Adoption is God's Heart - Katie from Uganda

Katie and her girls

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. 

James 1:27

I have blogged about Katie from Uganda before. You can read about her at Katie in Uganda and More From Auntie Katie in Uganda. She is a young American woman whose heart has been impacted by God for the poor and orphans of Uganda. She has adopted 14 little girls and committed her life to sharing Christ and meeting the needs of the people in Uganda. 

Below is a blog from her website Amazima. I pray it will be a blessing to you. 

Teenagers and a lesson from Jacob.

I come to you humbly asking for prayer. Especially for my three oldest daughters, and for wisdom for me! All mommas know it: teenagers are hard. Three teenage girls are harder. Three teenage girls from different tribes and cultures and pasts trying to live together in one bedroom are harder still.

In an effort to be real, I want to tell you. Adoption is wonderful and beautiful and the greatest blessing I have ever experienced. Adoption is also HARD and painful. Adoption of older children is a beautiful picture of redemption. It is the GOSPEL in my living room. And some times, it just stinks.

As a parent, it stinks to not know when your daughter took her first steps or what her first word was or what she looked like in Kindergarten. It stinks not to know where she slept and whose shoulder she cried on and what the scar on her eyebrow is from. It stinks to know that for ten years of her precious life you were NOT the shoulder she cried on or the Mommy she hugged.

As a child, it stinks to remember your biological parents’ death, no matter how much you love your new Mom. It stinks to have your mom be a different color than you because, inevitably, people are going to ask why. It stinks that your Mom wasn’t there for all the times you had no dinner and all the times you were sick and all the times you needed help with your homework. It stinks when you have to make up your birthday. It skinks when you can’t understand the concept of being a family forever because your first family wasn’t forever.

And every single day, it is worth it. Because ADOPTION IS GOD’S HEART. He sets the lonely in families. Adoption is the reason that I can come before God’s throne and beg Him for mercy, because He predestined me to be adopted as His child through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

My family, adopting these children, it is not optional. It is not my good deed for the day, it is not what I am doing to “help these poor kids out.” I adopt because God commands me to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress. I adopt because to whom much has been given, much will be demanded. I adopt because whoever finds his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for HIS sake will find it.

Some days, my friends, it is not easy. Today, it is not easy. The HURT in my daughters’ hearts is big and real and as their mother, I want to fix it and know that I CAN’T. So I lay it at the feet of my Father and rejoice to know that if we are children, then we are heirs - of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings - in order that we may also share in His glory. And I call out to the Holy Spirit knowing that He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for us.

A sweet friend pointed me yesterday to Genesis Chapter 33. Esau and Jacob are meeting for the first time in a long time. As Jacob approaches Esau, with his many children following close behind, Esau asks, “ And who are these with you?”

Jacob’s reply: “These are the children that the Lord saw fit to bless me with.”

We get all the questions. “Why do you do it?” “Why so many?” “How in the world…” “Why these specific girls?” “Why the number 14?” “Do you think it's ok to adopt as a single Mother? Don’t they need a father too?” “Do you think they will have issues since you are not the same race?” We also get the compliments. “I don’t know how you do it!” “Good job!” “You must be so responsible!” “Your girls must be so well behaved.” We get crazy stares and huge smiles and every look in between.

Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is hard. Adoption is the Gospel of Christ and the promise of God’s love and redemption lived out in our lives. So I ask for your prayers. Prayers for understanding and peace and trust and the power of God that is more than all I can ask or imagine. And to the questions and the comments and the compliments, this is my reply: “These are the children that the Lord saw fit to bless me with.”

Katie in Uganda

I would like to introduce you to a modern-day Mother Theresa. Her name is Katie Davis Majors and she lives in Uganda (she is originally from Brentwood, TN). She went to Uganda on a mission trip when she was 18. God touched her heart, broke it for His people, and she gave up her dreams of college, marriage and living near family to move to Uganda permanently (that was 10 years ago).
She has since adopted 14 little girls, gotten married and helps hundreds more every week through a Compassion-like sponsorship program.

When I first found out about her, I took a few days and read through all her blogs. Her life and witness have touched me so much!!!!

