I just finished reading a book I would highly recommend.  Three Cups of Tea is an enjoyable read about the real-life adventures of Greg Mortenson in the tribal area of Pakistan, building schools.  The book came out in 2006, quickly became a best-sellers because of its compelling story, and in now readily available in paperback or at the library.  In late 2009 Stones into Schools, his second book, came out and continues the story of his work as it moved into Afghanistan.  The one person I know who has read it said it was every bit as exciting as the first one, which she found amazing.

One thing that makes the books so timely is the fact that Afghanistan and Pakistan are so much in our news with the “War in Terror”, and the areas he worked in are the very rugged areas in the high Himalaya Mountains that seem most susceptible to recruiting and harboring anti-American terrorists.  The people and the world in which they live seems remote to our experience in every way, but the book helps us see the human values and aspirations of most of these people are not that different fromour own.  Mortenson’s book is now required reading for American military personnel assigned to Afghanistan to help our soldiers understand the area in which they are serving.  The approach that Mortenson pioneered, beginning nearly a decade before 9-11, has helped to shaped a new strategy of our forces and diplomatic efforts.  While there may be some people who are so intractable in their anti-Western positions and hell-bent on violence that searching them down and stopping them by whatever means may be the only way to end their evil deeds, they are an small percentage of the populations even in these areas.  While we may have to fight them, we can learn to work with the vast majority of these people and together forge a peaceful path toward development,  justice and mutual respect.  It is in some ways the kind of change in strategy that made a difference in Iraq.

Beyond this, what makes the book and Mortenson so interesting is the power of human relations when people meet one another honestly, respectfully on the common ground of their humanity.  In this setting people can respond in compassion to the needs of another with hospitality and generosity in a way that can naturally become a mutual experience of up-building and truly loving relationships.  The people of one remote village saved ”Dr. Greg” by nursing him back to life when he wandered into their villiage lost and exhausted after a failed 2-month adventure to try to scale the second highest mountain in the world.  Dr. Greg vowed to repay them by meeting a need they saw as most pressing:  having a school to educate their boys and girls.  Out of that has come a major movement that is changing history.

In the why and how of this story I see a profoundly spiritual side.  In fact, I would say the book illustrates lived-out Christianity.  Jesus met people in just the way the village leader of Askope responded to Mortenson–and as he later responded to the village.  The interactions were based on simple respect, caring and the honoring of the God-given humanity of another, the same way Jesus responding to Zacchaeus, the Samaritan women at the well, and so many others in the Gospel narration. 

The book makes me think not only about far-away people and places but also about what I am doing in my own setting with the people I may meet by chance to see the Christ in them and let the Christ in me respond to them.  I am well aware I have a lot of room to grow in that, but it is the direction in which I want my life to be headed–more importantly the direction in which I think God wants me headed.

Pastor Joe Easley

January 8, 2010

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