Book Review: Daring to Hope

It seems hard to believe in today's day, that someone would give up everything and move to Uganda to run a non-profit and personally house African children, but that's exactly what Katie Davis Majors did.  Although this seems like an act of faith that not everyone has, "Daring to Hope" humanizes the struggles that Katie goes through personally, to continue on to love and care for people in desperate need of help.

Katie has personally adopted 13 girls, but after having her own personal tragedy, is painfully afraid to open herself to loving another person. Life goes on for Katie, more people in need of love and care, even on their deathbeds are sent to her.  Can she open herself to love again?  Does she dare to hope that God will provide and give her the strength to love over and over, even knowing that person may die?

Uganda and Katie's organization seem so far away from my own, busy life in America, but Katie brings her story of pain and suffering into an encouraging book about "Daring to Hope" no matter where God has you in life.  I found myself unable to put this book down, to see how Katie would find her way through the pain and grief of loss and suffering.  I even felt the deep conviction of looking for the blessings, even the smallest things in my own life.  I found myself feeling Katie's pain deep in my heart, as well as seeing the hope from a ever-loving God.

This book is a well-written, almost diary-style of the emotional struggles of a mom, a woman, a missionary.  So lovely to learn that though she feels like giving up daily, much like I do. Often times, she found her God in the middle of the night, on the floor of her bathroom.  Such an encouraging, real-life story a modern day missionary. A wonderful present day story of God's call to dare to hope.

This book was given to me by Multnomah Publishing in exchange for this review, although it all written with my own opinions.

The Small Things

Every renovation project has it’s setbacks, but it’s felt like our new-to-us home has had more than our share.  We had originally planned to enclose our carport area between our house and the carriage house.  It seems straight forward enough, but of course, our city government is involved, so we were at a standstill for several weeks, just waiting to get a building permit.

As it stands, we are being required to add a sidewalk to the front of our house, to the tune of more than $25,000 for the entire thing!  There’s a telephone pole, a grade, a drainage ditch, the utility post for the entire neighborhood and our water meter in the way on one end.  Fortunately, it seems like the Public Works guy is on our side and is going to try to put an end to it, at least for now.

Meanwhile, we bit the bullet, paid the deposit plus the building permit and were overjoyed to begin this additional living room project.  HALT!!!  Of course, that is if the local rental center has the jackhammer in, so we can break up the concrete and replace it.  3 1/2 weeks later, the rental center finally has the jackhammer back in, so we will be finishing it off.

Many of the things that we are wanting to fix or paint in the house are attached to another, bigger project after the extra living room gets finished.  One thing we have done is raise one of the kitchen over 4 inches to make it level for the new area.  I don’t want to paint the kitchen or the bathrooms until we get done with renovations.  Why spend the money and time if I don’t have to, so for the time being, I’m getting used to appreciating The Small Things!  Like a new shower curtain.

I had left the original shower curtain in the bathroom (after washing it) since it fit.  Our liner from the last rental, didn’t fit, so I got rid of that.  I bought a “fancy” liner from Walmart for $7 that made me happy and went with it.  Don’t you agree? It’s so much better!

Unfortunately, I can’t do much else with this bathroom just yet, because it’s going to get some wall knockouts, but this clean, modern looking curtain makes me happy!  It’s the small things!

Then, because the extra living room isn’t finished or hardly started, piano lessons had to start in our main living room.  Well, as with most moves, it’s hard to unpack - so I unpacked the living room and hung pictures.  What do you think?  I’d love to paint this room, but again, we are going to be changing up some walls.  So for now, I’m thankful to have our own home, and the small things that I can do to make it a happy place to live.