The Latest: Good Apart-Together

Friday. September 19th 5:40 AM On the way down this pile of rocks. Dima with the speed grp of 3; me with the more sedate six. All good fun. Sore. Looking forward to hot bath. Nairobi 2morrow.

September 19th 5:55 AM Made it to the bottom. Good blend of apart togetherness. Off on shuttle 2morrow 2 Nairobi at BLT. Miss all of u. Dad

September 19th 6:18 AM Thanks 4 prayers. All our climb God breathed; blown higher than any chemicals could do. … Dima used the mtn as an endurance teacher.

Once again, on behalf of the Shepperson men contingency, warrior wife and mom writes: We’re thousands of miles apart. Separate continents, separated by a huge expanse of land and water. Yet… marvelously held together. Simple and profoundly amazing! Mt. Kilimanjaro to Fullerton … come in Fullerton! Vance to Bethyl? Can you hear me now? ~ Amazing technology. And, the Lord Who dwells within each of us draws us together in Himself. Amazing grace. — How sweet the sound! We are above all most privileged. "He's big enough to rule this mighty universe, yet... small enough to live within our hearts." Thank You!

SEPTEMBER 14-18, 2008... BECOMING Friends...

BECOMING Friends

On behalf of the male Shepperson contingency, warrior wife and mom, Bethyl Joy, —back at the homestead-- is reporting their current events. In Vance’s last email, Sunday, the 14th he wrote: "Will leave laptop here in hotel safe. Might be out of touch for 5 days on the mountain but will check in when we return on late Friday, the 19th. Not sure of phone reception on mountain but will take phone and turn it on occasionally to see if there is any signal strength, but not to count on it or worry if you don’t hear." An empathic wisdom to pass on to me... The times recorded are California but Tanzania and Kenya are 10 hours forward.

September 14th 2:41 AM We are getting on well.

September 16th 2:42 AM Loving life @ 11000 feet. Love you lots! V

September 16th 6:17 AM Made it happily to 2nd base camp @ 12000 feet. Dima’s little headache and hip ache fixed w ibuprofen. He’s getting on well w whole grp. I’m more than fine. Love.

September 17th 9:30 PM All is well. God’s own dear spirit is vibrant within me. Is. 40:31. [They that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.] The mt [mountain] is my friend, taking me closer 2 Him, one slow, scree strewn step at a time. Your #1 guy. [fyi…scree: “accumulation of small or broken stones, such as at the bottom of a steep slope].

September 17th 10:54 PM Got 2 top. Exhausted. But happy. Love u lots.

I’m dancing! Reading and rereading this last text with joy. Thank You, Lord!

We are His body. So… to each one of you who has refreshed Vance and Dima with your prayers for wonderment, health, strength, endurance, safety, protection, and simply being full of joy for them to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro together, God says “will himself be refreshed” (Proverbs 11:25). KEEP ON KEEPING ON!

These are my ponderings as Dad and son, older man and younger man, have embarked on their grand adventure together: "Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, there shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent. For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend, and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]" ~ Psalm 91:9-11

Kilimanjaro

September 17th and 18th , 2008
6 pm. We're ready to sleep after having arrived at Kibo camp, elevation 14,700 ft. We are to get up by 11 pm and attempt the summit, climb back down to camp 3, and after an hour of sleep, return to base camp 2. All of this to be done “sowly-sowly”. Slow steps. Our group is bonding well. Thank you, Lord. I’m steeling myself for this cold while my head aches, I’m dizzy and a little nauseated, but other than being this little impaired, I’m fine.
11 pm. Group gets up for tea and crackers. We line up back of other groups ahead of us. Others start out and a little row of head-lamps stretches up at a strikingly vertical angle toward the summit at 19,890 ft. we go in little switch back trail angles, following our 61 year old native leader, Fataelli, and his four sons who are assistant guides. The one assigned to me is Harrod. He paces alongside me.
The climb itself is extremely rigorous. The symptoms of hypoxia kicked in for me at about 16,000 feet—slurred speech, hallucinations, tingling, dizziness, headache, nausea. And on top of that my head was thumping out of my chest. I would walk a few steps and then long to stop and rest. The guides encouraged me to keep going. After awhile I would stop, in spite of their encouragement, and take a short break. The rest of the group moved ahead of me and Harrod stayed with me as I rested a few minutes longer than they did at one stop. I hated to hold them up, but hated even more not listening to my rag-tag body yammering at me to slow down. I still arrived at one of the two Kibo peaks only 20 minutes behind the others, just as the dawn was breaking in the eastern sky over Mawezi, the smaller peak of the two volcano’s that form Mt Killi.

