Muzungu!!!

It’s the children there – not the place, not the dirty, dusty cities, not fear of the machine-gun-armed guards or awe of the beautiful views; not pity for the HIV infected blood – but the children. They drew me in and they draw me back, even now.

It’s their smiles in spite of their tattered clothes, their sense of family despite the fact that they’re orphans. They took me by the hand and welcomed me in, unafraid to love though they knew I would leave them.

Kimi would tell you, it’s what keeps her there, too.

All week, we had been hoping to run into Katie Davis. Oh, you know, the author of Kisses From Katie, the remarkable story of a 22 year old American mother of 13 Ugandan babies and
founder of Amazima Ministries. It’s a beautiful story of God hijacking the life of an upper-middle-class recently-out-of-high-school girl and placing a burden and call upon her life for the orphans of Uganda. Her story has circled the globe, awakening the Western church to God’s call.

But even though we were in the same town in which Katie resides, we didn’t run into her.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday flew by. Beautiful days in the arms of (mostly) sweet innocent children with foreign words and songs. Towards the end of Wednesday, a ripple of shouts ran through our crowd of 300-something microcosms of self-sustaining energy. “Muzungu! Muzungu! Moooozuuunnnguuuu!!!”

Now, for those of you who have not had the unique opportunity of living/going to a place where your race/ethnicity/color places you in the category of “minority,” you may not fully grasp the weight of this fact. White folks are something of a rarity in Uganda. Yes, there are white Ugandans, contrary to popular belief; they are just few and far between. “Muzungu” is a term meaning “traveler” or “one who moves from place to place.” The children, however, use it to describe anyone whose skin is lacking pigment.

Needless to say, our van pulling up to the church every day, packed full with muzungus, was something equal to the circus coming to town. But by Wednesday afternoon, the novelty of our strange color had worn off. We were mostly one of them, so when we heard the commotion and use of that word, we knew someone else was here.

Katie, I thought.

It wasn’t until the next day that I met the source of all the previous day’s excitement. Kimi Toyota is her name. She’s a single, 28 year-old Japanese-Canadian (umm…eh?) from British Columbia. She’s an unsung hero, and like many saints, she’d like to keep it that way. When she was my
age, she came for a 3-week long mission trip, fell in love with the people of Uganda and came back later that year for 7 months to work in an orphanage. The man running the orphanage was corrupt and ended up swindling the money and leaving the orphans to be orphaned yet again. When she went to accuse him, he tarnished her name and told the government that she was trafficking children.

Pause there. Go read the story of Joseph, then come back to this. No really, Genesis 39, especially Genesis 50:20. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%2039&version=NIV

Okay, so Kimi had to go straight to the government because these were, clearly, boldfaced lies. They would not let her back into the country due to this man’s false witness against her. She had months of red tape to go through, but once they investigated her situation, they found her to be telling the truth. Because she had to work so closely with the government, they now back her and her ministry fully and consider her to be a vital asset to the future of Uganda! Talk about Genesis 50:20!

Since then, Kimi has been running an organization, His Hope Uganda (http://www.hishope.org/), for the past 3 years. His Hope places children who need to go to school but can’t afford the funds with sponsors in Canada and the U.S. Since she began His Hope, she has found sponsors for over a hundred and fifty children! She is reaching them, one by one, with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus and is bettering the lives of their families by providing the children with an education. Oh yeah, and she has also adopted 3 teenage girls (Lord, help her!) of her own. Did I mention that she’s not married and that she’s only 28?!

God did not send Katie Davis my way. Instead, He sent me
Kimi. So I bid you: fall in love with her, too!