Even sorrow is joy

On Sunday afternoon, we attended a memorial service for Alex Moore, who died last month following complications after surgery. He was not quite 32; his first child is due in May.

It was a hard, beautiful, crowded service. We saw people we hadn’t seen in years. A considerable number of us at the service had at one time belonged to the same church, one that had seen an outpouring of members a decade or so ago. We were part of that diaspora. So many of us had joined different churches and gradually or suddenly lost touch. And there we were, together once again, uniting to honor the memory of a young man we knew.

The time for asking why had passed; now was the time for memories, tears, laughter, and hugs.

I thought a lot about that memorial service as I read the last chapter of Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. For the last 20 weeks, led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing this book of a young woman who leaves everything familiar behind to serve as a missionary in Uganda.

For the first few chapters, I fretted over her attitude about home, but she (and I) got over it. She’s been through some extraordinary experiences, and in this last chapter, she doesn’t let herself or the reader off easily. No platitudes here. Instead, she has to face and ultimately accept the removal of one her children from their home. The girl had been abandoned by her birth mother as a baby and legally adopted by Katie. But the birth mother reappears, claiming her child, and the court eventually agrees.

And Katie has to watch as the child, little Jane, leaves their family to go with their birth mother and an uncertain future. Katie grieves; it is a kind of death. Katie accepts what she must, just as Alex Moore’s parents had to accept what they must. The circumstances are different, but there comes a point when we have to face a hard, unyielding truth: someone or something will not change; a loved one is gone; something is lost.

Katie, all of 22 when this happens, knows to turn to God. But she’s human, and she grieves, and in her grief turns to Scripture, specifically Isaiah: “Surely just as I have intended so it has happened and just as I have planned so it will stand” (14:24). “My good God gives only good things;” she writes, “He planned this and He will use this. In Him, even sorrow is joy.”

He knows tragedies like what happened to Alex. “He will use this. In Him, even sorrow is joy.”

To read more posts on this chapter, please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact. And thanks to both him and Sarah for leading and hosting our discussion.

An Old Woman, Dying of AIDS

You find an old woman who’s dying of AIDS. She has tuberculosis, her body no longer able to fend off disease. Her husband and four children are dead of AIDS. She’s too weak to stand up, and lies in a filthy hut near a trash dump.

What do you do? You already have 14 adopted children to cake for and a burgeoning ministry to lead and maintain.

What do you do?

Here’s how Katie Davis answered that question: She took care of the dying woman. She loved her. She got medical help to ease her final months, and she filled the woman’s last days with love and joy. She was there when the woman died.

I don’t know what I would do. It’s easy – too easy – to say I would do the same thing. The temptation to do nothing would be great, with every justification coming to mind as I walked away.

Katie Davis didn’t walk away, even as she was plagued with doubts. And because of what she did, people who watched and understood became Christians. If that’s what your God does, then I want your God, too.

This is the kind of loving action that set the early church apart from its pagan environment – the Christians cared for widows and orphans. No one did in Roman society. Widows could become beggars or starve; orphan children could be enslaved and abused. No objections would be raised because it was standard operating procedure in the Roman world.

The Christians, however, were different. They took care of widows and orphans. And people noticed. People responded because we are made to respond to human needs. In taking care of widows and orphans, the Christians lived a Sunday sermon seven days a week. And it was one reason why, through more than 250 years of on-again, off-again, regional, local and national persecutions, some awful and severe, the church continued to grow.

Because it took care of those widows and orphans.

Because Katie Davis took care of an old woman dying of AIDs. An old woman named Grace.

Led by Jason Stayszsen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. To see more posts on this chapter, “A Jja Ja for Us,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines. 

There's always a cost

This is the chapter in Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption that I’ve been expecting. This is the chapter about the cost, the cost of doing the work Katie Davis has been doing in Africa.

There’s always a cost.

She’s alluded to it, and dropped some hints now and then. She’s talked openly about the discouragement and challenges she faces every day. Those aren’t the cost, however. No one expects missions work in any country to be easy, and especially in a developing country like Uganda.

