A Higher Calling Read online

  I started to stress, and when I stress, I feel that everything has to happen right now. However, faith is the reassurance in waiting for God’s timing. My favorite Bible verse, Proverbs 16:9, says, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.”

  I would come to learn the truth of that verse in my relationship with Rachel—and with the weather on Everest. Sometimes the hard way. It just took a little time to figure it out.

  *1 Harry Kikstra, Everest: Summit of the World (Massachusetts: Interlink Pub Group, 2009), 7.

  *2 This is a widely recognized height, but many sources suggest the height is 29,035 feet. See Bhadra Sharma and Kai Schultz, “How Tall Is Mount Everest? For Nepal, It’s a Touchy Question,” New York Times, February 3, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/world/asia/mount-everest-how-tall-nepal.html.

  April 21, 2016

  The moment I hear Rachel’s voice, I realize just how much I miss her. I haven’t felt this tug during the day because of all the activity in camp. But as I FaceTime her for the first time, lying in my sleep sack at Base Camp, I can feel her love radiating across the miles.

  Her laugh is the best, I think, as we talk.

  Rachel’s laugh starts with a cute little giggle as her smile lines grow, and her grin spreads from ear to ear before she bursts into uncontrollable laughter. Even in the Chinese 2G, low-res, granulated picture, her smile is infectious. I can’t help but grin back at her. Sometimes the image freezes or part of her teeth glitch and move to the middle of her forehead, but I don’t care. I can’t help taking screenshots left, right, and center. She is so gorgeous.

  I was nervous earlier in the day when our team pulled out our advanced military-grade communication equipment and we couldn’t get a signal immediately. It turns out, however, since I have T-Mobile, I get service at Base Camp. Odd, considering I feel like T-Mobile is more like T-Maybe in the States!

  We’re both so excited to talk to each other that I don’t care it’s costing me twenty cents a minute. It reminds me of our first phone conversation, one that went late into the night because neither of us wanted to hang up since we both had so much to say. Now we speak as fast as we can, interrupting each other, stopping midsentence to say, “I love you.” The whole time, we talk in our cutesy voices, the ones that we use only around each other and that probably wouldn’t make sense to anybody else. We actually have a name for our special language. We call it our WOW language because we start all our words with a w so “our” language sounds like “wow” language. Of course, I would be embarrassed if my fellow Soldiers or mountaineers heard me now, but it’s a natural way we express our love. My heart longs to be with her again. I’d give anything to have her here in my tent with a flashlight brightening our faces while we giggle at the foot of the world’s tallest mountain.

  6

  Short End of the Stick

  RACHEL

  Six months after our engagement, Harold was neck deep in figuring out a plan to make his Everest dream a reality. It was that “can’t eat, can’t sleep, work through the night, figure out how to bring it up in every conversation” kind of love and determination. I found it inspiring, but it also meant our very limited time talking was now basically cut in half. I shared my fiancé with West Point, baseball, and now Everest.

  I was learning that love has to be the main response when it comes to accomplishing big goals. Love is the strongest driving force, which is required when you take on an audacious dream. Without love of what you’re pursuing, it’s too easy to give up when you encounter obstacles. If you don’t love it, is it really worth pursuing in the first place?

  Many people have dreams, but how many actually make their dreams a reality? Especially the big, over-the-top, scary dreams that seem impossible? Most let fear stop them before they even get started by listening to lies like, It’s way too hard; it’ll cost more money than I have; I’d probably fail anyway; I don’t have what it takes. So they just let their dreams die before even giving them a chance. I want to shake those people and say, “Stop selling yourselves short and push past those fears and lies! You are capable! You were made for greatness, but you have to step into it. You can’t just dream about accomplishing goals or they will never happen. Work for them!”

  Climbing Everest may have been slightly insane, but I truly admired Harold’s determination. That level of drive isn’t something seen every day. It opened my eyes to realize that often people’s biggest obstacle is themselves.

