For Christmas this year I received the book, "No Picnic on Mout. Kenya", a story of three Italians prisoners for war that escaped from their WWII POW camp in equatorial Kenya with only one goal in mind -- to escape and climb the 17,000 Mount Kenya.
As I read the words of this book, I sensed them reaching down inside me and touching my soul:
"...and then I saw it: an ethereal mountain emerging from a tossing sea of clouds -- a massive blue-black tooth of sheer rock inlaid with azure glaciers, austere yet floating fairy-like on the near horizon...I had definitely fallen in love.
...I was thinking 'The future exists if you know how to make it' and 'It's up to you', as I turned the corner of my barrack at the exact spot from which I had seen Mount Kenya for the first time...now it was visible again and in the starlight it looked evenmore tantalizing than in daylight. The white glaciers gleamed with mysterious light and its superb summit towered against the sky.
...it was a challenge. A thought crossed my mind like a flash...I was already busy with a secret plan, which slowly took definite shape. A prisoner of the last world war wrote in his memoirs: 'At the front one takes risks, but one does not suffer; in captivity one does not take risks but one suffers.'
...IN ORDER TO BREAK THE MONOTONY OF LIFE ONE HAD ONLY TO START TAKING RISKS AGAIN..."
And with that, a little seed was planted for Climb 4 Poverty.
