“Three Cups of Tea is the story of a mountain climber, Greg Mortenson, who in a twist of fate, ended up in the wrong village after a failed climb up K2. (K2 is the name of the mountain, the 2nd highest in the world.) As the villagers nursed him back to health, he was impressed with their kindness to him and shocked when he saw that though they had no school building, the village kids still met every day in the shadow of the mountain to study (whether they had a teacher there that day or not). Promising that he would come back one day to help them build a school, Mortenson returned to the United States and tried to raise funds for the venture.
Mortenson’s grand plan of building one school in rural Pakistan quickly grew as a generous donor opened a foundation to pave the way for more schools. Mortenson lived a bifurcated life, half of the time first in San Francisco, then Bozeman, Montana, and the other half of the time traveling about Pakistan and Afghanistan building not only schools, but water projects, a women’s center, and most importantly, relationships with a colorful variety of people.
Though the adventurous stories detailing how Mortenson put his dream into action were entertaining, what struck me most was the philosophy of service that Mortenson began to develop as he worked on these projects. Though he had originally set out to build a school for kids, over time he began to see that the most critical need in many of these villages wasn’t just a school, but specifically schools that would include girls and that would take them at least through 5th grade. “Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities,” Mortenson said. “But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they’ve learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.” (Heifer International, by the way, operates on a similar philosophy.)
Mortenson worked, and still works, through very difficult physical and political situations, caring for the poor and needy no matter what side of a national border they might be living on. “In times of war,” he said, “you often hear leaders – Christian, Jewish, and Muslim – saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.” And Mortenson, too, is on the side of these poor and needy, irregardless of religious belief or nationality. His example is impressive and inspiring.
Though the beginning of this book seemed to me to move a bit slowly (especially the parts that took place stateside), all in all it was well worth the read and I highly recommend it.”
barefootmeg wrote this review Monday, October 13, 2008.
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