Eagle’s Nest Center led an experiential learning expedition for youth to Africa in 2017 and plans to do the same in 2019. The safari begins in Kenya’s Rift Valley and culminates in climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
I made this trip in March 2013, including climbing Kilimanjaro with one of my sons and a friend of his, who are both geologists and experienced climbers. We reached the summit in the worst snowstorm on the mountain in 10 years… the ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’ indeed!
For me, the 58-year-old Founder of Eagle’s Nest Center, this journey strengthened my spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. I’d had major back, neck, and shoulder surgeries in 2010, 2011, and 2012 respectively, so this was a life-affirming challenge, as well as a shared adventure with my son doing something he loves (climbing). I benefited much more than I could have ever dreamed.
On the night we prepared to leave at midnight to summit Kilimanjaro by dawn, I was reflecting on the journey up to that point and how this experience would impact the lives of the young people Eagle’s Nest Center works with, the wounded and at-risk kids, the ones fallen into the cracks of life. We had a blizzard to face and a summit to make, so I parked that thought, knowing I would return to it.