Hello Everyone! 

I couldn't be more excited to share about this once in a lifetime opportunity to climb to the highest height of Africa with an amazing team of 11 brave, badass women! And we are doing it for the country of Rwanda!! Specifically, we will be representing Africa New Life and raising support and awareness for their Food Program. With a team goal of $170,000 we will be able to provide more than 200,000 meals for kids in Rwanda!!!! We are women from across the US of varying ages with different stories and walking through different seasons of life, but we are connected by our love for "the land of a thousand hills”.  Take a look at my amazing team below!! Tanna, Charlotte, Jordan, Brooke, Ashleigh, Leslie, Anne, Michelle, Alisha, Renata and I’m in there too😃

Personally, I am climbing because the beautiful country of Rwanda and its strong, resilient, welcoming people brought me back to life after the death of my husband and the decade long period of suffering prior, that left my heart and my spirit broken, lost, emptied out, exhausted.  The incredible people of  Rwanda have experience the deepest depths of darkness and emerged shining with the purest, brightest light.  Seeing and experiencing first hand the way they love, connect, show compassion, worship, and their model of forgiveness impacted me greatly and they helped to set my life in a direction I could not have known. 

Prior to my first visit to Rwanda, my heart was flatlined. I was deeply grieving the loss of my husband after a ten year war with ALS, Lou Gehrigs Disease. Much of the suffering I witnessed and experienced left me traumatized and desperate for healing. I was breathing, but wasn't fully living. I began to pray for God to make my heart burn for something...anything. To make it beat again. To give me a purpose and a passion. Then, in 2017, I had an opportunity to travel to Rwanda with IF;Gathering. I didn't know it at the time, but God would use Rwanda to answer my prayers. I remember clearly the moment I set foot on Rwandan soil...on the tarmac at the Kigali airport...I felt something stir in my chest. It was faint but it was sure. My heart began to come alive. I knew something was happening. I just didn't know what. Throughout my time there God worked healing miracles every day and by the time I left Rwanda that first trip my heart was aflame with new life. I was leaving a different person than I arrived, though it would take months for me to process and understand it. Today, I have visited Rwanda a couple of times and am honored to sponsor a young boy, Jean Baptiste, through school and so far I have sponsored two women through the vocational training program. And NOW I get to climb Kilimanjaro to feed children, like my sweet Jean Baptiste, to ensure their little bodies have at least one meal a day to help grow and be healthy and be successful in school.

Africa New Life exists to transform lives and communities in Rwanda and their Food Program is one component of that.  It helps to provide school lunches to children who otherwise would get little or no food to eat because the reality in Rwanda is that many don't know where their next meal is coming from.These children work hard and are dedicated to doing well in school so they can improve their families' situations and give back to their country when they grow up. But it’s very hard to learn or grow without food! 

An average meal in Rwanda costs $0.83, which means $25 provides food for a child for a month (30 meals). Feeding children and families is an extension of the gospel and provides students the stability and consistent nutrition necessary to complete their education.

Friends, Thank you for supporting me and for joining me on this adventure!!!!!!!!! Thank you for helping to make a difference!!! Thank you for contributing to our food campaign! 

(photo: Wurzbach Fisher Photography)