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Practical Chats for Intentional Living
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Monday Aug 12, 2019
Monday Aug 12, 2019
66. Sharing God’s Love With the World with Author and Amazima Ministries Founder, Katie Davis Majors
**Transcription Below**
Philippians 1:6 (NIV) “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Katie Davis Majors lives in Uganda. She and her husband, Benji, are the parents of 13 adopted daughters and two sons. In 2008, she started Amazima Ministries International, a non-profit organization to meet the physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual needs of the people of Uganda (www.amazima.org). Additionally, she is the author of Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption and Daring to Hope, which chronicle her amazing call and obedience to God and to Uganda. Read more of Katie’s blog at katiemajors.blog and follow her on Instagram and Twitter at @katieinuganda.
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
**Transcription**
[00:00:00] <music>
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
[00:00:18] <music>
Laura Dugger: We have another awesome sponsor today, FabFitFun. FabFitFun is a seasonal subscription box with full-size products that's a value over $200 per box, but it's going to cost you only $49.99. Even better, when you use the code SAVVY at checkout, you're going to get $10 off your first box. That's FabFitFun.com with code SAVVY at checkout. Enjoy!
When Katie Davis Majors was 18 and a homecoming queen, graduating from high school just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, God showed her his unexpected plans one step at a time. He led Katie to move to Uganda, found Amazima Ministries, and become an adoptive mother to 13 beautiful girls by the time she was 23.
Today you're going to hear so much more of her story since that time, and you're hopefully going to be inspired to learn how God is calling you to love the person right in front of you as he writes your unique story. Here's our chat. [00:01:28]
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Katie.
Katie Davis Majors: Thank you, Laura. I'm so excited to be here.
Laura Dugger: Will you start us off by just sharing your testimony and giving us a glimpse of your story as you went from the suburbs of Nashville to Uganda?
Katie Davis Majors: Absolutely. For a long time, even early on in childhood, God had put it on my heart to serve others. Missions was something that I was always a little bit interested in, but that interest was increasing as I neared my graduation from high school.
So my senior year of high school, over my Christmas break, my mom and I came on a short-term mission trip here to Uganda, and I just fell in love with this country and with the people and their grace and their hospitality and their love for Jesus. And I really, really wanted to come back.
I had met a pastor on that trip who was looking for some help in starting up a preschool at his orphanage. So when I graduated high school, instead of committing to go to college, I actually committed to come back here to Uganda for a year and help him teach at the preschool and even silly things like handwriting worksheets and making homemade Play-Doh and trying to help him with this preschool program. [00:02:44]
So I'm sure we'll get into it more the rest of the interview, but basically, that was now 11 years ago and Uganda is still my home. During that year that I was here, I obviously fell more and more in love with this place and these people.
But there were also some things that were really surprising to me and probably the biggest one was that a lot of the children living in the orphanage had family members who loved them, who cared about them, who would even come and visit them. Sometimes when they were on breaks from school, they would go visit their parents or their grandparents. That was really foreign to me.
I think as a Westerner who had not spent much time in a developing country, I had just assumed that if you lived in an orphanage, you didn't have parents or relatives. And certainly, in some countries, I think that's the case. But in East Africa specifically, about 80% of children living in institutions do have living relatives, and they're living in these orphanages and children's homes simply because of poverty — people just really can't afford the basic necessities to take care of their children. [00:03:59]
That to me was really devastating. I would hear these kids that I worked and lived with at the orphanage talking about their extended family and desiring to go and visit them. So I just began asking questions of some of the friends that I had made and some of the community members that I was meeting. I would, you know, ask them like, Hey, if you had some of your basic needs provided for, you know, if you had school fees paid and you had some food provided for your family, would you want to keep your kids at home with you? And unanimously, the answer was yes.
It seemed like every single person that I came across was saying, you know, they hadn't sent their kids to the orphanage because they didn't want them or they didn't care about them. They had sent them because they truly believed that inside the orphanage their kids would have a better life. They would be provided with some of these things that they just couldn't get at home. [00:04:54]
School fees are probably one of the biggest costs that a family incurs here. And the better school that you'd your child to go to, the more expensive it is. And then on top of that, you have uniforms and materials and all these different things that make it really, really hard for families here, especially large families, to send their children to school.
