Faith that moves mountains

Hello to all from the bottom of mount kilimanjaro! For the past 6 days, Dana, Kate, and I have been sleeping in tents, freezing every night, using the beautiful natural surroundings of kilimanjaro as our own personal bathroom, and meeting amazing people. I don't have my journal handy, so I'm going to write what I remember.

On day 1, dana, Kate and I met our guides Fred and Festo- they were wonderful the whole time. We started at Machame gate and hiked for about 4 hours up to the next camp site. The porters here are AMAZING. they carry ALL of our stuff, run ahead of us, and set up our tents and make dinner by the time we get there. their work is to hard and so grueling, i give them a lot of respect.

Each night got a lot colder as we went higher and higher up. The next day was a really steep climb- lots of rocks to climb over. Some people were already getting sick. Altitude sickness affects anyone so randomly. I'm really lucky I didn't really feel anything until the top.

Fred, our main guide, hadn't been feeling well since day 2 of the trip. He had a fever and really no appetite. He made it with us until day 4- but then he decided that it was best to go back down. He was acting really tough for us, but who wants a guide that doesn't feel well enough to take care of you. He was great about it though, and got another guide to take his place. His english was the best, so the rest of the trip was a lot of "charades" playing. :)

The 3rd day was the second steepest day, the first being the summit night. we climbed over baranco wall. I felt like getting to the next base camp must be what heaven feels like, a little bit.

On the 4th day, we had gotten back from hiking around 4. We had an early dinner at 5, then went to bed at 6. I "slept" until 11.. although I don't think I ever fell asleep, I was so nervous. then they woke us up at 11pm to get breakfast and get our gear together. we left the camp in down coats, and I had 5 layers of thermal shirts on. We put our headlamps on, and up the mountain we started to go. There were about 100 other climbers doing the same thing.

It was so dark outside, and the stars were at their most beautiful. Absolutely no lights from anywhere to hinder them. I was so tired that I think I confused the headlights going up the mountain as stars. Summit night was STEEP. I climbed for 3 minutes, then had to stop, and catch my breath.

Around 2 am, Kate was the first to feel the effects of altitude. She got quite sick to her stomach and really dizzy. Festo got her to go another hour, but at 3 am she couldn't even stand up. We had 2 guides with us going up the mountain... and 1 went down with Kate at 3. that left 1 guide and dana and I.

Dana and i climbed, ever so slowly, for the next 5-6 hours. we were both so exhausted. We decided that if we could make it to the the top of the rim, called "stella point", we would make that our "uhuru" (the summit). the sunrise around 6 am was beyond words. There is nothing i can say to give it justice.

Around stella point, dana was feeling extremely lethargic. She had to stop quite often and was just about falling asleep everytime she stopped-not a good sign. Festo got her to go about 10 minutes past stella, then we all knew she had to go back down.

This is where we got into a pickle, because we only had one guide left and 2 of us. Luckily, Festo saw his guide friend from another tour company, and told me to go with them, so I did. Dana made it so far though.

this other group was so nice- Jimmy and Jamie were the guides. they were with one other lady. we walked so slowly toward to the summit for about 40 minutes. When i say slowly, i mean any slower and I would be going backwards. the air was so thin.

But, I MADE IT! I was crying when I saw the sign. We got there at 9 am, so all of the others had already gone and left. I had the summit to myself. the glaciers were unbelievable, the look so small from the bottom, but they are massive. I stole a rock from the summit :) Was it worth it? Completely. 100%. It was the most surreal experience of my life. Would I ever do it again? Heck no!

Another 3 hours of "skiing" down on sand (literally, exactly like skiing, but with sand and not snow) I made it back to camp. 2 of our porters came and met me about 40 minutes from camp and pretty much carried me back because i was so exhausted. they were a Godsend.

I sang "amazing grace" to myself about 250 times going up on summit night. something about it calmed me and got my mind off the climb.

We all got back down today. 5 days up, and 12 hours down!

this was way longer than i intended!

Love to you all! I start at LIA on monday and am there for 2 weeks before I leave. God has been really good- there was definitely something beyond my body that got me up that mountain. there was no possible way I could have done it alone.

Love to all.