Summit for Hope: Stories from the Mountain
Our Kilimanjaro climbing team is home, and last week, they gathered with supporters to share what eight days on Africa's tallest peak looked like: the jungle mud, the frozen water bottles, the sunrise at 19,000 feet, and the reason why they climbed.
It started, almost as a joke, at a GPiH board meeting nearly two years ago. "The intent was to get a group of people together to use this climb as a way to bring awareness to the real intention and purpose around Global Partners in Hope," board member Aaron Goldsmith explained,
"which is really solving a health crisis that exists in these countries in West Africa." Infant and maternal mortality in the villages GPiH serves can be 20 to 50 times higher than in a developed country, and two things change that: a clean water well and a basic clinic, together eliminating up to 90 percent of those deaths." ~ said Aaron Goldsmith
The climb itself tested every member of the team: six hours in single-digit cold and darkness, water frozen solid, guides who wouldn't let the group stop. At the summit, as sunrise broke over the glacier, one of the guides began to cry. "He was just so happy for our group, and so proud... just to know that what we're doing will give to some of the people in Africa who have very little was very touching for him," a climber, Ashley Goldsmith, recalled.
For Jessica, who joined purely for the hike with no prior GPiH connection, the climb became something else. "I've never heard such positive, motivated organizational ideas; even when we're exhausted, these guys are talking about how we keep this energy, this success, going," she said. "Coming in with no idea what this organization was and leaving in awe of what it could do — that was very impactful for me."
That legacy is already visible on the ground. Recalling a clinic dedication in Mali, a woman in the village said, "You changed my life by having that center there. You changed my daughter's life, and you changed my granddaughter's life."
As Ian Vickers put it: "This is not a one-time thing. This is a legacy kind of investment."
Board member Eric Frohardt, who made the climb with his son Luke, put it simply afterward: "We chose to 'suffer' for two weeks on that mountain for the people of Benin, where Global Partners in Hope is building a new medical facility and wells. I'll think about that the next time I walk to the sink or the fridge for a glass of clean water."
Eight days on the mountain, and yet everyone kept circling back to the same idea: the climb was never really the point. It was a way of standing a little closer to the daily reality of families in Benin who endure far harder things than cold and altitude. Supporters later, at a welcome the team back event, raised $45,000 for the Benin Health Center, matched dollar for dollar. The team came home certain of why they went: a health center can change a woman's life, her daughter's life, and her granddaughter's life after her. That's the summit that matters most.
Comments