So I just kind of innocently asked a friend of mine if she would like for me to pay for her two little girls to go to school and if that would keep them from having to live at the orphanage. Of course, she said yes. And so at the beginning of, I guess it was the beginning of 2018, so I'd been in Uganda for about six months, I paid for those two girls to go to school.
As I started telling my friends in the States and my parents, about just this problem that I had encountered and as I started talking to them about, you know, what a huge difference a few hundred dollars had made in the lives of these girls by allowing them to stay at home, some of my friends and some of my parents' friends said like, "Oh well, That sounds great. We would love to send you some money so that you could do that for another child." [00:06:10]
And within, I think, the first couple of months, I had sent about 30 children to school just with donations that I had raised from family and friends in the States. By that time, I think the Lord was prompting me and making it clear that this was something that was a lot bigger than just me. And so that's kind of how Amazima, the organization that I founded and still work for today, was born, and that's basically what I've been doing ever since.
Laura Dugger: Okay, so that was incredible. I'd love to unpack some more details of that story. Even from reading your first book, Kisses From Katie, you talked about overcoming some of even the illness parts that you were interacting with people, and it seemed like God had His hand of protection on you to not even get sick. Do you remember any of those stories that you could share?
Katie Davis Majors: Sure. As you would imagine, at the orphanage, there were over 120 children in pretty close quarters. We were always passing something around. I was actually just joking with a friend the other day about how during the time I lived there, I would always have a little patch of ringworm somewhere on my chin because so many of the children had it on their heads. [00:07:25] They would sit and snuggle in your lap, so you'd get it right under your chin where you would rest your head on top of their heads.
But I do really feel like God protected me in so many ways from a lot of bigger illnesses that went around. For some reason, I think it's funny, He just gives us grace for the season we're in. I think for some reason I wasn't ever... I didn't ever really feel fearful when the kids got sick, but more just compelled to love them. And by His grace, yeah, I didn't really catch anything or get anything.
I think even specifically what you're talking about in the book is once I started my own family here, we welcomed a lot, a lot of different people into our home. And sometimes they were quite ill. In hindsight, I kind of laugh. Like, well, what were you doing? Like, how are you letting these different sick people be around your kids?
But I really just think that the Lord does equip you for what He calls you to. In our case, there were many, many times when He kept us from illness and protected us from that. But I also believe that had we caught something or had one of my children become ill, He would have also provided a way for them to get the medical care that we needed. [00:08:45]
Laura Dugger: But it's just incredible because I think it is an example of being the hands and feet of Jesus, and that we weren't given a spirit of timidity, but you just kept being obedient, and He protected you in that. Then further along in your story, how did you discern the Lord's voice calling you to stay in Uganda? Because you had only committed for one year, is that right?
Katie Davis Majors: Right. That's absolutely right. I like this question a lot because I think there are so many of us, myself included some days... I mean, I know that I'm here in Uganda, so not in that way. But you know, I feel like we are all often wondering like, what are you asking me to do here, Lord? Or what are you calling me to even just in this season?
For me, the answer was not... I didn't hear an audible voice. There wasn't a sign or certain things lining up in certain ways or anything like that that I was praying for that I felt like God revealed to me, as much as I know that He can do that. [00:09:51]
But I think it just came down to honestly looking in His Word and seeing the commandment to make disciples of all nations, seeing the commandment to love my neighbor as myself, seeing the commandments to care for even who Jesus refers to as the least of these, you know, people who are hungry or sick or poor.
I feel like I was looking all around me and all of those things were happening in my life. So more than any kind of audible calling or any kind of really tangible confirmation, I feel like I was able to look and say like, Okay, Lord, your commandment seems pretty clear here, and you have dropped me in a place where I do have an opportunity to do all these things.
