Kisses from Katie

by Katie Davis

2011

My attention gravitates to books whose main character has the same name as one of my children. I’ve actually started collecting them with the intent of passing them along at the appropriate time.

That drew me to Kisses from Katie.

Simply put, the author, Katie Davis, is a young, twenty-something girl whose heart attached itself to Uganda and its people after a short high school mission trip. This led Katie to give up her American life and move to Uganda, where she currently serves as a nurse, teacher, cook, and caregiver, among other things. If I can actually sum up her life with those few words.

And, did I mention, she adopted thirteen Ugandan children? 


And I think four are loud at the dinner table.

Katie is an amazing example of a young woman taking up her cross daily and following Jesus completely. One hundred percent.

Kisses from Katie was a compelling read start to finish. I don’t even know where to begin. The stories and experiences Katie shares in her book are so different than what I experience in my everyday life....

So, what impacted me?

Comfort is bad for my soul. Why? With all my creature comforts in place, I am not mindful of my need for a Saviour.

People who believe in God are supposed to share with the poor.

God uses inadequate people and sometimes He stretches them beyond what they ever thought possible, but He always provides the means.

“Do not forget in the darkness what you have been promised in the light” (pg 204).

How can a child, or anyone, accept the Saviour’s love if they don’t know what love is?

In the last twenty-four hours, more than sixteen thousand children died of hunger-related causes.

Hot water in my home is a gift, not a right. (Recently, I was ever so grumpy to go forty-eight hours without it.)

I do not want to forget what I’ve learned through Katie Davis, so I have added her blog to my own homepage, check it out.

Reading on...  

Defender of Faith

The Mike Fisher Story

by Kim Washburn

2011

Always on the lookout for good, wholesome “boy books”, I came across this Mike Fisher biography at our local Christian bookstore. Being that Son #1 is a big hockey guy, I snatched it up.

 

And, out of interest, I read it first.  

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and by the quality of the guy. (A reader never knows these days.)

Cracking open the book, all I knew about Mike Fisher was that he currently plays with the National Hockey League (NHL), he’s supposedly a Christian, and that he recently married singer-songwriter, Carrie Underwood.

After reading Defender of Faith, I now know Mike Fisher plays for the Nashville Predators, he is a man who lives out his Christian faith on a daily basis, and he writes the reference Romans 12:12 on his stick before every game.

Defender of Faith is really only a short, 115 page middle-grade account of Mike Fisher’s life, but it is full of purpose. Throughout the book, Mike Fisher is quoted as saying things like,

“I wanted to experience this God that we all hear about. That’s where it became real for me. I knew I had to have a relationship with God to fulfill that inner peace of knowing I’m living my purpose, doing what God created me to do (pg 37)”.

“My parents always stressed faith as a central part of my life, and I grew to understand the importance of having a balance in life and finding a purpose through our Creator. I believe we are all gifted in certain areas and it’s our responsibility to use these gifts that God has given us for his glory (pg 17)”.

“...I try to use all of my abilities for God’s glory. That is my focus (pg 80).”

Things we are trying to instil in all our children, but especially our hockey-loving Son #1.

What better way to reinforce such important truths, than to hear (or read) them out of the mouth of a hero.

Great book.

Reading on...

A Father's Love

One Man’s Unrelenting Battle to Bring His Abducted Son Home

by David Goldman

2011 

Not necessarily a book I would have picked up on my own initiative, A Father’s Love was so captivating and utterly horrifying, that I couldn’t put it down.

Passed along with high recommendations from a dear friend, this book recounts the events surrounding the abduction of Sean Goldman in June 2004 and the excruciating battle his father, David Goldman, undertook to bring him home.

Alarmingly, the perpetrators were Sean’s mother and maternal grandparents.

As a quick recap, four year old Sean left his father and home in New Jersey to travel with his mother and grandparents back to their native country, Brazil. The trip was labelled “family vacation”, but in reality, it was anything but.

Just days after his son and wife left, David Goldman received a phone call from his wife stating their marriage was over and their son would not be returning to the United States.

Thus began David’s five year separation from his son and a fight against unbelievable legal and governmental corruption.

I won’t write what happened, but let’s just say, the Hague Abduction Convention didn’t work.

What is the Hague Abduction Convention?  
As quoted from the previous link, “The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is a multilateral treaty, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return”. 

Not all countries participate in this treaty. A list of the countries who do can be accessed here.

First of all, I must say, it’s a sad day that something like the Hague Abduction Convention even exists. However, as David Goldman stated in his book, at the time of Sean’s abduction there were at least sixty-five other American children who had been abducted to Brazil and, at the time of writing the book, nearly three thousand had been abducted internationally.

Most of these children have been abducted by a parent or legal-guardian.

The Hague Abduction Convention is obviously necessary.  

Please note: Brazil had signed the treaty at the time of Sean’s abduction, but the courts chose not to cooperate with it.

To learn more about this type of child abduction, visit David Goldman’s website at www.bringseanhome.org.

On a final note, I was surfing the web the other day and came across a recent interview and news report about David and Sean Goldman. Apparently, their ordeal is not over as Sean's grandparents continue to pursue legal action against David.

Reading on...