Kilimanjaro - the Roof of Africa. The highest point on the continent with the summit at 19,341 feet. By far the hardest climb I'll ever do in my life. What lead me to this point? It is going to be a physical, mental and spiritual journey that has few equals for an average guy like me. I thought I'd start this blog with something I wrote a little while back that gives a little bit of the background on how this great adventure started...
“So I prayed for healing, for salvation, and for hope
when all things look so hopeless. If someone was going to help, it was going to
have to be God. What a humbling experience. While we were there, one child died
even as we prayed.”
CCC Pastor
Neal Thorne, 2010
Never in my life did I
have a desire to travel to Africa – until I read these words Neal wrote
following a visit to a hospital in Soroti, Uganda. God touched me through Neal’s experience in a
way that could only have come from the Holy Spirit and I knew in that instant
that I was going to Uganda. I had no
clue how my life and my heart would be changed in the next few years.
During my first trip to
Uganda in 2012 I saw so many things that I could not comprehend. I had never seen such poverty and need, nor
had I ever seen such faith and generosity.
The experiences for a first time visit to Africa were overwhelming and I
spent many months after returning home trying to process what I had seen and
experienced, trying to understand what I was supposed to DO about it. I agonized in prayer wanting to understand
how God wanted to use me to help these amazing people, but more, I wanted to
live the faith I had seen there.
I happened to be reading a
book called Passion to Action and towards the end of the book I found this
call to action: “...it [is] about mobilizing ordinary, average people to get out of their
comfort zones to discover their unique gifts and then use what God has given
them to bless others.” I was reading
another book – THE book – when the final piece fell into place. It was actually a message God was unrelenting
in teaching me during my trip in 2012 – it was a message to a rich young
ruler: “If you want to be
perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away
sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
Never in my life, until that time, had I even remotely imagined myself
as “rich”. At this point in my life, I
was leading a comfortable life, but rich?
Not even close. It is amazing how
a few words from Jesus and a trip to Africa can put you in a place that makes
you face a new reality. This is where I
found myself and remember thinking to myself that I don’t ever want to walk
away from Jesus “sorrowful”.
My profession is in the
technology field. I’ve been in various
IT positions, mostly executive management, for about 30 years now. How could I possibly use this experience to
help people who are struggling to eat, find clean water to drink and survive
the diseases they face daily? Over the
past 5 years, I have worked with ARM to develop technology plans, with AfRU (Africa Renewal University) to
develop their technology strategy and some small work in various places to help
some individuals. But it was a
conversation with Pastor Peter in 2016 where he shared his vision for using
technology to grow the ARM ministry as well as fundamentally altering the
educational opportunities for the children of Uganda that God brought a focus
to what had previously been a dream.
Peter’s vision was that
we use technology to improve the future for students by improving their education from primary schools through university and provide them with exposure to technology and learning materials that are not generally available to them. There is a much longer description of this
project available, but suffice it to say that this was the genesis of this
project and fundraising drive to the top of Kilimanjaro.
My wife, Debbie, and I
have hiked the trails and mountains of Oregon & Washington for many
years. We love seeing the beauty and
diversity of God’s creation in such an intimate way. After a few years of hiking, we decided that
we wanted to set a goal for ourselves that we thought we couldn’t attain – to
climb to the summit of the South Sister in the Oregon Cascade mountains. We trained for almost 6 months to be able to
climb to the summit. It was something
that we couldn’t have dreamed we could achieve until we set the goal and work
for it.
 |
| Debbie & I standing on summit of the South Sister, 2009 |
There is something about
achieving a challenging goal that is very hard to describe unless you’ve done
it yourself. If you have, you know what
I mean. When Debbie & I crested the
summit of the South Sister and stood looking North across at the tops of the
other two sisters, we experienced the incredible joy of reaching our goal – and
the view was more than we could have imagined.
Debbie commented afterwards that it was the hardest thing she had ever
done!
Climbing a mountain is
not just a physical feat, it is a metaphor for struggling with so many other
challenges in life. Some struggle to
feed themselves or their families, some struggle with education, some with
relationships. For me, Mt. Kilimanjaro is
a metaphor representing the biggest challenge in Africa. The summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest
point in all of Africa and it is also the tallest free-standing mountain in the
world. This is a challenge beyond what I
ever dreamed – much like the challenges I found in Uganda.
What better way to raise
funds for a project that will help the children supported by ARM and the
daunting task faced by the ARM ministry than to take on an unimaginable
physical, mental & spiritual challenge to scale the tallest mountain in
Africa. I have no delusions about being
the strongest, most able climber. Far
from it. But I am going to prepare,
commit my way to Jesus and put one foot in front of the other to reach as high
as my body will carry me, and God willing, reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. From the moment this crazy idea of climbing
to the roof of Africa came to me, it has been my desire to take on this
challenge for the people I love at ARM and in Uganda.
As I noted in a blog post from one of our church’s prior mission
trips:
“We can't
change the whole world, but we can do our part to help one child, one village
in Uganda, one city in Oregon or who knows - maybe God will actually use us to
change the world!”