I totally believe that God could have done that in any other country, or even if I had stayed in Nashville, but He had me in a place where it was really obvious that there were needs to be met. And it was really obvious that I had the means to meet some of them. [00:11:02] So my call to stay and to continue to meet those needs, and above all of it, to continue to share the gospel, it seemed like there wasn't any other option but to stay and continue.
Laura Dugger: So many people have now benefited from your obedience. Do you have any other stories of ways that you've seen God's hand at work, specifically during your time in Uganda?
Katie Davis Majors: Oh my, yes, I have so many stories that it'll be hard to pick one. But on a grand scale, God has taken what was just a handful of children going to school with the desire that they would stay out of the orphanage and with their families. He has taken that and just expanded it into a pretty huge program here in Uganda, Amazima Ministries, which is the name of the ministry I founded.
We now have over 600 children that we sponsor to go to school and we provide them with schooling all the way through university and skills training for some of those who will not go on through university. [00:12:09]
We have a very large staff of Ugandans and also some expats. I mean that's just hundreds of lives right there being impacted. And any time that I am out at our property or that I'm in a staff meeting, I just can't believe how Huge God has grown this thing. And not that many years.
Two and a half years ago we opened a secondary school. So we now have our own secondary school that we're sending our children through because it was just our desire to pour into them even more and mentor them even more and to see their education really be transformational in that they would be taught critical thinking, but they would also be taught, you know, the Word of God all day as they're in school.
So that's really fun because we get to handpick the teachers and the mentors who are at the school pouring into those children and discipling them every day. [00:13:07] I mean, kind of on a large scale, God has just worked and moved, I mean, beyond my wildest imagination. And it was just these simple steps of obedience, you know, just seeing the person in front of me and seeing their need and desiring to find a way to meet that need and God just took it and grew it into something that was so much bigger than me.
Like I said, now we have a big staff that helps carry out all the day-to-day activities of Amazima, but in that way, He really has done exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. You know, in really simple, much smaller-scale ways, there have been just so many people whose lives God has knit together with ours over the years.
We have taken in homeless people that have been freed from their addiction during their time in our home and who have gone on to be successful men and women in the workplace and made a life for themselves. We have had people come to live with us when they're very ill and God has healed them.
We've also had people come to live with us and God hasn't healed them. And that's a lot of what my second book is about is just you know, who is God when we're praying those prayers and He doesn't show up in the way that we think that He might? [00:14:34] But even in that, He does Always show up.
He has taught me things and He has strengthened our family in ways that maybe He wouldn't have been able to if we hadn't experienced some hardship. So yeah, like I said, there are really so so many ways that He is at work.
Laura Dugger: Well, it's just so exciting to hear those personal stories. I think it increases all of our faith to hear that. This next question has two sides. First, I just am wondering what cultural differences were hardest for you to overcome? And then second, which cultural differences are you most grateful for?
Katie Davis Majors: You know, I love that question because as I was even thinking about it, I think that so many of the cultural differences that were the hardest for me to overcome are also the differences that I feel most grateful for. [00:15:33]
Uganda has really taught me hospitality in a completely different way. The Ugandan people have really taught me to value relationships above anything else. I mean just practically speaking here, it is just very normal that you would show up at your neighbor's home at any time of the day, no matter what they were doing, they would welcome you in. They would stop what they were doing, they would make you a cup of tea and they would sit and talk with you.
As you can maybe imagine, as a young person straight from America trying to make lesson plans for a preschool at first and then later years trying to run this small organization out of my home, I can be very task-oriented. This used to be a pretty big source of annoyance for me. I mean people would just come over and plop themselves down on the couch or on the floor and kind of look at me, you know, waiting for me to do the culturally expected thing which is stop what I'm doing and make them a cup of tea or offer them a glass of water or a snack or something. [00:16:40]
I would just be thinking, like, "I can't talk to you right now. I have so much stuff to do," or "I'm so busy. Can't you see what I'm working on?" But over the years I've just really come to embrace that as something so, so beautiful. That people here they value relationship above the task. I think I've learned that in a huge way.