The cost is personal.

She begins the chapter with a story about three-year-old Grace, who develops a phobia for taking baths. Once she’s in the tub, she remembers how much fun it is, enjoys herself, and doesn’t want to get out.

Katie likens Grace’s phobia to obedience, to the things we don’t want to do even though they’re good for us, but once we do them, we might even come to understand and enjoy them.

For Katie, though, obedience is not about taking a bath. It’s about giving up the young man she loves.

He supported her, helped her, visited her in Uganda – but he didn’t share the same vision she had. That difference eventually becomes a gap that can’t be bridged.

She knows that the personal pain is trivial and momentary in the grand scheme of things, and she takes some comfort in that. I suspect the personal pain is worse than she lets on. And I suspect the pain isn’t just personal, because more than only Katie is involved here.

Does that mean you don’t continue simply to avoid the pain? No. But it does mean that there is usually a personal cost. “Responding to God’s call” doesn’t mean you will have a life without pain, turmoil, struggle and conflict. In fact, one might argue – I would argue – that responding to God’s call virtually guarantees a life of pain, turmoil, struggle and conflict.

This is where I have no patience with the prosperity gospel crowd – that if just believe hard enough, good material things will happen to you. It was my major issue with the popular The Prayer of Jabez a few years back – that it swung far too closely to articulating a “more acceptable” version of the prosperity gospel.

No, responding to God’s call, trying to live the gospel is hard, hard, work, whether it’s in Uganda or Nashville. It’s the life Katie is living, and it often means pain and loss.

Still, even knowing that, I think my heart broke a bit.

Hosted by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, “Counting the Cost,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Would I? Do I?

On the journey of faith, the questions don’t get easier.

On Monday I wrote about a young man who died from complications after surgery. He was 31. On Tuesday, I heard about a St. Louis reporter who died from pancreatic cancer; I had known him and worked with him since 1984. He was 63.

We are blessed to live in a society with some of the best medical care in the world. Death is something we tend to associate with old age, although we’ve all known young people and children who have died. But still, life expectancies in the United States have been increasing for more than a century, and it is largely due to advances in health care treatment and prevention.

Then there’s a country like Uganda. Life expectancies are not long. Disease is common. Preventable disease is common. The death of a child is not an uncommon thing.

It’s a place where we might all question God about what exactly is going on here.

A mother brings her four-pound, four-month old daughter to Katie Davis for help. Four pounds. They rush to the hospital, and it turns out the little girl has a hole in her heart. Her mother can’t afford the corrective surgery.

The little girl is named Happy. Happy dies. Katie mourns.

Friends and supporters of Katie in the United States decide to adopt Josephine, a little girl that Katie is caring for. Katie’s ecstatic. Everything is going well until it’s discovered that Josephine is HIV-positive. Plans are turned upside down. The adoption may not proceed.

The friends end up adopting Josephine anyway.

I ask myself, would I have that kind of courage? Would I have that kind of faith?

In the midst of all this, 20-something Katie says something that strikes me as very wise. And wise beyond her years. “We aren’t really called to save the world, not even to save one person; Jesus does that. We are just called to love with abandon. We are called to enter into our neighbors’ sufferings and love them right there.”

I ask myself again, do I have that kind of courage? Do I have that kind of faith?

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. To see more posts on this chapter, “He Sets the Solitary in Families,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

When the Need is Overwhelming

This chapter of Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, entitled “Just one More, evoked a sense of quiet and reflection, deep thought, and several large intakes of breath.

You help one child, and a dozen more need your help even more.

You care for a child, and then have to send him back into the bad home environment he came from.

You change a baby’s diaper, and find worms, and you know hundreds more have the same problem.

You come face-to-face with your own limitations. You cannot meet the need that exists. If you try with too many, you will fail with all. You know intellectually that God could provide if He so chose.

But He doesn’t. Or the help doesn’t materialize.

And the little boy goes back to the home where he’s unloved.

The baby’s health is restored, and you keep her.

