Three Cups of Tea

I had the opportunity of hearing Greg Mortenson speak the other day.

He is the inspiration for the book Three Cups of Tea ~ must reading for educators, policy makers and anyone who cares about girls, south Central Asia and just about anything else under the sky (the book is co-authored by David Oliver Relin)

Greg's own story is compelling but his vision is extraordinary.

The son of American missionaries living in Tanzania (his mother helped found the International School of Moshi) ~ Greg served in the US military and went on to become a nurse. His avocation is mountain climbing. In 1993 Mortenson unsuccessfully attempted to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain. He attempted the climb in honor of his younger sister who had died earlier. Dangerously ill and lost when descending, Mortenson was sheltered for several weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school. After an astonishing series of setbacks ~ he succeeded.

That remarkable success has grown into the Central Asia Institute. Today he has constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Along the way, Mortenson has faced down tradition, ignorance, disease, bureaucrats, the mujahideen, the Taliban and every other conceivable roadblock. Yet ~ he prevails.

Mortenson is an advocate of girls’ education as one of the major solutions to bringing economic development, peace and prosperity to impoverished societies, and says, "you can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change".

I’m not doing his story justice in a few paragraphs but Three Cups of Tea is worthy of your reading list ~~ soon.