My days are now a lot more interruptible than they used to be. And don't get me wrong, I still occasionally do feel kind of that twinge of annoyance. But I just think you know, that was Jesus, right? Always stopping. You know, every time it seems like He was headed out somewhere and somebody reached out and grabbed His robe or a crowd gathered. Or He was already in the boat headed somewhere and the crowd gathered there with their sick people for Him to heal or they're hungry people for Him to feed. [00:17:40] I think that that is something that this culture really has gotten right. It's a slower pace of life and it allows time to know people truly and to love them well.
Another thing that I think is kind of a both-and is just that this is such a culture of sharing. If you have more than me, you will share it with me. And so sometimes that used to kind of cause me to feel like, oh my goodness, you just expect me to share absolutely everything: my food and my home and my time and my resources and everything else.
And not that that's bad. I mean, I think it's funny as I say that. I came here to share obviously, but you know, you can put a limit on that if you see yourself as a missionary or as an aid worker. There are certain things that you're going to share and then there are certain things that are yours and that are kind of off-limits.
Uganda is a culture that doesn't really have things that are off-limits. And it's very very humbling because for me or for anybody, if you would walk into a Ugandan family's home, I mean, they would immediately start to make you a meal and they would prepare their very best food, they would invite you in, they would bring you a chair, they would get everything ready so that they could share and really just their whole lives with you. [00:19:09]
So that has really taught me that there aren't certain things that are off limits. There are times when we have to set boundaries, especially around family time. But for the most part, we feel like, yeah, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine.
Coming from an American culture where things can be very, very guarded, that's been really hard to learn. But it's also something that I'm just so very grateful for because I think that it's more of a kingdom way of living. I think that that's how God designed it to be.
Laura Dugger: That's incredible to hear something just such a beautiful vision of what that looks like. We'll come back shortly after a brief message from our sponsor.
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Laura Dugger: Now will you catch us up on all that has happened since you released your first book, Kisses From Katie?
Katie Davis Majors: Yes. So that book, my goodness, I sometimes laugh a little bit about that book. I had written most of it by the time I was probably 19 or 20. It wasn't turned into a book until later. It was just a series of blog posts and journal entries. But yeah, it's even funny to just look back at that and experience things kind of through my fresh young eyes.
A lot has happened since that book released. Probably one of the most notable things that has happened is that I have gotten married since then. God so graciously provided me with a husband after I had been here five or six years and really after I had kind of surrendered that dream. As a young woman, I had always dreamt of being married and having a family.
God grew my family through adoption before I got married. I passed through several years of thinking that between all of my adopted children and just the lifestyle that I was choosing to live of allowing people in and out of our home and even just living in a different country for what I thought would probably be the rest of my life, I had really kind of laid down the dream that there would be a man who wanted to embrace that life. [00:23:07] So such a joy and such a beautiful surprise from the Lord that He would bring me an amazing husband.
Also, since the release of the first book, during that book I was in the process of fostering to adopt 13 little girls. Those girls are not so little anymore. They are growing more rapidly than I would like and many of them are teenagers. The oldest four of them are actually off at college. But yeah, their adoptions have all been finalized in the last many years. That's a very long legal process, but I was blessed to be able to do it with their father and my husband at my side. So that has been joyous as well, just to know that what God began in our hearts so, so, so many years ago has also become, you know, legal on paper.
Then we have also added two little boys to our growing tribe in the last two and a half years.
[00:24:14] So we have two biological sons now. It's been super fun after years and years of raising girls that God would choose to add two little boys down at the bottom. And they are just adored by their sisters as you could imagine. Our youngest actually was just born a few months ago.
So that's kind of a family update since that book. I think in my heart, the Lord has done a lot. Like I said, I was young when I released that first book and naive in a lot of ways and also still, I think, very fueled by adrenaline. You know, it's pretty amazing to move to this foreign country and get to watch God do so many big things in just a short amount of time.
You know, very early in my adult life, I had made a big move, and God had grown my family in a big way, and God had grown Amazima Ministries in a big way. It seemed like I had a front-row seat to a lot of really big things. And then over the next many years, you know, God, I think kind of taught me what it meant to find Him also in the small things. [00:25:22]
Because after the big things happen, you know, at the end of the day, I did have a large family and was learning how to parent in all the little mundane tasks. It was learning the ins and outs of running a ministry and all the little tasks that came with that as well.
