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Kilimanjaro’s majestic dome rose high above the plains of Tanzania. Seeing it for the first time, a shiver ran through my body, my pulse quickened, and my breathing grew shallow. I commented to my son, “That is one big mountain!”
As I increasingly learned, this was a gross understatement. Two days later the Land Rover stopped at the Shira trailhead and we began a seven-day odyssey climbing the massif. The closer we got, the larger the mountain became.
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Without question it was the most difficult physical challenge I had ever faced. Two months of training were insufficient for this 60 year-old body. I will never forget the final ascent. We were supposed to sleep before our midnight departure from our camp at Barafu, but we didn’t. Perhaps we were too excited, or too scared, or maybe the altitude at 15,500 feet was too oxygen poor. Midnight came early. The moon had set, but the night was crystal clear. We could see the lights of the towns in the valley we had left six days before, and the stars above seemed so low that we could have snagged a few and placed them in our packs to take home as proof that we had made it this far.
We began climbing using headlamps to find our way. Even at our snail’s pace, I couldn’t get enough oxygen to replace what my body was guzzling. I stopped to rest several times, breathing hard, sucking air. Then it happened. Utter exhaustion washed over my body. Could I go any further? Several times I teetered on giving up, my mind drifting toward delirium. With the coaxing of our guide, however, I kept starting again, concentrating on taking just one more step. The steps added up and shortly after sunrise we crested the rim of the crater. At 19,340 feet, Kilimanjaro is the continent’s highest point, truly “The Roof of Africa.”
We all have our Kilimanjaros to climb. Mission work is hard. Just ask the missionary who is trying to learn a complicated language, or the elders who are attempting to oversee a work 8,000 miles away, or the mission team attempting to establish a new congregation, or the parents and grandparents whose sacrifice is separation from their loved ones.
Like me, they need encouragement not to give up. They need our gentle coaxing to take one more step. The surprising truth is that we can go further than we think, endure more than we imagine, and ascend higher than we believe. Our Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of heaven and earth and “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:29). He renews their strength so that they can “run and not grow weary” and “walk and not be faint” (v. 31).
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