One person can make a difference

In these polarized political times, there are many ways of looking at the world. As our politicians, stake out fuzzy positions about how to fight the "war on terror" (how does one conduct war on a noun anyway), people like Greg Mortensen are making an actual difference in the safety and future of the world.
Three Cups of Tea is the very compelling story of a former climbing bum, who after being saved by villagers in remote Pakistan after a failed summit attempt of K2, promises to return to the village and build a school. He had been struck not only by the generosity of people who had very little, he had been horrified to see that "school" consisted of 60-80 children on a rock outcropping exposed to weather, working on their lessons, often without a teacher.
Mortensen's only problem was he had absolutely no plan and no resources to keep his promise. Upon his return to America, the itinerant nurse took a job in an ER and lived in his car to begin to save money. He also rented a typewriter and wrote 300 (+ 280 more later after discovering computers and being taught how to use them) letters to any celebrity he could think of to ask for help. These 580 letters generated exactly one reply, from Tom Brokaw for $100. His other large donation was from a "Pennies for Pakistan" collection his mother ran at her elementary school, which netted over $600.
Mortensen was rescued from the torturously slow pace by a famous physicist named Jean Hoerni, who donated the $12,000 Mortensen thought he could build a school for.

Hoerni is just one of many of an incredible cast of real life characters that inhabit this book. We follow Mortensen's journey to build the initial school and all the pitfalls he finds and watch as the project becomes his life's work. He creates the Central Asia Institute and begins to build schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, focusing on educating girls. Even after 9/11 he continues his work and we learn that maybe this is the only real path we've seen to combating the extreme religious "education" that is creating a generation that loathes the West.
You will see Mortensen taken into custody by Taliban rebels on an ill-advised trip into an unknown part of Afghanistan and watch with anticipation as he continues his work.
To understand Greg Mortensen is to understand someone who has found their purpose.
I give this book my strongest recommendation as a chance for you to learn about a real-life, flawed but noble hero, making a difference in the world one school at a time.
He truly embodies my favorite Helen Keller quote "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. i will not refuse to do the something I can do."

Please visit www.ikat.org if you want to learn more