I wanted to share her latest blog entry to give you an idea of how God can and will use one willing heart! I pray that her story encourages you and blesses you and I pray that we, as her sisters and brothers in Christ in America, can pray for her!  Her main website is https://amazima.org                 

and the website for her blog ishttps://katiemajors.blog/2017/07/30/a-decade/

A Decade

JULY 30, 2017 / KATIEMAJORS

It has been ten years since my feet first stepped onto this red dirt to call this place home. A decade. Something about that word makes it sound like a very long time. Sometimes, it feels like a very long time, but sometimes it feels like only a blink.

Ten years ago I moved across the ocean with something that I thought was hope but in reality was more like a naïve optimism, a young but confident faith in who I thought Jesus to be then, and a wild spirit for adventure. I would like to say that if I could go back and do it all over again, I would do some things differently, I would make less mistakes, I would live more graciously, but in saying that I might discredit the grace of God who worked so tremendously in my naivety that only He could get any credit. And so today I sit and remember and giggle at a bold and inexperienced 18-year-old who thought she might change the world.

I didn’t know it then, the truth that sinks deep into my bones now: It’s not our productiveness “for” God that counts, it is our worship, our time at His feet. It isn’t our public life, the accolades and the “well-done”s and the applause of the world that matters, it is our silent, continuous reach for Him in the places where no one is watching. It isn’t our “world changing” that makes any difference, it is the way we let Him change and shape our hearts to more reflect His.

One of my favorite characters in the Bible is Mary of Bethany. By the world’s standards, she didn’t do much of anything extraordinary. She sat at Jesus’s feet while her sister ran around serving; she poured her life savings in perfume over Him while others looked on and called it a waste. But I think Mary knew this secret, the one the world doesn’t teach us, the one I didn’t know at eighteen, when my productive and radical life was going to make a difference – the only thing that matters is Him. Not what we do for Him, but that we know Him.

Ten years in Uganda, pretty much my entire adult life. I drive much better on the left side of the road than I do the right and I can’t parallel park in anything other than a 14-passenger van. I take my shoes off before entering a home regardless of whether the host cares, and I find the floor a more comfortable seat than furniture. This place has brought me my husband and my babies, my dearest friends, my best days and my worst days. This place has held my greatest trials and my biggest celebrations. This place has become home. But something so much more extraordinary has happened – I have found my home in Him. This decade has brought me, like Mary, to sit at His feet.

In ten years of living and loving, of huge loss and great blessing, deep sorrow and immense joy, I have known Jesus more intimately than I originally thought possible. He met me here. He met me in the unexpected places of my story and He met me when the trials were too great and the night was too long. He invited me to sit at His feet, to know the better thing, relationship with Him. When my story was not what I expected He picked up each piece and held it tenderly and wrote His name on the pieces and on my heart. Jesus took my naïve optimism and forged a deep hope that grew in long hours and months and years of clinging only to Him. Jesus took my wild-eyed desire for adventure and showed me that the greatest adventure would be in allowing Him to peel back the layers of my heart, in searching the lines on His face, in truly knowing Him and being known by Him. He showed me that He wasn’t Jesus who desired my productivity, He was Jesus who desired me. All of me, poured out before Him.

I don’t know what season of life you are in today, if you are like me, watching your babies grow in front of your eyes, marveling at all God has done that is so beyond what you could have dreamed up or imagined, or if you are like me ten years ago with absolutely no idea what God is going to do, baffled as He strips away all the “good” plans you have a replaces them with His. But I know this – He wants you. He wants your worship. He sees you reaching for Him when no one else is looking, when no one sees or recognizes your tireless serving, when there are no applause. You are beautiful to Him, here. His eyes are on you and He is pleased with who He made in you.

Let’s find ourselves at His feet today. We may pour out tears or we may pour out praise or maybe a bit of both, and Jesus who cups our faces in His hands wants every bit. His arms stretched out to you are safe, His gaze toward you is loving and His deep desire is that you would know Him and be known by Him.

Adoption is God's heart - Katie from Uganda

Katie and her girls

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. 
James 1:27


I have blogged about Katie from Uganda before. You can read about her at Katie in Uganda and More From Auntie Katie in Uganda. She is a young American woman whose heart has been impacted by God for the poor and orphans of Uganda. She has adopted 14 little girls and committed her life to sharing Christ and meeting the needs of the people in Uganda.

