From the book

FOREWORD

People who really want to make a difference in the world usually do it, in one way or another. And I've noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren't determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they're satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.

People who want to make a difference get frustrated along the way. But if they have a particularly stressful day, they don't quit. They keep going. Given their accomplishments, most of them are shockingly normal and the way they spend each day can be quite mundane. They don't teach grand lessons that suddenly enlighten entire communities; they teach small lessons that can bring incremental improvement to one man or woman, boy or girl. They don't do anything to call attention to themselves, they simply pay attention to the everyday needs of others, even if it's only one person. They bring change in ways most people will never read about or applaud. And because of the way these world-changers are wired, they wouldn't think of living their lives any other way.

This realization came to me on my first day in a small village near Katie's home in Jinja, Uganda. My driver took me from Entebbe airport to the village because that's where Katie happened to be when we arrived. The place is called Masese (pronounced Ma-SESS-ay). It is a place of intense poverty; it's filthy and it smells like raw sewage rotting in the hot sun, often made worse by the distinct odor of homemade moonshine. To drive through Masese is to witness one gut-wrenching scene after another, and Katie absolutely loves it because she loves the people who live there.

Masese is located at the foot of a hill. On top of that hill is a school where the ministry Katie directs supplies food to the school students and, by special arrangement with the school officials, to the children of the village too, even if they are not enrolled in the school. The school was my first stop in Uganda and I could easily tell the schoolchildren apart from the village children. Certainly, the students' uniforms distinguished them, but so did their cleanliness, their shoes, and the fact that their noses weren't running and their mouths weren't bleeding.

Many of the village children appeared to be sick, but one little girl, who looked to be two or three years old, stood out more than the rest. Her tiny body seemed barely able to carry her enormous belly, and her dirty skin was dotted with unidentifiable bumps that each resembled a wart, a blister, and the kind of sore that appears with chicken pox, all in one lesion. A wound that was part scab, part raw and oozing covered about half of her little mouth. I watched Katie walk over to this fragile child, pick her up gently, assess her needs almost instantly, and begin asking other...

Author: Katie J. Davis
Bio:   Katie J. Davis is a young woman with a passion to make a difference in the world. This former senior class president and homecoming queen left home at eighteen for a short missions trip to Uganda. From that experience grew an overwhelming desire to do something more personal and more sacrificial than just giving up her Christmas vacation for Africa. Today Katie lives in Uganda, where she is the adoptive mother of fourteen little girls, some with special needs, and the head of Amazima, a ministry that reaches hundreds of other children in Africa. Katie is originally from Nashville, Tennessee, where her parents and brother live.This is her first book. Other: Beth Clark
Bio:   Beth Clark is a writer and publishing consultant who has ghostwritten four top-ten New York Times Bestsellers. She runs a business called Thinkspot Communications in the rolling hills of Franklin, Tennessee.