In Uganda, Katie Davis is living in the extremes. She experiences extreme joy when a child is helped. And extreme desolation and anguish when all the other children aren’t.

She does two things. She prays. And she clings to God even more.

If her faith was shallow, if the seed fell among the rocky wayside, she would burn out and leave. But that’s not what happens. The seed has fallen on good soil.

It’s the eternal question – why does God allow such suffering? And why does God allow such suffering to fall so hard on children, always so hard on children?

Katie keeps the little baby, whom she names Patricia, and then proceeds to describe her personalities and unique attributes, which Katie does with every child she adopts into her family.

As a single woman, she can only adopt girls under Ugandan law, and little Michael, who weighs less at six years old than my grandson weighs at two, must return to the family where he was so terribly neglected. But a prayer is answered for Michael.

Katie realizes that God is no stranger to this awfulness that happens to children.

The suffering, and the awfulness, fell hardest on His own child.

We’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie, led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

A little goes a long, long way

I read most of this chapter of Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption with tears in my eyes.

Entitled “Three Thousand Friends,” Katie Davis describes what happens when she visits Masese, the sprawling slum outside of her Ugandan town of Jinja. The slum is adjacent to Jinja’s landfill. Most of the people who live there are the Karimojong, a people whose homeland is in northern Uganda near the border with Sudan. A people who were forced to flee their homeland because of war and famine. A people who live in poverty and squalor, who are feared and marginalized, who survive but scavenging the landfill, brewing alcohol and prostitution.

Katie finds a way in. And she writes: “the harsh accents and tribal jewelry of these new people intrigued me, but what grabbed my attention most was the sheer poverty of this place. I had experienced squalor before, but this was unlike anything I had ever seen. Some appeared to be starving to death, literally. Children were covered with deep infected wounds, fungus and other sores, with their bellies round and distended because of worms and their skin pale and peeling because of severe malnutrition.”

We do not know poverty like this in the United States.

She returns with food, and is nearly mobbed by hungry people. She’s eventually able to set up food distribution five days a week through a nearby school. She organizes 20 women into a craft collective, making necklaces that are shipped to the United States for sale. The women make enough to feed their families and put some aside in savings.

In Masese, a little bit of money goes a long, long way. Things happen. Children get fed. Children can go to school. Money can be saved for the future. Women can do honorable work.

For a number of years, my family sponsored a little boy in southwestern Kenya through World Vision. The money we gave was almost insignificant – less than the cost of one meal eaten out – but it was sufficient to provide an education, school clothes, books, meals and other support. From time to time we gave a little extra, and his family bought cows, goats and clothes for the other children.

The project eventually was completed and our sponsorship ended. We’re now sponsoring two little girls through our church missions program, one in India and one in Kenya. For the cost of both my wife and eating out one time in a month, those little girls get clothes, food, an education and a roof over their heads. And they get love.

A little foes a long, long way. Ask Katie Davis.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Sarah’s site, Living Between the Lines.

Learning from Little Things

I’m strolling through a local plant nursery with a gardening expert. We’re working on a kind of makeover of the gardens at our house. At one point she smiles and says, “This is like a candy store for you.” And it is. I’m struck with wonder at this small slice of the diversity that is God’s creation.

I get an email from someone who’s read Dancing Priest and loaned it to a relative. The relative read it and said, “For the first time, I understand what you’ve been talking about when you talk about faith.” An executive at work stops me in the hallway and tells me his 14-year-old son read it and loved it.

Our grandson squeals with delight when he sees our car pull into the driveway.

I read about the Secret Service scandal with Colombian prostitutes, and I grieve for what’s happening to the character of our country.

I hear that Charles Colson died, and I feel thankful for his incredible wxample of redemption and God’s grace. And then I read that Franky Schaeffer, the son of Francis Schaeffer, uses Colson’s death as an occasion to attack both Colson and evangelicals. He actually wrote two blog posts but took the first one down, because it didn’t go far enough.

I’m sitting in a discussion group, and I hear people speaking who sound like my father, my son and myself. I begin to understand what the discussion group is about.