I say that often that I feel like God did a lot of big things early in my adult life maybe to grab my attention or maybe just to show me the enormity of his power and what he can do. And then over the next many years He taught me what it looked like to be faithful in the small things and to trust him to be faithful and the small things.
So my second book has a lot more of that in it. Just little encounters with different people that He brought into our lives and little ways that He was teaching me and shaping my heart in ways that also turned out to be big but didn't have as much of an outward wow factor, I guess, you could say.
Laura Dugger: I think that's really relatable, just hearing about being faithful in all the small things. [00:26:24] I'm sure right now you don't really have a typical day, but what does your life look like on any given week now?
Katie Davis Majors: I think it's funny because, you know, even as I talk about a big family and a ministry and all these things, I think people can kind of romanticize it or just say like, oh, wow, you know? I think it would be easy to assume that because I live in Uganda, my days are full of feeding meals to hungry people and bandaging wounds of the sick.
Some days are like that, but for the most part, we now have a really phenomenally abundant staff that runs the day-to-day operations of Amazima. Right now my typical day probably looks like most moms who might even be listening. We get up early and we scoot all the high schoolers out the door, so seven of them go off to school in the morning and then actually, to be honest, I usually sit on the couch with my cup of coffee and just stare. I am not really a morning person. [00:27:29]
It is my husband who gets the breakfast on the table and makes sure that people have everything they need. I'm kind of useless in my little corner on the couch. I just say good morning and watch everybody.
But then we have a fifth grader and a sixth grader and so I homeschool them. And then we also have a two-and-a-half-year-old and a newborn like I mentioned. So the two-and-a-half-year-old basically just destroys everything while we do school. We have to stop like four different times or weeding up everything that little brother has moved all over the school room or wipe up where he's colored on the floor or spilled his water or whatever it might be.
So I mean that's kind of typically what I'm doing in the daytime. And I do a couple times a week have different ministry meetings and things that I need to attend. But we live in a very small town and so usually I would just take the four of my children who are at home with me, or maybe we would even have the meeting at my house sometimes. [00:28:30] When you're the only person on the leadership team with a newborn, you can kind of pull that card sometimes, like, Oh, how about everybody just comes to me? So that's kind of my day-to-day.
Then Benji, my husband, and I make it a point to make sure that we're home from whatever various ministry things we're doing. We make sure we're home by four o'clock each day and that way we have a few minutes to catch up. Then our kids get home from school around 4:30. The evening is usually all hands on deck of trying to get dinner on the table and homework help for everybody and then later to get babies in the bath and out of the bath and into beds. Then I spent some time with the big girls before it's time for us all to head to bed.
So funny because you know, there is no typical day and there are little interruptions in all our days. But I feel like our life is probably a lot more normal than what people assume. You know, we sit on our bed and fold laundry and wake up bleary-eyed and stumble out to the coffee pot and drive in carpools and take kids to different activities and kind of, you know, all the different things that I guess your typical parents do. [00:29:44]
Laura Dugger: Yes, absolutely. I think so many people are probably nodding along in their days may look similar. Continuing with that, on a really practical note, with your hands that are so full and your full family, when do you personally carve out time to sit at the feet of Jesus?
Katie Davis Majors: You know, I thought you might ask. I was feeling a little convicted because, to be honest, with a newborn, it's just hard. You don't really have days and nights. It all feels kind of like this one continuous every three-hour cycle kind of thing.
So sometimes I'm like, did I brush my teeth today or was that yesterday? But we were about three months out. So I think we're kind of finally going to get back to the place of having a little bit more of a schedule and hopefully time with Jesus will be a lot more predictable. [00:30:44]
But I mean, morning is usually my go-to. Like I said, I kind of stumble out and get my cup of coffee and sit on the couch and everybody races out the door for school and looks for their shoes and looks for their homework. I usually sit and read during that time. And then there's kind of a lull between when the big girls leave and the time when the rest of us need to start school. So there's about an hour in there where I can sit on the couch. It's often interrupted. You know, it's not the perfect quiet time that I would envision with a hot cup of coffee in a quiet couch.
