The Love Inside Three Cups of Tea

Love. What does it mean to you?  Aside from the romantic love we're often led to ponder with movies and books, there is the larger love--love for humanity, for God and for the things that will last even after our temporary bodies have given way to age and eventually death.

I ponder this often. And just finishing Three Cups of Tea, the story of Greg Mortenson and his tireless quest to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am thinking of the sacrifices families can make for "the cause."

Greg first became drawn to his life-long quest of delivering education (free from Christian, American or fundamentalist Islamic persuasion) to the children of Pakistan after a failed attempt to summit K-2, the second highest peak in the world. When he could have easily died, a family in the village of Korphe took him in and provided for him--a complete stranger--with precious resources that were scarcely used withing their own circle of need. When he became healthy enough to return to America, Greg promised to return and build a school for their children.

Without financial reserves or knowledge of fundraising, Greg spent the greater part of his time as a single man trying to raise enough awareness and interest in the cause to make his vow a reality. Eventually, he would marry and he succeeded in finding a donor who would not only pay for the school, but who would leave a $1 million legacy to fund schools all over Pakistan, leading to an slow-moving but exponential growth in education, self-sufficiency and stability in the serviced areas.

For me, Greg's story delivered the sort of cultural understanding of that part of the world I have been yearning for. And for anyone who either wants to know more about the land occupied by the Taliban or who tends to brand the entire mid-East with a cloak of terror and extremism, I highly recommend Three Cups of Tea.

Love can be seen in every part of Greg's story, but what was most striking to me is the sense of love and heroism exuded from Tara, Greg's wife. She waited patiently, faithfully and steadfastly at home with her children while her husband stayed away for months on end. She knew how great and important his work was, and she was acutely aware how the future of many rested on his effectiveness to materialize one more building that contained books, teachers and hope. Yet with every departure he made, Tara sacrificed a piece of her own life.  Only a tiny part of the book even discussed it, but I am left full of admiration for this silent but equal heroine.

I started thinking about all of the great humanitarians of our age. No matter how the "two loves" can complement one another, there is a conflict among the greatest and most active of social heroes between the love and sense of duty to help your fellow man vs. the love and sense of duty to be with and support your family. With such a dedication of time and the weight of the world on your mind even when you're not on the job, so to speak, it's hard to give yourself completely to your spouse and children.

Here's to Tara and her amazing sacrifice. Put Three Cups of Tea on your reading list. You'll be glad you did.