I read about growing hostility to Christians around the globe – China, Russia, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, the United States – and I think “they will hate you because they hate me.”

I see the move “October Baby,” and I marvel that Samuel Goldwyn would help produce it.

Little things, really, Little ways. Little means God uses to speak to us.

In Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, Katie Davis speaks of the little ways through which God touches her life – a comment as a gas station, a children’s fight, hearing of the murder of a child she doesn’t know, hearing the voice of one of her adopted children and knowing it’s one of hers, getting a van to help transports food and children. Each way is both an encouragement and something new to learn.

In what little way have you experienced God’s love and teaching?

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, “A Different Kind of Education,” please visit Jason’s site, Connecting to Impact.

Hearing the Voice

Have you ever heard the voice of God? Have you ever heard the voice of God speak directly to you?

In Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark, Katie hears the voice of God. And He specifically tells her that the name of the next child becoming part of her family will be Sarah. And – it is. A grandmother returns again and again begging Katie to adopt her two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, who is unable to walk. Katie keeps refusing – she already has too many children she’s adopted. Or so she thinks.

The little girl’s name turns out to be Sarah. Katie accepts her, and changes her name, since there’s already one Sarah in the family. The little girl’s new name is Grace – Amazing Grace (the title of this chapter).

It’s a story that brings tears to your eyes. The little girl who couldn’t walk is going to learn to walk.

Miracles do happen. And Katie does hear God’s voice.

I asked myself if I’ve ever heard God’s voice speaking clearly and directly to me. (And I asked myself that if I talked about it here at this blog, would people wonder if I’ve lost my mind.)

The short answer is no, at least not like Katie did when she hears the name of the child.

I’ve talked before about an experience I had in Erfurt, Germany. I didn’t hear a voice, but something happened in that church there, something I still can’t really explain.

I was once sitting in a school board meeting (yes, a school board meeting), and suddenly felt surrounded by what I can only describe as dark, dark shadows. It was short-lived, but it was definitely one of most disconcerting feelings I’ve experienced.

But I can’t say I’ve ever heard a voice speaking plainly in my head.

I can’t count the times I’ve heard people – often certain televangelists – talk about God speaking to them like He was sitting across the table.

And I’ve read dozens of times about writers who believe they have been specifically called by God to write. I often wish I had that kind of assurance. I’m a writer, but I have to confess that God never called me to write. Writing is something I do, it is both my vocation and avocation, and I want to honor God in what I write. But I can’t say I ever heard God tell me to be a writer.

What I have heard or experienced, however, is God speaking in circumstances and through other people.

You hear a missions director at church speak of the need for sponsors for children overseas, and while there’s normal human compassion involved, you also know – really know – that you’re supposed to step up.

Or you hear about someone’s physical or emotional or financial need, or you see and elderly and infirm person struggling, or you see someone’s spirit crushed, or you learn that this stranger sitting beside you on the airplane has just lost a loved one and is struggling – and you know you’re being called to do something. Perhaps it’s only to listen, or to provide some temporary assistance, or just be there, but you know.

I hear God’s voice in the Bible; it’s hard to avoid God’s voice in the Bible, because that’s where it’s the most accessible.

No, I can’t say I’ve heard God’s voice speaking like Katie Davis did in the case of Amazing Grace. I believe it happened exactly the way she describes it.

Things might be simpler – or possibly more difficult – if I did hear “the voice” telling me something very specific.

But I believe anyway.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

A Glimpse of Heaven

We know these times when they happen, possibly because they’re so rare – everything falls into place; everything works as intended; things go well. Your life seems to hum with purpose. Every day is a welcome adventure.

Katie Davis is back “home,” home being her village in Uganda. She and her parents have agreed that she belongs where her heart is. She returns to find her family growing, new children arriving, the program expanding and new needs to be met.

She rolls with everything. This is what she’s meant to do and where she’s meant to be. There is an assurance in her heart that is like a song – and much of this chapter in Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption sounds like a song, or perhaps a psalm.