I usually do have like a two-and-a-half-year-old kind of climbing on me, or a 10-year-old coming and asking all the different questions. But I really think that my offering to the Lord is being consistent in that time. I tell myself that again and again. God sees that pursuit, and I believe that He will honor it. I think it's really beautiful that my children see that. [00:31:45]
So it might be interrupted time but... something I really remember so vividly about my own mother is that when I walked downstairs, after I'd gotten ready for school and would walk downstairs to get breakfast in the morning, she was always in the same chair with her Bible open. And she probably felt like I was interrupting her as well, but I have that picture of my mom in her chair with her Bible.
I really want that to be a picture that my kids have of me as well. To be honest, some days only a few verses get read, or I get stopped so many times that I end up reading the same verse over and over again because I can't find my place. And then I think, oh, I just read that one. And then I get asked a question again. But I feel like God, He's faithful to meet us in the time that we have.
I do try to go about the rest of my day with just a posture of prayer. Right now I get a lot of prayer time in the rocking chair, rocking a baby, whether it's, you know, at a weird time of day or in the middle of the night. And yeah, that looks different for me in different seasons. [00:32:49]
Laura Dugger: I love the reality of that answer. And the question certainly wasn't meant to be condemning at all, but you just exude that love for Jesus. Many listeners have written to us and a lot of them are moms and like you, maybe new moms or have just added a new one to the family. And so I think it's just helpful to hear that and say, "Oh, me too. I'm experiencing that as well." So thanks for sharing.
Katie Davis Majors: Of course. You know, one thing that I've done recently that has been really helpful to me, I think, is I've made the rule that I can't bring my phone with me into the rocking chair because I was starting to feel convicted about the times when I'm sitting and nursing our son or you know, he still wants to be wrapped to sleep and I love that. But it's so easy... When my girls were little, I didn't have a smartphone. But with our boys, I do have one and it is just so easy to sit and scroll and look at things that aren't important or look at other people's lives on Instagram.
I feel like the Lord kind of convicted me of that recently and so I've tried to really make it a point to put the phone down before I sit in the rocking chair. You could equate the rocking chair to anything. Anytime that you're sitting somewhere, kind of scrolling aimlessly because it's there and it's available. But for me, I'm spending a lot of time in the rocking chair. [00:34:15]
So I've been putting my phone down and just over and over again I feel like the words that God has given me are just teach me how to pray, Lord. Teach me how to listen to you. That's become kind of my rocking chair prayer, is that God would use that time to teach me to pray more intimately.
I hope that can be an encouragement to even just one person. He wants that sweet time with us. And it is so, so easy to fill it with all the other distractions. And I am so, so guilty of doing that. But I do feel like I have so little time and I do feel like in that kind of newborn raising babies haze. But I believe that God is faithful to answer our prayers. And so I believe that as we ask Him to show Himself to us, as we ask Him to speak to us more, He'll be fitful to do it. I know in my own life I have to get rid of some of the distractions as well.
Laura Dugger: I certainly think that will be encouraging for someone listening today. [00:35:15] My only experience with parenting is raising children in America. So I'm curious, what are the current joys and struggles that you're facing while parenting in Uganda?
Katie Davis Majors: Oh, that's a good question. I've never also parented in America, so I don't know that I can really draw a comparison. But my guess is that they would be similar. I mean, I think we have a unique challenge in that we have a newborn and we have kids in college and we are potty training and we have teenagers who are about to learn to drive. So we pretty much have the full range of all the children, new children and old children and girl children and boy children. We have just been so blessed by the Lord in that way.
And so it is challenging, I think, to feel like we are giving them all what they need, because their needs are so unique and they are in different seasons. It was definitely easier when just the whole gaggle of them were like seven, eight, and nine because their needs were in some ways similar. [00:36:19] But yeah, of course as they grow too and their personalities come out more and more you see that even just their needs for different ways of being loved can change.
