Well, this is written after the fact. To be honest, there wasn’t much time to blog on the mountain after hiking 8 or so hours each day from our tents. I don’t even know where to begin. All we can say is wow.
This is something that will take all of us a long time to process what all we learned on the mountain. We started out with 22 people and I think it is fair to say that none of us really knew what we were getting into. Most of us have hiked Mt. Chrystolite out in Colorado at Frontier Ranch or at least Stone Mountain or Half Dome out at Yosemite and I think we al thought that this would be tough, but not too much harder than any of those listed above. Wrong.
We arrived at the gates and checked in. It was interesting to see how the porters (the people who carry your bags on their heads up the mountain) would linger around the gates and wait for the guides to hand pick them to join their group. Once a porter was picked, they would sprint up this hill and wait until all of the porters were picked for this particular group-ours consisting of 22 people plus John Simon and Gabrielle (our two guides) and Labon (Young Life Arusha) and Jerome who both acted as Assistant Guides for our trip. We waited around for awhile and then were assigned a porter. We went and met our assigned porter who put our bag and a sleeping bag into a big tarp bag. We then ate our boxed lunch that was provided for us (butter sandwich, hard boiled egg, carrot stick, orange) and then we began our trek through the rain forest to conquer Kilimanjaro.
We had been hiking for about a couple of hours or so and then one of the first funny moments occurred. Elizabeth, Louiza, and I went to go to the bathroom. As we ventured into the woods, Elizabeth stepped and almost fell in something less than pleasant - we’ll leave it at that- on two different occasion. Those of you that know me pretty well know that I have a problem with smells. Well, I threw up on myself. Yes, you read that correctly. I apologize to those I do not know that are reading this and are wondering why I am putting this on the blog. It was probably one of those “you had to be there moments” but it is something that brought Louiza to tears, she was laughing so hard, and Elizabeth and I provided a lot of laughs about that for the rest of the trip. That should have told us something right there about things to come the next week on the mountain.
We hike several hours the first day and then got to our camp site at 10,000 feet. We paired up and each pair was assigned a tent. We were pretty tired. We set up our sleeping bags in our tent and then went to dinner and were blown away! We had several long tables set up for us inside a big tent and we had candles lit and had a surprisingly great dinner! Our guides, John Simon and Gabrielle, were wonderful. We were so excited to have Labon join us on Kili who is very familiar with the mountain as he used to work on thesearch and rescue team before getting involved with Young life Arusha. It was nice to have a familiar face in the mix! Jerome was amazing and we were lucky to have him with us as well! After dinner, we hit the sack and spent our first night on the mountain.
The next day, we were awoken by a “knock” on our tent with a bowl of warm water and soap to wash our hands and we had our choice of tea, coffee, or Milo (a hot chocolate energy drink.) We had some time to pack our bags back up and then be at breakfast dressed and ready to hike some more. Porridge was an every day breakfast occurance accompanied by some eggs and bacon. Sidenote: the food was way better than expected! The cooks went all out. Meals (Matt Petersen that is for you if you are reading this) were a little tough as it was very similar to eating lunch at Sokoni One. The porters kind of hung around outside of the tent while we ate. When we finished our meal, the porters would get the leftover food. I’m not sure if we ever got used to that.
We hiked another long day and got to our next campsite (12,500 feet) right before dinner. Another great dinner and then we had one of our favorite nights. After dinner, we went back into the dinner tent and had worship. Drew brought out the guitar and we had some songbooks and started singing. Slowly, some porters began to come inside the tent and soon enough there was a line of porters standing out of one end of the tent. We loved that they wanted to join us so we sang one worship song in English and then they would sing one in Swahili. We went out with a bang and ended with “I’ll Fly Away” which has become a favorite of everyone’s on this Africa trip- especially Matthew Hawkins! Just like one night in Lego, this too was a little glimpse of what Heaven will look like one day- except we will all be speaking the same language. It is indescribable to be worshipping alongside of the porters and the guides who were modeling the epitome of servanthood. More on that later. We went to sleep and then got up and started it all over again.
