I never explained the "Amazima" site that suddenly appeared a little while back, so I thought I should. Hopefully you have already gotten a chance to look at the blog.
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When my sister and I were at the Set Apart Girl Conference, one of the girls came up spur-the-moment and shared a story with us.
The story was about a girl named Katie. Like every American girl, Katie grew up with everything she could need and much of what she could want. (We really are so spoiled here.) But Katie knew Jesus, and she wanted to obey Him and follow Him. Her dream was to become a missionary. So when she graduated high school, God lead her to Uganda to be a kindergarten teacher. She obeyed Him and went for "the summer". She fell in love with Uganda, the people, the children, everything, because she knew that she was right where God wanted her. She found her joy in walking in His will.
After school she would sometimes walk children home from school, and she found that the children had many siblings who just stayed at home. In Uganda the people cannot afford to send more than one of their children to school at once, and the privilege of sending their child to school is so precious that they will starve to make it happen, even if it is just one child.
God put it on Katie's heart to start a sponsorship program that would allow the people to send all their children to school and provide them with an education. To do this she had to have a name and an office. So they gave their program the name "Amazima", which means "the truth of Christ" in Lugandan. As for the office, the only place that she could find was a house, so she was able to buy this house for that purpose.
Well, her story continues from there, and it is amazing! Through His amazing ways, God led her to adopt two little Ugandan orphan girls. Then a few more. Then more. She now has THIRTEEN children!!! It is only two years later, and Katie is only 20 years old, with thirteen children and three hundred that come over on a regular basis. She feeds children who haven't eaten in days, bathes children who have never taken a bath in their life, puts them in her own bed, cuddles them, kisses them, and loves them. She has given up her life for them. But in doing so, she has found LIFE. She is radiant. She has Christ, and she is giving up all so that she can bring Christ to these children. She has dared to trust, obey, and LOVE her Lord who gave everything for her.
And when I heard this story I was so amazed and encouraged. God CAN use ordinary girls, ordinary men and women, who dare to forsake all to follow Him. God WILL use us if we will allow Him, ask Him, and seek Him.
I went to Katie's blog and began to read from the very beginning, in June of '07, and as I read story after story filled with God's amazing faithfulness and love, of His perfect ways and plan, I would just sit there and cry! You see, this is the same God that I love! The same God who has His perfect plan for my life that will bring Him glory. The same God who has a perfect plan for your life that will bring Him glory. And more than ever I want to follow Him, to live the supernatural life that He has purchased for me with His blood, to taste of His sweet grace.
God has used Katie Davis' story to yet again renew my mind. I guess I had never thought much about the kind of people I want to be like, or the kind of lives I would like to imitate, but suddenly I am seeing a pattern that I dream of imitating! First I had only read about it, but now I am seeing that it really does exist today. It is not always the same; in fact, it is always different in a thousand ways in each life. But the common thread is always the same, for "such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."
This is the same pattern that I am coming to love, as again and again my mind is renewed, I am coming to see that more than anything else I want to go too, to follow these footsteps, which are after all not the footsteps of men and women, but the footsteps of Christ who is our Life.
So I hope that you too will read Katie's story, which is really not anything strange, but is merely real life example of the life we are all called to, who claim the name of Christ as our own.
I hope that you also will weep as you read the stories and believe that we are truly more than conquerors through Him; that you will weep before God and ask Him to use you also, and to allow you to pour out your own precious spikenard on His feet in adoration.
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"The Principle of the Gospel is this: the Gospel always brings life to the receiver, and death to the giver..."
-jackie pullenger
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"No matter what the cost, I want to go. I want to walk Your road..."
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If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
-Matthew 18:24-25
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