greg mortenson

Greg Mortenson is a Minnesota born (in 1957) American who grew up in Tanzania since 3 months old when his Lutheran parents moved the family there for missionary work. He returned to the States at 14, finished high school, then served in the army for two years before entering college and graduated from University of South Dakota in 1983. He's athletic and sporty but particularly passionate about mountain climbing since he was a kid in Africa.

In 1992, his younger sister Christa, who had been struggling with epileptic since a childhood infectious disease and whom Greg had been giving extra care for, passed away at 23. 

To honor his sister's memory, in 1993, Greg climbed K2, the world's second highest mountain in Pakistan. He got lost on the way down and was rescued by local village people. After spending time with them he was moved not only by their poverty in general but their desire for children's education in particular. He made a promise to the village elder that he'd be back and build a school for them. Thus began his one-man, one-school-at a time mission till this day. 

He's been caught in crossfire between Afghan warlords, kidnapped by the Taliban, issued fatwehs (death decrees) twice by Islamic mullahs, investigated by CIA, and sent death threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education.

All these are told in the book "Three Cups of Tea," co-authored by Greg Mortenson himself and a journalist. I first heard about this book from my college fellowship reunion group in Taiwan who were setting up a tele-book-study through Skype for it, and then I heard one of my men's group members sharing about it, and then, lo and behold, I saw it right at my bookshelf, in Chinese translation, as one of those monthly reads selected by my wife's book club (so these gals actually read some good books, not just eat and chat when they meet, like we do in men's group :), so I picked it up and got on with it.

It reads like a venture story, except they are all true stories. And the main character himself, Greg Mortenson, seems just like a big ol' American boy you could find out here on the streets. Yet with a simple determination and a big heart, he set out to deliver a promise he made and accomplished so much more than anyone would have thought possible. 

The last few chapters of the book, besides its usual story telling, address the rise of Taliban and extreme Islamism in the Pakistan and Afghanistan where he was trying to set up schools, and the US's military reaction to it. Here I have a couple observations to make. The first was what impressive effect money and organization can accomplish in a short time: For all that much hard work and effort Greg had put in from 1994 through 2007 (when the book was written), virtually single-handedly, all he could accomplish was 60+ schools in rural northern Pakistan; but with tens of million dollars of oil money coming from the Persian Gulf, the Taliban and other Islamic fanatics had set up thousands of mosques and religious schools in the same region within a couple of years. The US's military reaction to it, however, was as swift and powerful: Within a few weeks after the Afghan War started, the Taliban regime and their establishments were wiped out from most of Afghanistan.

Herein lies my other observation, i.e., how slow and ineffectual real solutions to real problems seem to ordinary eyes. As Greg keeps pointing out in the book, the root problem of extreme Islamism is poverty and ignorance--poor villagers receive no resources other than those from the Taliban's; young, xenophobic Islamic militarists think all the problems and humiliation their people suffer are from invasion of the western culture. And the real solution is education and mutual understanding. Even the US military knows that--Greg's book has become required reading for US commanders and troops deployed to Afghanistan since 2009, and I recall reading a TIME magazine report last year about how one US army platoon in Afghanistan tried to build a school for the village they stationed by, and had to go through great bureaucracy and bribe local gang lords without end, and I thought to myself then: what a waste of military resources for such "hopeless" job in a foreign land! 

     

One thing I was quite curious about, when I first heard of this book, was how Greg's Christian belief must have played in what he does: the internal conflict he must have felt while dealing with the Muslim beliefs and practices, and how he would draw on his faith to get the strength and power to overcome the obstacles he faced. I saw none of that. Instead, you get the feeling that he's doing all these great things just because he made a simple commitment to a simple need he sees for the people he cares about. Or, maybe the generous, unconditional love to all people had been passed on from his Lutheran parents and cultivated in the loving environment he grew up with long before he started the mission.

In any case, this is a story of a doer, and a very extraordinary one at that!