I don’t think I could have planned a better rite of passage for Dima. He did very well. I’m proud of him. He made it to the top, smiled at Fatelli, and then promptly threw up close to the guide’s boots. Others in the group had bouts of nausea and vomiting as well as hallucinations, parasthesias, dizziness, jackhammers going off in their heads while steel bands tightened back of their eyes. Anyway, dramatics aside, Cate told me later that Dima would stand at the summit and look down as each climber rounded the visual bend below, asking, “Is that my dad, is this one my dad?” His eager anticipation touched her heart, touches my heart as I remember her words now. When I got there to Gilman’s Summit I looked for him, found him, we hugged, took the required pix, and hung out for awhile before starting the climb back down. We were both too spent to hike another hour and a half to the slightly higher summit (200 meters higher) of Uhuru.
A unique experience of the climb down: slaloming thru a volcanic ash scree field of about a mile’s distance at a 60 degree angle down. Harrod took my arm in his arm and together we launched ourselves down, heels out, bent backwards against the mountain, and careened down through layers of ash and lava chunks. Fun! I had to stop often with trembling muscles, raw toes, and sheer exhaustion. By the time I made it back to Kibo base camp at 8 am, I was totally spent, crashed for a few hours, and then we set off for Horombo, another 4 hour hike winding through the mountain moorlands. This was by far the most demanding 24 hrs physically and mentally of my life. Thank you, Lord, for the "get up and go" to get up and go.
September 19, 2008
I’m laying in bed here at the Marango Hotel; 2250 hours; Dima in the bar with the other mates from our journey, laughing and living it up. Earlier in the day we sat in a circle with our porters and guides, a total of 19 support people. It was tradition for the climbers to buy these men a beer, perhaps two, before giving them their tips (the primary income from the trip), and then allowing them to return to their home. Now that they are gone, dinner is done, and I am returned to the room, I’m concerned that they are buying him beers in spite of his being under age. And he’s saying yes to that. I went in once and asked Charles not to do that; if he would like to drink more, fine; just not to buy for my family. He said ok. We’ll see. My first shower effort before dinner was short lived and lukewarm.
It’s 11:34. Dima has come back to the room. Didn’t drink further. Glad I let it go without tromping back to the bar and making an embarrassing scene. Thanks for hearing my prayer for safekeeping for my son, Father. All for tonight. I love you, El-oise, Sarayu, and Yeshua. I know you are particularly fond of me, for allowing such a splendidly rigorous experience during the past few days. A severe grace. A wonderful stress. A painful pleasure. Thanks again.

September 14th, 2008

Thus far in our journey my son and I have flown ten hours east, hung out in Heathrow for a few hours, and are now in the midst of 8 hours flying at 37,000 feet south by southeast to Nairobi. We’ve been congenial, chatting, eating, reading, looking at movies on the seatback in front of us, nodding off for naps. I feel it to be right and proper that at this season we are together, moving in a focused way toward an uncertain future.

While in Heathrow we encountered a divine appointment of sorts. We were standing in line behind a woman while waiting to get our boarding passes for Kenya Airways. Anne Cagwin, and her husband, Tim, turned out to be a career missionaries for Rafiki Foundation of Kenya (0736 925 745). He is the school principal and she an elementary school English teacher in northwest Nairobi at an orphan care center. The eight cottages of ten children each have a nanny; they work, play, live together in a walled compound. There are ten such villages in Africa, seven here in the east and three in west Africa. Founded by the same woman who started Bible Study Fellowship. I forget her name. She’s pushing 80 now and lives in Eustace, FL. Perhaps we will taxi out there and learn more while in town. Spirit led encounters like this always delight me.

