Three Cups of Tea

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually read the "Young Readers Edition" of this because I had tried to read the regular edition a couple of years ago and found it very dry.  After a friend said she was reading it with her 5th grader and was really enjoying it, I decided to try her version.  Yes, she was right, that was the right version for me, I read it in two days!  I am amazed at Mr. Mortenson's drive to build schools in the circumstances that he did and am beginning to understand that when you have a calling, you can't rest until you fulfill it….

Here are a couple of my favorite passages:

But Greg hadn't reached the summit of K2.  And now in the fall of 1993, back home from Pakistan, Greg had a new challenge ahead of him.  He packed his climbing gear away in a rented storage space and tried to figure out how he was going to accomplish his new goal: raising enough money to build a school in Korphe.  How could he convince Americans to care about a circle of children sitting in the cold on the other side of the world, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks?  This might be even harder than climbing the second-highest mountain on earth.
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After a long, satisfying day of working on the bridge, Greg loved washing down a bowl of rice and lentil stew with strong tea, basking  in the sun with Haji Ali's family, and chatting across the rooftops to the other families doing the same thing.  On the warm, dry roof, eating, smoking, and gossiping, Greg felt sure that, although there were many things the Balti did not have, they did have an uncomplicated happiness that was becoming very rare in the world.
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"In times of war," he went on, "you often hear leaders - Christian, Jewish, and Muslim - saying, 'God is on our side.'  But that isn't true.  God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans."



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