I can look back at my own life and see times when everything seemed to go wonderfully, and times when things didn’t seem to go at all. I had a great junior year in high school – and a not-so-great senior year until the very end. There were times when great things happened at work, and times when they didn’t. There have been a lot of mountaintop experiences, and a lot of valley experiences.

Even in the good times, there were conflicts, challenges, problems, and upsets. And you know these times when they’re happening.

You are where you’re supposed to be.

You’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.

And things are happening; you see the effects and the results.

But you need the other times, the difficult and unhappy times, as a reference point, but also more than that. Success can be blinding, and a trap, for organizations, people, governments and nations.

You think because things work well they will always work well. And you learn from failure more than you do from success. Success can teach a false independence, while failure can teach the right kind of dependence on God and other people.

All of these times together comprise a life.

For Katie Davis, at this point in early 2009, it’s a time when she seems firing on all cylinders. It’s a good feeling and a good time. She’ll remember it – she’ll need to remember it – when the serious challenges arrive.

Led by Jason Stasyzen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, “A Glimpse of Heaven,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Making Choices

Sometimes choices are easier when the differences are stark.

We’ve been reading Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark, and we’ve reached a watershed event in Katie’s life. She’s finished a year in missions in Uganda, she’s returned to the United States to attend college to fulfill a promise to her parents, and she’s finishes her first semester with the certainty that she belongs back in her new home.

The chapter ends with Katie preparing to return to Uganda; her parents have accepted her decision and essentially released her from the commitment to attend college as had been originally planned. Katie describes the torment of the certainty that she belongs back in Uganda, but details are few (non-existent) about how she and her parents came to an agreement.

I suspect there’s a reason for the lack of detail. I suspect there’s a lot of pain here, and a lot of love.

The options she has to choose from are stark – remain in the U.S. as a college student, or return to a Third World country. For Katie, the choice is not only not difficult; it’s also obvious and simple. She is meant to be in Uganda. The four months she spends in college are important – but primarily in the context of how it helps the work in Uganda.

For Katie, it’s not a question of leaving home, but of going home.

For most of us, choices are rarely that stark or obvious. A major life decision is often fraught with uncertainty and doubt. Prayer can quiet the turmoil, but prayer doesn’t automatically make the choice clear. For many of us, even after a decision is made, we still have questions, doubts and fears.

In my novel Dancing Priest, the hero’s guardian mother Iris McLaren is having a conversation with the heroine, Sarah Hughes. They’re talking about Michael’s faith and Sarah’s lack of faith. And Iris says this: “Michael has assurance. He knows, that’s all. It’s that simple. And for Michael, that assurance is a song in his heart. It’s a blessing to have it.”

I wrote that line years before Katie Davis first went to Uganda, but it applies as much to her as it does to my fictional hero Michael Kent. She has assurance. She knows, and it’s that simple.

And I suspect it’s a song in her heart as well.

Led by Jason Stayszsen and Sarah Salter, we've been discussing Kisses from Katie for several weeks now. To read more posts on this chapter, "Living the Secret," please visit Sarah's site, Living Between the Lines.

When You're in a Hard Place

Katie Davis returns to the United States from her year of mission work in Uganda. She’s returned to attend college, as she promised her parents she would do. She is keeping her promise, and she is miserable, grumpy and feeling disconnected from what her life had become in Uganda.

She knows her 19 girls – her “family” she adopted in Uganda – will be okay.

She trusts God to provide needed funds -- $70,000 of needed funds – for the mission work. Over a period of months, it’s provided, “and then some.”

She finds a few people who really do understand the conflict she’s experiencing.

And she learns one of the hardest and most important lessons of her young life: God is in control, and He is as much involved in her college and family as He is in Uganda.

Katie knows that her heart is in Uganda; she also knows it is the place she’s supposed to be. But for a time, she is “back home,” honoring the commitment to her parents, even if it is making her feel grumpy and at loose ends.

But God is there, too, right at home.