Day 3 was a tough day. We hiked up to the lava tower which sat at 15,100 feet. This is the highest that any of us have ever hiked. I think all of us underestimated the effect of the altitude and we all got a front row seat of what real altitude sickness looks like. To use the words of one of our group members, it was really a “crap shoot” or more like playing roulette. We had no idea how our body would respond to such a high altitude since none of us had prior experience with such a high elevation. Some were affected more than others and it had nothing to do with being in shape, prior hiking experience, etc. This day came with some severe headaches, a migrane, and some vomiting by some of our group members. We had four that had to go down a little early back down to the campsite so that they could quickly descend and see if they could get to feeling better. After the lava tower, we hiked back down and slept at 12, 950 feet that night. That was a little frustrating initially to know that part of the plan all along was to hike to 15,100 and then to hike back down to 12,950 feet. It initially seemed like a day of extra hiking, but the reason our guides had us do this was to help our bodies better acclimate to the altitude. We got back to our campsite and our friends weren’t feeling much better. We got in our tents, were still for about 10 minutes, when we felt the rumbling of a big earthquake underneath us for about 30 seconds. This was a little unsettling as any earthquake is a little scary, but when you are sleeping directly on the ground you really feel the enormity of the movement. Oh well, we just chalked it up to TIA (This is Africa) or AWA (Africa Wins Again) to use the term we liked even better!
Day 4 on Kili. This was a sad day as we lost 5 of our friends on the hike. Three out of the four from the previous day were still not feeling any better and the decision was that it was safest for them to descend completely. Two more joined them and so then our group was down to 17. It was tough to say goodbye for both parties. As the rest of us started out for Day 4’s hike, it was quickly apparent that the group that had to leave made the right decision. Hiking back up to 15,100 included something that could have been taken out of the movie “Cliffhanger”. Well, maybe not quite Cliffhanger but scaling the Boraccan Wall was no small task, and if you were feeling nauseous with a migraine, that would not be an ideal situation to say the least. We all had our moments during these first few days of times when we would get frustrated. For me, this really occurred on Day 4. Randy and were back on “Team Caboose” we were essentially bringing up the rear on the hike. This was a long day- maybe 9 hours of hiking and I don’t think either one of us said much this day. It was a great day where the Lord revealed a lot to me. I couldn’t look up at the mountain, for I would get discouraged upon knowing how much more we had to hike. So instead, I just keep starting at Randy’s feet in front of me. With each step that he took, I would model my steps after his. I did this for the next few hours we had remaining on the hike. I felt the Lord telling me not to get distracted by those that were going faster than me or trying to pass me, just as I was stepping where Randy was stepping, I felt the Lord telling me I should just step where He steps. Essentially, I felt the Lord telling me, “Ashton, follow me.” We are going to have distractions in the world, and those distractions become very discouraging when we take our eyes off of God. Through the encouragement of Randy, Drew, Hayward, and Laban, I got through Day 4! I cannot tell you how proud of each other we all were upon completing Day. What a day. We got to our campsite at 15,100 feet, again, and we had about an hour to sleep before dinner. We ate dinner and then we went to bed around 8pm only to get up around 11:30pm to start the big time hike. The Summit. You should have seem dinner. Fear was definitely apparent around the dinner table until Randy gave us the "run through the tunnel speech" about how ESPN didn't create the term "No Fear," but rather Jesus. We have nothing to be afraid of if the Lord is with us. We had no idea what to expect during the next 7 hours except for every day had been really tough and we knew "The Summit" would only be tougher. And, to know that we would be hiking up 4,000 more feet AT NIGHT was intimidating to say the least. We left camp around 12:30 am with our headlamps, dressed for a blizzard. We were a rough looking crew. Several of us had pretty bad colds by now and usually when I am sick back in Atlanta, I don’t feel like doing much of anything outside of watching movies under a blanket on a couch. Never has this included hiking up 4,000 feet in the middle of the night in the freezing cold. But, it was game time and we got suited up for battle- or the 4th quarter as Randy says. We all looked around at each other and knew we were over our heads. Our group quickly dropped back to 15. Two of our folks were throwing up, again, and too sick from the altitude to go. I went to put on my pack before it was grabbed from me by Laban (who voluntarily was a member of “Team Caboose” each day) who said I wasn’t going to carry my pack this day. He knew I was sick and would struggle and carried my load for me up the mountain. Talk about a servant heart. I was blown away. My pride initially got in the way. I didn’t want someone else carrying my baggage for me. I could do it. Or so I thought when in reality I don’t think I could have. This is a recurring theme in my life and I know in so many of ours. The thought that we can do it all by ourselves. Laban essentially represented Christ for me this day and relieved me of all by baggage and lightened my load. We started our trek up the mountain and no exaggeration, each step was nearly impossible. It is almost not worth writing because there is no way to explain what we went through, but I will try. We hiked for a couple hours and then lost one more who had been throwing up that morning and kept feeling nauseous. And then there were 14. We kept hiking. It was hard to tell the difference between the headlamps on the switchbacks on the mountain far off in the distance and the stars. They blended together. It was pitch black outside. We would trip over rocks. We would take deep breaths only to receive little air. There was intense coughing. Nose bleeds because of the altitude. We were gone for another hour and then one of our girls kept collapsing and we knew that we were now down to 13. Another porter was sent to go back down the mountain. You never want anyone to feel bad, but secretly I was a little bit envious. With each step, I was so close to throwing in the towel. What was I doing. Who even cares about this stupid mountain. We were up to around 18,000 feet just before the Crater rim at Stella Point and we lost one more in our group. Now we had 12. Would we all make it? I thought we had 30 more minutes to reach the top and then I heard the news that we had 2 more hours. I sat down in the middle of the mountain. I couldn’t move. There is no way I could go for 2 more hours. Now Team Caboose consisted of just me and Randy and Drew dropped back to walk with us and Laban and John Simon. To be honest, I didn’t think we would make it. The headache and nausea was really setting in and having never had a bloody nose ever before, I was freaked out. As I picked up each foot, it felt like it was stuck in cement and it weighed a zillion pounds. With each step, I was reciting Philippians 4:13 and Psalm 18:32-36, one that Matthew Hawkins read to our group back on Day 3. We were challenged by Drew to pick out a verse that was going to get us up the mountain because we were told we would need it. He was right.
