A Mountain in Tibet

I had not trained to hike a mountain. Especially not in the foothills of the Himalayas. Certainly not for a three-day hike while carrying a backpack weighing at least forty pounds.

But sometimes we do things we never dreamed of doing. Sometimes we face trials that we never expected. That’s what happened in the summer of 2004 for me. That’s when I faced the greatest physical challenge of my life so far.

I was spending my summer in a small Tibetan town in Sichuan, China. I was working with a family who was there long-term and two other short-term workers like myself. We taught English in schools, we visited Buddhist temples, we came together with the community once a week in the evening for dancing in the town square, we studied Tibetan and Mandarin, we tasted all sorts of exotic foods, we read by candlelight in the evenings when the power went out town-wide to save energy, and we rode mules into the mountains to visit with villagers–it was the adventure of a lifetime. For the sake of others, I cannot divulge many details about my trip, but I can say that it was a spiritual adventure and mission even more than a physical one. Continue reading “A Tale of Two Mountains”