Contributed by Elisabeth Hurley

I recently read Three Cups of Tea, authored by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I am still awed by this story of a mountain climber and his humanitarian work in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At the time our country confronted Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Greg Mortenson started building schools in Pakistan. Under terrible hardships and with very little money but with firm support of moderate Muslim clerics, he began to undertake one school at a time. Children in mountain hamlets and villages where government schools were not available, for the first time ever, were able to receive a balanced education. It was Mortenson’s goal to provide boys and girls with this balanced instruction in even the poorest areas, therefore making it more difficult for religious fanatics to recruit boys into their “madrassas.” Greg Mortenson continues building schools and holds on to his vision that “once there are pencils, let us use them as peaceful weapons in the war against terrorism.”

The last I checked, Mortenson and his organization, the Central Asia Institute, had built 55 schools serving about 23,000 children, many of whom often go on to higher education and a better life for themselves and their communities. Not only schools are being built though. Women become wage earners through training in vocational centers, help support their family and village life, and become role models for their own daughters and the daughters of others.

Dr. Greg, as Mortenson is affectionately called by the many people he made friends with, has served the poor in Pakistan and Afghanistan for years, often driving himself at risk of his health, but lovingly supported by his wife and children. He is an amazing man, and his story is an amazing story of how one person can make a difference. Mortenson, the son of Christian missionaries, does not proselytize. Instead he fully respects other people’s belief systems and quickly makes himself familiar with their culture and language. Living in difficult regions of the world, he has to move with care and carefulness. He would, however, never consider “someone other” a terrorist just because he is of the Muslim faith or carries a Muslim name. He truly is an amazing human being and, as Tom Brokaw talks of him, “thrilling… proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination … can change the world.” It’s easy to see that Greg Mortenson moves mountains!

As our global world has witnessed, poverty and mistrust of the other are often at the root of cultural conflicts and, even more disturbing, of violence and warfare. Perhaps we can take some lessons from one human being, Greg Mortenson, how to move these seemingly unsurpassable mountains in our own life times and for future generations!