parenting is hard, God is amazing, and God loves us.

“One Day…July 3, 2009”

She contemplates how so many people call her Mommy but how it’s intimate and personal when any of her 14 daughters call her that; this makes her think of the way it must feel for our heavenly Father when we call out to Him.