Below is a recent blog from her website Amazima. I pray it will be a blessing to you.


Teenagers and a lesson from Jacob.
I come to you humbly asking for prayer. Especially for my three oldest daughters, and for wisdom for me! All mommas know it: teenagers are hard. Three teenage girls are harder. Three teenage girls from different tribes and cultures and pasts trying to live together in one bedroom are harder still.

In an effort to be real, I want to tell you. Adoption is wonderful and beautiful and the greatest blessing I have ever experienced. Adoption is also HARD and painful. Adoption of older children is a beautiful picture of redemption. It is the GOSPEL in my living room. And some times, it just stinks.

As a parent, it stinks to not know when your daughter took her first steps or what her first word was or what she looked like in Kindergarten. It stinks not to know where she slept and whose shoulder she cried on and what the scar on her eyebrow is from. It stinks to know that for ten years of her precious life you were NOT the shoulder she cried on or the Mommy she hugged.

As a child, it stinks to remember your biological parents’ death, no matter how much you love your new Mom. It stinks to have your mom be a different color than you because, inevitably, people are going to ask why. It stinks that your Mom wasn’t there for all the times you had no dinner and all the times you were sick and all the times you needed help with your homework. It stinks when you have to make up your birthday. It skinks when you can’t understand the concept of being a family forever because your first family wasn’t forever.

And every single day, it is worth it. Because ADOPTION IS GOD’S HEART. He sets the lonely in families. Adoption is the reason that I can come before God’s throne and beg Him for mercy, because He predestined me to be adopted as His child through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

My family, adopting these children, it is not optional. It is not my good deed for the day, it is not what I am doing to “help these poor kids out.” I adopt because God commands me to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress. I adopt because to whom much has been given, much will be demanded. I adopt because whoever finds his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for HIS sake will find it.

Some days, my friends, it is not easy. Today, it is not easy. The HURT in my daughters’ hearts is big and real and as their mother, I want to fix it and know that I CAN’T. So I lay it at the feet of my Father and rejoice to know that if we are children, then we are heirs - of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings - in order that we may also share in His glory. And I call out to the Holy Spirit knowing that He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for us.

A sweet friend pointed me yesterday to Genesis Chapter 33. Esau and Jacob are meeting for the first time in a long time. As Jacob approaches Esau, with his many children following close behind, Esau asks, “ And who are these with you?”

Jacob’s reply: “These are the children that the Lord saw fit to bless me with.”

We get all the questions. “Why do you do it?” “Why so many?” “How in the world…” “Why these specific girls?” “Why the number 14?” “Do you think it's ok to adopt as a single Mother? Don’t they need a father too?” “Do you think they will have issues since you are not the same race?” We also get the compliments. “I don’t know how you do it!” “Good job!” “You must be so responsible!” “Your girls must be so well behaved.” We get crazy stares and huge smiles and every look in between.

Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is hard. Adoption is the Gospel of Christ and the promise of God’s love and redemption lived out in our lives. So I ask for your prayers. Prayers for understanding and peace and trust and the power of God that is more than all I can ask or imagine. And to the questions and the comments and the compliments, this is my reply: “These are the children that the Lord saw fit to bless me with.”

Orphan Sunday

The need is vast

15 million orphans worldwide have lost both parents

A half million children in the U.S. live in foster care

"Defend the cause of the fatherless"  Isaiah 1:17

Hope is Fading - Click here to download

I live adoption every day of my life through our daughter Grace, adopted from China when she was 

10 1/2 months old. One of the best, most important choices we ever made! I can't imagine life without Grace. I love her with everything that is in me. She and I want to adopt more children.  

Please, if you are reading this blog, stop right now and say a prayer. Ask God to show you what He wants you to do for the orphans. 

Is there room at your table for one more little face? Is there room on your sofa for one more child who wants to snuggle? 

You can impact one child for eternity, and you, in turn, will be blessed beyond measure!

To read more about my thoughts on adoption go to The Least of These

For more info go to Orphan Sunday