This chapter in Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark reminds me of a conversation I had a long time ago I had with a colleague at the place I was then working. We were both Christians; we were both in exactly the same boat – banished to a kind of wilderness where our skills, experience and talents were going largely unused.

“It’s hard,” I said. “Well, it’s more than hard. It’s often miserable. We sit here, doing things that are easy to do, watching others do things badly that we both know we could do far better. But for whatever reason, this is where we are; this is where God has us. David had to live in a cave, too, for a time.”

The words were easier to say than to live, but simply saying them helped. It was as if by saying them aloud, we both could accept what we were dealing with.

I suspect the same was going on with Katie.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, “A Promise to Keep,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Keeping a Promise

My admiration for Katie Davis continues to deepen.

In Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, Katie has now reached the end of her year in Uganda. She had committed to her parents to go for one year as a missionary and then return to suburban Nashville to start college.

In that year, she has started a non-profit organization to provide schooling for children, rented a large house, planted herself firmly in Ugandan soil, and adopted 19 girls, providing a home, food and love for each of them.

Yet commitment to her parents hangs over her. She thinks that perhaps she can go to college for a semester, return to Uganda , and do the rest of her college degree by correspondence or online. But she knows she has to return to Tennessee.

And she does.

I can think of a dozen justifications she could try or arguments she could make to stay in Uganda, as well as 19 real reasons. But she has made a commitment, and she returns to keep it.

It’s almost too easy to find reasons to break a promise. Virtually all parts of our culture are littered with the bones of broken promises.

Consider politics. We’re heard “read my lips – no new taxes.” We’ve heard a president justify killing an American citizen without due process or judicial review – the same president who was so appalled (as a candidate) at jailing terrorists at Guantanamo without due process of law. I watch a presidential candidate try to convince us he’s an honorable man – while approving attack ads that bring politics to new lows (and that’s quite an accomplishment).

And then there’s Katie Davis, who is willing to walk away from what she’s created in a small Ugandan village to keep a promise to her parents – honoring both her parents and her God.

I think I know how this will turn out, but I’m still in awe.

We’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie, let by Jason Stasyzsen and Sarah Salter. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Sarah’s site, Living Between the Lines.

The U.S.= Uganda? What?

In Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, we’ve reached the chapter where Katie Davis is coming to understand that the United Stated States and Uganda represents two points on the continuum of her life, that as wildly different as the two countries, societies and cultures are, they exist on the same planet, and here may be “connectedness” than she has realized.

Oddly enough, I found this chapter the most encouraging so far in the book. Something is changing, and the something is primarily within Katie. The slightly condescending tone which had accompanied much of her attitude towards her home country (and, by extension, her family and friends) is disappearing. A maturing process is underway, and Katie is coming to understand her place, and her calling, within both societies.

We are all witnesses, and we are all missionaries, whether it’s an Ugandan village or a Fortune 500 company. The spiritual needs are the same. One is not a “holier” calling than the other; one is not “more sacred.” It is all God’s work, and wherever we are working, that’s our mission field.

This is the underlying idea for The High Calling, where I’m a contributing editor and part of the social media tweet (I’d like to have a bumper sticker that reads “I tweet for THC”). The “high calling” of the name is the high calling of our daily work, wherever and whatever that work is, because all work is a high calling. If we’re working in a hospital, a company, a government office, as an independent contractor or in a missionary outpost, God sees all of us as engaged in a high calling.

In other words, we don’t park our faith at the office door. It doesn’t mean we actively evangelize and pass our tracts; it does mean that we live our work so that people see Christ in us.

It’s no secret that many, perhaps most Christians see pastors and missionaries as doing work that is “higher” than what the rest of us do. Both of those callings requires sacrifices, and likely greater sacrifices than what most of us are familiar with. But that doesn’t mean they’re “higher.”

This separation into sacred and secular is actually a product of modernism – the same impulse and thought that became “separation of church and state” (which a lot of people really define as “elimination of any possible influence of the church in society.” The difference for us is that this belief in sacred and secular separates our very selves. We have a sacred self (the Christian, church-going, mission-minded part) and we have a secular self (work, school, culture, and anything “non-church”). It’s a false dichotomy, more akin to Greek philosophy and some of the famous heresies that stalked and almost destroyed the early church.