I am still trying to process why in the world God would want me up on the mountain. I know it is nothing that I could do on my own. God got me up there and sent an angel through Laban, carrying my pack for the entire 7 plus hours. The last several hours, he had two packs, mine on his back, and another one on his front. I still cannot grasp the servant heart of this new friend of mine. We talked about it and he told me he just wanted us to have such an amazing experience and that this joy comes from the Lord. Clearly. The Lord could be the only reason why someone would voluntarily strap two huge backbacks on them and walk up to 19,400 feet. I will forever be grateful. The rest of our group had been on the top of the mountain for about an hour or so. Team caboose finally got there. The reunion we had was pretty neat. It did not matter how in shape you were or weren’t, whether you were male or female, not one to normally show emotion-you experienced brokenness this day like never before hiking while up to the summit. We all were faced with the fact that we couldn’t any longer pretend to do it by ourselves. We had a motto that what happens on the mountain stays on the mountain, but without naming any names there were a lot of tears, standing at 19,400 feet, from both genders. We were stripped of our pride. God broke us. I know I struggle with the fact of why did God want me on top of the mountain? Especially when some of the people that had to do down were much more in shape than I am. They deserved to get up there more than me. Most of them wanted to get up there more than me. It still doesn’t seem fair. I’ve had a couple of days to process this. The only thing I can think of is this. We laugh about this, but those that had to come off the mountain had a little pool going (just picture March Madness) and they ranked the 12 that were left based on who was most likely to make it to the top. It’s ok, I can laugh about it now but I was told that everybody but one (thank you Matthew Hawkins!) had me not making it to the top. I have torn my ACL twice, I still have a pretty bad cold, and basically I am a walking nightmare as I have no coordination on level ground much less walking up to 19,400 feet in the dark. Why did God want me up there on top of Kilimanjaro? The only reason I can possibly think of is it was to affirm to me and others that fact there is no way in the world I could have gotten up that mountain without Him. It just wasn’t possible. Against all odds. I am out of shape, I am pretty stubborn about wearing my knee brace, and I was usually the last person off of the mountain each day. We all had our individual experiences on the mountain. This is a glimpse into mine. I can speak for the group that we all experienced brokenness and were taught a lot about pride, but I would encourage you to ask the other 11 about their experience and what the Lord revealed to them on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, standing at 19,400 feet in the snow in the middle of July. It is something I will never forget. Thank you for taking the time to read this and allowing me the opportunity to share this experience with you.
Our descent was not an easy one. I will spare you all the details, but envision dirt skiing for the next several hours and then once you got to level ground, it started to snow and so we walked the last hour in the snow! We camped out at 10,000 feet that night and then making it back down to the gate of Kilimanjaro was pretty crazy. Porters were cheering and I am still blown away by what their job entails. Carrying up people’s 40-50 pound bags on their head for 6 days for $5 a day on average. As I said, there is still a lot to process from our time here in Africa. Well, I just looked at my watch and it’s 2:45am. We leave tomorrow at 6pm for 17 hour plane ride back to Atlanta. Thank you for partnering with us in prayer and sharing this journey with us. We have felt your prayers. We cannot thank you enough. We love you.
To God be the Glory,
Ashton
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