September 13th, 2008

Some of my readings on this flight thru London to Nairobi on these hours of September 12th and 13th, 2008: I’m focused on establishing a Spirit led--and not need or worry driven--rhythm of rest and work. Sometimes this means I move thru a cycle known thru history as “lecturio divine”: reading, reflecting, responding, resting, and resolving to act. The cycle can be long or short. Balance in this rhythm method gives way to birth: a birth of creative thinking, feeling, and doing. In the midst of so much doing on this mission trip I remind myself: Vance, guard yourself against straight do-do. J Instead, I need to let my spirit sing that “do-be-do-be-do” rhythm (Thank you, Frank Sinatra).

If I have a hope of gaining this rhythmic goal, I need to attend to three guiding insights:

Identity, then empathy. One of the most tasking of these processes involves feeling whatever it is that I am feeling, thinking what I’m thinking, sensing what I’m sensing. My feeling, my thinking, my sensing. My little being within God’s Being. Not the thinking, feeling, sensing that another human expects or wishes or judges to be correct. Once I have located the me, I can then seek out the we. I can see you. Clearly. A legitimate bridge of warm empathy is then possible.

Consolation. As I move into this next second, is my experience one of growing consolation or desolation? Am I able to claim an attitude/feeling of absolute indifference to anything but God’s own life and love within me? If so, I am consoled, quieted, confident. If not, I am increasingly de-souled, desolate.

Gravity. Another challenge while flying high or low through complexity and uncertainty is to remind myself periodically of the truths that God is absolutely good, loving, and involved in the particulars of my life. All three of those thoughtful truths tug me down to ground. Otherwise spiritual dementia mixes with my sin of anxiety to lift me up unnaturally into a cloud. Together these enemies obscure the gravity, the moment, of God’s substance moving into and thru my own. The Spirit wants to claim my heart, invade my own time-torn tatters, and pull me into the Trinity’s own circle of absolute adoration. My little destiny creek trickles down into the ocean of Their own singular, grand designs. I resist, ignore, and occasionally yield. Ah, Lord, increase the yield of my life. Yes, increase my yield. Thank you, Lord, for both hearing and empowering.

I’ve been reviewing the last 250 pages of my journal. Quietly. Seven miles over the Sahara desert in this Boeing 777 moving southwards at 600 mph. I’m surprised by the number of dreams I’ve recorded, some with work done on them, many just dashed off and not mulled over at all. Diamonds in the rough just lying at my feet and not picked up. One dream symbolized them as checks floating un-cashed on the ocean floor. Whispers from God gone unheeded, perhaps because I’m not ready in those moments to obey. At those times He is merely Savior and not Lord. I’m reminded of this quote:

"God's voice comes to us in ways that are easy to reject. He
comes to us as a baby in a stable, when we were looking for a prince on a
white horse. He comes to us in a shadowy dream, when we were looking for a
solid text of Scripture. He only lets us prophesy in part and know in
part (I Corinthians 13:9), when we want complete understanding.

Why don't you speak more plainly?" we ask. Would it really do
any good if he were to speak more plainly? He has already said much more
than most of us want to hear. He commands us very plainly to love our
enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and
pray for those who mistreat us (Luke 6:27-28). Who wants to hear these things,
let alone obey them? The church can't even stop cursing those who curse
us, much less bless them. Why should God speak more plainly to people
who ignore his clearest commands? Why should he unlock the secrets of
his kingdom to a church that seems bent on mutual destruction? " P 330, Surprised by the Voice of God.

September 14th, 2008

Here I am under a mozzie net in Nairobi. Face lit by the computer light at 4 am. Dima sleeping next to me, snoring noisily. Mozzies bouncing off the netting. Nursing a headache. Just off the plane from LAX thru London. Lord, I love you. Guide our feet and thoughts aright as we move down toward that big pile of rocks they call Mt Killimanjoro. We look for a grand adventure in following you through your own might and means. Amen.
12 hours later. Quite a bouncy trip in matatu, bus, and semi-bus through the Tanzania border ( We’re here now at Hotel Marangu. Just had our briefing for beginning the trek tomorrow. We’ll be in a group of 8-9 travelers and 18-19 guides and porters. These people here are very wise, thorough, experienced. Brits. The fellow giving the 2 hr lecture tonight was typically understated with his humor and quite kind and encouraging. Dora, the quartermaster, will arrive, goose-stepping, tomorrow to check our packing materials, clothing, boots, and so on and then give strict instructions to add or delete from our stuff before we’re allowed to set foot on the mountain. Yavol, commanandent! (sound of heels clicking).