Katie is learning an important lesson: we are to do what we are called by God to do wherever he plants us. And if He plants you in an Ugandan village, it may mean that economic and basic health needs are greater than the society you left behind, but the spiritual needs are the same.

Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter have been leading us in a discussion of Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Jason’s site, Connecting to Impact.

The Story of Joe

Led by Sarah Salter and Jason Stasyszen, we’ve been discussing Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. In chapter seven, Katie describes returning to the United States to do some fund-raising for herself and her growing ministry. She’s discovering that she’s changing, and doesn’t belong in the comfortable lifestyle in which she grew up in suburban Nashville. (I still have an issue with her attitude at times; perhaps the very reason for the wealth of her upbringing has something to do with the resources that will be provided for her work in Uganda.)

As I wrote last week, these two chapters put in mind of an experience I had in Houston in the mid- to late 1970s. I was doing volunteer work at Cambio House, a residence home for emotionally disturbed children. My primary job was the fun job – taking the kids on a field trip on Saturday, providing they had earned enough points during the week to go.

Sophie (not her real name) was one of those children. She was eventually moved to a residence home in the East Texas woods. Her experience at Cambio did not end well.

Joe (not his real name) was another child. He was 11. He and his younger brother had been removed from the family home, the “home” being an unlit, unheated garage. Today we would say that his parents had speech and hearing impediments, and were developmentally disabled. Thirty-five years ago, what was written in Joe’s file was “parents are deaf mutes, unable to care for themselves or their children.”

Joe’s brother had been successfully adopted. Joe was, too, until his new parents decided he was too much work and turned him back over to the court. After a succession of foster homes, Joe ended up at Cambio House, hating authority and hating adults.

I had been at Cambio almost two years when Joe arrived. I knew the ropes. In fact, I knew the ropes better than some of the staff did, because turnover was high. These were low-paying, easy-to-burn-out jobs (jobs like these probably still are).

Like most of the kids when they first arrived at Cambio, Joe went through a honeymoon period. Then the testing of the system started, and the rebellion. One of the things that struck me about him was that he was a good kid; his parents may have been “developmentally disabled” but they or someone had done a decent job raising him. But he was filled with anger; he had been buffeted and rejected so many times that he began to “live down to expectations.” He also didn’t like to be touched, as if he didn’t trust affection.

I saw him at most once a week, but we did build a relationship. He would become unbelievably upset if I happened to be in the vicinity when he was being disciplined, so if I saw things moving in that direction it was either calm Joe down or leave the room.

He was making progress. It was often easy to define the child by the behavior, but he was a little boy who wanted to be accepted and loved.

One Saturday, none of the kids had enough points for a field day, and it was raining, so we stayed in, playing board games, goofing off and watching TV. Joe was sitting next to me on the sofa, and several other kids were in various parts of the sofa, floor, nearby chairs, whatever was handy. A staff person had wandered in to see how we were doing, but was standing quietly to the side.

Without a word, Joe suddenly slipped his hand inside mine. I had the presence of mind not to react; I squeezed his hand and kept watching TV. I did glance at the staff member, who had seen Joe’s action. His eyes were huge. A breakthrough had happened.

A few months later, Joe was adopted by an older couple whose children were grown. They were warned he might act up at some point, to test them. And he did. He trashed their house. This time, though, they didn’t give him back to the court. They disciplined him, and they kept him. He had found a home.

I’ve looked but haven’t found a web link for Cambio House, but ChildBuilders has a page which mentions it – describing it as Houston’s first residential facility for emotionally disturbed children and saying that it had opened in 1974.

I didn’t see Joe again, but his story had a better ending that Sophie’s. Joe would be 48 today. It’s my hope that he and his new family were a success.

He and Sophie bought taught me that children matter, and that if we have the resources or the time or the heart, we should share what we have.

Katie learned that lesson in Uganda. I learned it in my backyard. It’s the same lesson.

