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If you read our last update about Featured Racer Ashley Mueller, you know how much rest and restoration she has found on The World Race. However, like all other Racers, Ashley has a lot more to learn and her Mt. Kilimanjaro climb was a perfect teaching ground. "At 2:34 in the morning of summit day, I wanted to faint, vomit, and sleep all at the same time. Thanks to altitude sickness, my body attempted to do all of those at once — which left me swaying on the sandy slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro at 18,000 feet."
The guide didn't acknowledge what Ashely was up against, physically or mentally; nor did he warn her how the next few hours would be the hardest hours of her life, or how her body would feel wrecked in the days to come.
"He simply reminded me who I was and that he wouldn’t leave until I reached the top."
For six dark hours, Ashley and her team trudged upward. "My eyes couldn’t stay focused on the next step — I kept my eyes on the peak of the mountain, which never seemed to come."
By 4 am, there were no words to tell the guides how they felt, and in the heavy darkness there was no summit in sight to keep them pressing forward. "All I had was a man next to me who vowed to get me to the top" and a small prayer that in the light of the nearing sunrise, she would find her hope restored with sight of the summit.
Some of her team turned back, some continued on for the summit. Ashley didn't know what to expect as she reached her goal; her mind and body were so numb that she barely processed her success as she stood at the summit. Then, after only four minutes at the top, they started their descent back home.
Saying that the climb was difficult is an understatement, "It was the collision of the journey upward and the reality of the finish."
We all have a journey, sometimes without an end in sight, but our focus on the step at hand, and people by our side to guide us, is what gets us to the summit. "I think that’s the part that Jesus wants us to understand: the journey will cost us everything and it will often seem as though the end will never arrive. And when it does, we are left with the memory of what we did and who we were."
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was the hardest thing Ashley has accomplished thus far. "But, I did it. I climbed 19,341 feet to the summit. I am wind-burned, sunburned and I can’t feel my big toe anymore… It was worth it."
May we, as followers, rely on our guide and remember who we are in each step. May we keep our attention, if not our focus on the summit, and may we remember "the journey is just as important as the summit." |
But we're rarely alone on our journeys. "Luckily, my guide caught my body and plopped me down on a boulder." He then explained that Ashley's strength and his support would get her to the summit.