That is probably our biggest struggle is just figuring out how to love each of them in the unique way that they need and even discipline them each in the unique way that they need and can receive. But at the same time, as I say, that one of the greatest joys is also just figuring out how to love them well and how to discipline them well and how to shepherd them well through their different seasons of life, really just getting to know them.
One of the cool things that is happening now is as our children move into teenagehood and even adulthood, they really are becoming some of my best friends and some of my greatest friends. I enjoy them so much. I enjoy conversation with them so much. And so it's just been really fun and really unique to watch them and to help them grow into the young adults that God has created them to be and to get to be not just a parent but also a friend in that way. [00:37:28]
Laura Dugger: Aw, that's so exciting to hear how your investment is really paying off. This is a quick shout-out to 21Marie who left us a five-star rating and review on iTunes. They write, "Each podcast has given me insight into so many different aspects of my life. The variety and life applications are uplifting and savvy."
Your positive reviews have helped us spread The Savvy Sauce around the world, which in turn makes our quality of guests and sponsors improve. We only want to bring you the best interviews, so thanks so much for helping us with this endeavor by leaving your rating and review.
Do you have any encouragement or even a challenge that you would like to share with your sisters and brothers in Christ who are listening right now?
Katie Davis Majors: I think lately I have just been encouraged to really be present with whoever it is that the Lord is putting in my path. And right now, for the most part, it's my children and my own family. And I think that's okay.
I think for someone who has been involved in a lot of different types of ministry, sometimes it's tempting to feel like our ministry is small when it's just to our family. [00:38:37] But God has really been showing me the beauty of that. It requires a lot of perseverance and a lot of patience and a lot of faithfulness just to serve your own family when nobody is looking and there are no applause from the outside world and nobody's saying, oh wow, look what an amazing mom you are because you got the laundry done and dinner on the table.
But God sees that and He sees us in all those places where we might feel hidden from the world. That is just as much of an offering to him as it is to be, you know, doing some other kind of more public ministry. So I've been encouraged in that and I hope that listeners will be as well. You know, serving the people in front of you is a beautiful offering to the Lord.
Laura Dugger: Yes, it is. If listeners are hearing this and they want to take some kind of first step to getting more involved, where can they start today?
Katie Davis Majors: Oh, sure. We have a website, amazima.org. [00:39:45] On there, they could be directed to donate. There would be a place where they could get involved. We actually have several staff positions open right now, if maybe they even wanted to move. We have an online store where I've taught some women here to make jewelry and you can purchase some fun gifts for your relatives. So there are lots of different options for ways to get involved on our website.
Laura Dugger: We'll definitely link to that so people can get involved if they're interested. Our listeners know that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge or discernment. And so, Katie, I have one final question for you today. What is your savvy sauce?
Katie Davis Majors: If I had to pick one, it would be early bedtime. I mean for my kids, not for me. When I was a single parent, I put all the girls to bed at 8 o'clock every single day because I needed time with the Lord. And now they're older, so it's 8:30. But yeah, it does not matter if you are 2 or 18, at 8:30 you are in your bedroom. [00:40:55]
Now that has become time when my husband and I can catch up on the happenings of the days and just decompress and spend time with the Lord and spend time in prayer over our family. But I really think that is what keeps me sane and keeps my husband and I connected in such a large family, is that we give all that we have from when we wake up until 8.30, but then at 8.30, you are in your room.
Of course, not everybody goes to sleep at 8.30. It's like a giant slumber party at our house all the time because everybody shares room with their best friends. But they're in their rooms and they do have to whisper. They can read or now a lot of them have homework and stuff. But mom and dad are kind of off and decompressing. I think that's just been really important to my walk with the Lord and really important to our marriage and our time together. So my savvy sauce is early bedtime. [00:41:54]
Laura Dugger: I love it. Katie, you are so wise beyond your years, and your love of Jesus is so apparent and so compelling. So thank you for giving us a glimpse of your life and pointing everything back to our awesome God. I've really loved chatting with you today.
Katie Davis Majors: Oh, thank you. I've enjoyed it too.
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. [00:42:58]
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen. [00:44:03]
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. [00:45:03]
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
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