To see more posts on this chapter of Kisses from Katie, please visit Sarah Salter at Living Between the Lines.

The Story of Sophie

In chapter six of Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis and Beth Clark, Katie describes how her experiences with two children, Sumini and Brenda, profoundly changed her understanding of what she was to be doing in Uganda. Sumini would become part of Katie’s family; Katie ministered to and prayed for Brenda while the child was dying in the hospital. Brenda “miraculously” recovered and was sent home; Katie never saw her again.

Wham! Suddenly I’m 37 years back in time, in a completely different culture that what Katie is describing, and yet…

In 1974, my wife and I moved to Houston from Beaumont, Texas. I had gotten a job at the headquarters of a big Fortune 500 oil company while she finished her journalism degree and worked at the Houston Chronicle. Over the next year or two, I became interested in doing volunteer work, and through a voluntarism program at my company, I eventually connected with Cambio House, a residential facility for emotionally disturbed children.

The children ranged in age from 6 to 12. There were never more than 10 or so at a time. Each child had his or her own room. The children lived there, went to school there, ate there and played there. Their emotional disturbance was officially classified as mild. The more severe cases were assigned to another facility.

My job as a volunteer was the provider of field trips. For good behavior during the week, the children got to go on Saturday field trips. The staff maintained a chart of points, and if enough good behavior points were accumulated, the child got to go on a field trip. It was a big deal – it was often the children’s only experience outside the home each week.

We took trips to the zoo, to Hermann Park, to the movie theater – whatever might be on the staff’s approved list. Some weeks I might have five or six kids; some weeks two or three; and some weeks, none at all. On those Saturdays, I worked with the staff inside the house. They were not fun days. The kids would be angry and sullen, and sometimes destructive. Temper tantrums were common. So was screaming. It could be ugly.

I was allowed to read the children’s admitting files, and the reading was grim. I read stories of child abuse, child prostitution, and abandonment. It seemed impossible for these stories to be happening with the shadow of downtown Houston, then often referred to as the “golden buckle of the Sunbelt.” The place was awash in money, oil money, and yet here were the stories of children abandoned, abused and forgotten.

One little girl, whom I will call Sophie, was 10. She had been brought to the home after police found her and her mother living on the streets. She took care of her mother, and provided for their food. She often secured leftovers from garbage cans. When they needed money, well, let’s say Sophie knew how to earn it. Her mother was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and her parental rights given to the state by the courts. Sophie bounced around the foster care system, and ended up at Cambio House.

She was small for her age, blond-haired and knew more profanity than most adults. Adults were people you didn’t trust, who took advantage of you and hurt you.

Keep in mind that Sophie was considered a mild case of emotional disturbance. When she lost control, which was often, she was a terror. She might have been small, but she could do serious damage.

Sophie rarely accumulated enough points to go on field trips. But for whatever reason, I came to represent something for her. Perhaps it was because I was associated with fun things, or because I wasn’t there all the time. I did see her in one of her tantrums from time to time, but it was rare. Even the staff noticed she tended to be on best behavior around me.

We’d read together, talk, play games. She drew a picture of me and my wife that I still have, filed away in a cabinet in our basement. The day she gave it to me, I understood what I represented to her. I was hope.

And then one Saturday, I showed up as usual, and discovered that Sophie wasn’t waiting like she always was. I went to her room and found it stripped bare. Sophie was gone. Her behavior had gone from mild to severe in one fell swoop that week, a tirade had turned to serious physical destruction, and she had attacked one of the staff members. She had been sent to a residence home in the woods of East Texas.

I never saw her again. If she is still alive today, she would be 47. Did I make a difference in her life? I don’t know. I hope so. I hope she made it.

But I know what motivates Katie Davis in Uganda.

Next week, I’ll continue the discussion of Kisses from Katie with the story of Joe, another of the children at Cambio House.

To see more posts on this chapter of Kisses from Katie, please visit Jason Stasyszen at Connecting to Impact. Jason and Sarah Salter are hosting our discussion of the book.