Kili 2.0

In January 2017, I summited Kilimanjaro with a team of dedicated volunteers intent on providing access to education by building additional classrooms for one of the 24 schools at Missions of Hope International in Nairobi, Kenya (MOHI). Kilimanjaro is 19,341 feet and the tallest mountain on the continent of Africa.

This was never on my bucket list. I don’t even have a bucket list!

On my way back down the Mountain, I declared, outloud, that I would never, ever do this again! Seriously, I promise, I did. I am not an expert climber and apparently my Indiana born and raised body rebels at high altitude.  I puked, hallucinated, and fell asleep all the way up to the Summit.

There is a reason that my children are all three years apart. It took me that long to forget the long suffering nine months of pregnancy and rejoice in the blessing of my babe. I guess I am saying climbing Kilimanjaro is kinda like childbirth.

Has anyone ever said to you…”never say never”?  Have YOU ever done something that you swore you would never, ever do again?  Well, I swore that Kili was a one time adventure…and I promised myself I would never put myself through the gut-wrenching, miserable pain again.

And now almost three years later and I am attempting to do it once more. Why? Because, I fell in love.  Deeply and passionately.

And it’s the kind of love that means you will risk everything for it! You know the kind of love I mean.  No, not with the love of climbing but with the incredible children in the Mathare Valley.  

As I walked through one of the largest slums in the world watching these joy filled children, this question sang out in my heart, ”Where do they play?”  

The majority of children living in extreme poverty, like the children in the Mathare Valley, have little access to education and no sports programs.

At MOHI there are over 19,000 children in extreme poverty.   MOHI provides excellent education, health care, meals, small business job creation, access to university, job training and more. But, there are no sports programs that teach them life skills that can’t be learned in the classroom.

And so a dream was born. And God has spent the last three years growing my faith in tiny little steps in a million ways.

Ninety short days from today, a team of 30 passionate and adventure minded climbers will be headed up Kilimanjaro with the dream of giving these children a sports discipleship program and a clean and safe place to play!

And beyond these 30, there is a huge list of passionate volunteers, too many to list here, who have joined this dream for the children of MOHI! Friends, like you, who are praying, encouraging, seeking, volunteering and giving. Thank you, thank you…thank you from the bottom of my heart, I am so excited to share with you this next chapter!

To God be the Glory!

https://give.cmfi.org/a-place-to-play-8l.cause

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