Day 10 : Young Life Camp and Farewell Dinner
JOURNAL ENTRY BY JOSH GILL
We began together at Mount Meru hotel, conquered Mount Kilimanjaro and hiked down together, and today we ended our trek - you guessed it - together.
We ended as we began - choosing the courage to share both laughter and the deeper parts of our hearts with one another, but not before a bit of physical and mental recovery.
After 6 nights of sleeping in tents on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, waking up each night to toss and turn on the ground then descending back into the madness of Malarone-fueled dreams, we found our hotel beds to be a welcome respite. Try as we might to sleep in, each of us awoke between 6 and 7 a.m., as we had on the mountain, then spent the day indulging in the pleasures of civilization -
1. showers;
2. going to the bathroom in the middle of the night without having to don socks, shoes, pants, a jacket, and headlamp, then unzip a tent and brave a frigid night and frosted earth to find a plastic box on which to relieve ourselves, then crawl back into the tent, undress and huddle into a slightly damp sleeping bag;
3. Food other than porridge, soup, toast, and eggs;
4. Massages, which for some were definitely a learning experience ...
5. And WiFi
Normal hygiene and grooming made some of us almost unrecognizable to each other at breakfast this morning.
Something more, though, than our physical appearances was different.
From our morning visit to a Young Life camp where we shared in the infectious joy of 300 children dancing and playing field games - being allowed to be children when their home lives often demand so much more of them - to our visit to Burka Coffee plantation, lunch at a Mzungu hangout spot, and then rest at the hotel, we each mulled over what God gave us on the mountain. We could hardly put them to words until dinner with Gabriel, our lead guide, and his uncle Frank, at Arusha coffee lodge.
First we discussed, like the tribal council Papa Deo described the night before our trek began, plans to help Gabriel provide opportunities for his porters to earn greater funding for education that would help them become qualified guides and provide more for themselves and their families. We will set those plans in motion soon.
Amid feasting and merriment, Drew implored us to share our highs, lows, and most important takeaways from our trek.
The older men poured life and encouragement into the younger. The younger gave hope to the older with their heartfelt insights about life with Christ and our calling to care for those less fortunate than us. Fathers and sons celebrated newly enriched relationships. All rejoiced over the camaraderie that God forged between us through love, humor, and shared hardship.
And of course, we chased away other diners with our uproarious laughter over team superlatives based on crazed jokes from our antics on the mountain.
While we all came to the mountain seeking different things, one thing was true for all of us by the end of our journey. God changed the paradigms by which we had each lived our lives for years before taking on Kilimanjaro. Those paradigm shifts, in which God began to unburden us of one thing and replace it with something better from His Kingdom, may yet take weeks, months, or years to fully process.
The prospect of processing all of that while going back to face the lives we left for a while terrify some of us. All men who must come down from summit experiences face that fear - the fear of leaving all the light and beauty and unfettered living they experienced on the mountaintop for the dim doldrums of the valley below.
We fear losing in the valley what we endured so much hardship and heartache to find at the peak. But the truth is, God protects the blessings he gives, and He gives us our mountaintops that we may navigate the valley by faith in the light we saw.
That long and winding path, when walked with Christ, is the path of freedom, discipleship, and walking more fully as the men God intends for us to be.
The trek may have ended, but as God promises us in His Word, He will not stop the good works he began in each of us until we stand complete before Him.
True, the struggles we left still await us at home, and yes, we may still stumble in facing them. But as we pushed onward up the steep and barren summit, through cold and dark and thinning air with the strength God gave us and one another’s encouragement, so will we stand back up each time, stronger and freer in Him than we were before, with that summit in our hearts.
God continued good works indeed in each of us on the mountain. May we continue to spur one another on in that path, despite time and distance between us.