An Amazima Event

Last Fall, I was sitting in my living room, browsing Facebook when I saw a link my dear friend Tricia had posted about helping her friend raise money for an adoption.  Curious, I clicked the link and was immediately taken aback by what I saw.  Tricia's friend was young, single, beautiful, and was not adopting one child, but FOURTEEN children.  I was absolutely stunned and had to know more.  Through a series of links I was led to her blog where I spent an entire day reading. Since then, I have continued to follow Katie's journey and I have been consistently inspired by her courage, her heart, her writing, and as she puts it in her new book: her decision to "quit her life." While most of her friends were worried about frat parties and college exams, she was the mother of 6 and founder of a non-profit by age 19. Her ministry now sponsors over 450 children, providing them with education, medical assistance, food, and more. Did I mention she's only 22?

A few months after our discovery of Katie and her non-profit, Amazima, Sean was downtown talking to some people at work about our choice to adopt when he mentioned her name. One of the awesome men Sean works with, spoke up and said he actually knew Katie well.  Long story short, he remembered how touched we were by Katie's story, and a few weeks ago he and his wife invited Sean and I to be their guests at an Amazima fundraiser.  Not only would we be able to learn more about the ministry and eat a fantastic dinner, but we would also be able to hear from Katie herself. The event was this past Saturday, and it was truly incredible.

Hearing Katie speak was amazing and at the end of the night she even signed our copy of her new book, "Kisses from Katie."  She was unassuming, genuine, articulate, and passionate.  While she is admired by so many, she somehow always turned it away from herself and made it all about God.  She could have gotten up there and said, "I did this. I did that." But instead, her entire focus was on what God had done, and how thankful she was to have been witness to the miracles and have people state-side invest in that journey.

The event was profoundly unique and I even ran into my 7th grade Science teacher, whom I had not seen in over 10 years.  (She was one of the reasons I went into teaching, so it was so fantastic getting to see pictures of her kids and hear about her life.) 

Sean and I are truly thankful we were able to attend the event and look forward to seeing what happens through Amazima in the future. 

You can check out more about her book HERE and more about Amazima HERE. 

mae mae

P.S. I'm about halfway through the book. It's amazing.