04/15/2026
Day One- Mount Kilimanjaro!
I started low, in what they call the cultivated lands where life is simple and steady, The kind of place where you can smell the earth before you even see it. Greens so deep they almost don’t look real.
Step after step uphill, the trail turned muddy, and slick. There were zero shortcuts! Just me, my guide, along with determination. About an hour in a steady, soaking rain wrapped itself around the mountain and didn’t let go and continued until an hour before camp that night.
It was clear we had moved into the “rainforest”! Everything changed! The air got thicker and the colors so much louder. Greens layered on greens, moss hanging like it had been placed there on purpose. The smell was new, fresh and I wish I could bottle it. Wet earth, fresh leaves, it all just felt alive. It wasn’t like walking through a quiet garden its beauty was screaming, it was alive!
During a time I had to break many climbers passed but a group stopped to also rest. That’s when in the middle of Al the beauty I realized something deeper was happening.
I shared Blakey’s story. I talked about SUDC, a category of death most people have never even heard of. I found myself standing there, in the middle of a rainforest on the side of Kilimanjaro, in the rain and mud surrounded by people from all over the world! (Germany, the Netherlands, England, Austria, Africa) All speaking different languages, but understood English. It was amazing here were all these different lives, but in that moment, one shared heart. They had never heard of SUDC.
As I told them about Blakey, what happened, what it means, and what families carry like my best friends, I watched it hit them. You could see it in their faces before they even spoke. Shock, silence, then sorrow and then compassion. It was hard to tell the rain falling on some of their faces verse the tears streaming from their eyes. Right there on the trail these strangers become something more in a matter of minutes. There’s something about climbing a mountain that strips everything down to what matters.
It was there in the mud, rain, and a living forest that Blakey’s story, once again, reached across countries and hearts in a way I will never forget. Kindness showed up everywhere that day!
I came to climb a mountain to raise awareness of SUDC but day one reminded me this was never just about the climb and raising awareness it was about sharing Blake’s story and his memory in a way that not only touch hearts but as a lens to see Jesus who transforms hearts. It was about carrying a story that matters.