  Since Everest was Harold’s dream, it needed to be my dream too. I wasn’t going to just sit on the sidelines cheering him on. I needed to show up for him and make sure he knew I was in the game with him. Not only would Harold have a stronger chance of making his Everest dream happen if I was on his team, but we would also come out stronger as a couple if we faced this challenge together.

  But let’s be clear: my independent and driven self wouldn’t have done this for just anyone; it was because he was the right one, my soon-to-be husband.

  HAROLD

  My love for Rachel grew exponentially during this time. I didn’t understand why she was being so supportive because, honestly, I don’t think I would have been supportive if it were the other way around.

  Have you gotten the short end of the stick before? I hate to admit it, but that’s exactly what I was giving Rachel during my whole pursuit of Everest. People asked me how I got to be on the team to climb Everest, and I told them I created the team. Then they usually followed up with “How did you have time, especially at West Point with a full academic load while playing baseball?” The answer was that it required a tremendous amount of sacrifice by those closest to me, namely Rachel.

  What was most impressive wasn’t the support she gave me but how she poured her heart into my dream. That is the sign of a true teammate, best friend, and lover. She would stay up later than I would sketching logo ideas, editing video content, and helping me go over gear checklists. Being committed to your spouse is expected in a marriage, but Rachel’s commitment to my dreams and aspirations showed me just how much she cared about “us.”

  There’s a good chance I would have lost my way if it hadn’t been for Rachel. She kept me anchored in reality. She also let me know when I was getting full of myself and brought me back to earth.

  We both have big dreams and strive to achieve them, but if all else fails and we lose everything, we will still be happy because we have each other. We could literally live with next to nothing, move to the wilderness, paint our faces with charcoal, and be happy sitting around a campfire eating squirrels together.

  There I was, trying my best to find balance by being fully present in the moment, but I was failing. My priorities needed to be God, Rachel, West Point, my baseball team, and then the Everest expedition. In reality, it was the opposite: Everest, baseball, West Point, Rachel, and God.

  I still struggle with this today. When I have an idea I think is worth pursuing, I get this mentality of I’m sorry, Rachel, I just don’t have time for you right now. I have a plan to save the world, which is basically telling her that what I am doing is more important than she is. It certainly wasn’t the mind-set I should’ve had toward my future wife.

  A comment Dan Pallotta made during a TED Talk really hit home. He said,

  Too often our dreams become these compartmentalized fixations on some future that destroy our ability to be present for our lives right now…and alienate us from [other] human beings sitting next to us at this very moment.*

  I was experiencing that firsthand, and Rachel was on the receiving end of it.

  I spent most of my life thinking about and praying about what my future wife would look like and what it would be like when I had a family. Now that I’d found Rachel, I’m embarrassed to say how easily I took her for granted. People are always consumed with what they don’t have instead of what they do have.

 
I already had the one thing in life I wanted most, but naturally, I started wanting and pursuing other things. I started to neglect what was most valuable to me. Now I know it is so very important to frequently take a step back to reflect and see the bigger picture. To ask what is really most important in life. What do I really care about? What would I want to hold on to if all else faded? At the time, I never asked myself those questions because they probably would have shifted how I prioritized my life and how I appreciated Rachel.

  RACHEL

  It was my goal to see Harold’s goal come to life. I made sacrifices out of love for him. Knowingly giving up quality time with him was the hardest. I figured out he would be away for two months during the actual climb and before then on several occasions to train or raise money. Not to mention all the weeknights and weekends that were devoted to school and work. He would use all his leave time, and then some, for the expedition and would end up with negative forty-five days of leave. This meant we wouldn’t have vacation time in the foreseeable future.

  Some days the thought of Everest killed me, and some days I was impressed by my strength. If I had taken the approach that this was his goal and I wanted nothing to do with it, I believe it probably would have torn us apart. There really would have been no way for us to have a healthy relationship while he pursued Everest had I made the decision not to support him.

  Harold made sacrifices for me too. He had always wanted to do Special Forces, which meant he would be deployed behind enemy lines. It’s not the most family-friendly job and would have required him to be gone a lot. This made me feel super uneasy. I never told Harold he couldn’t do Special Forces, but as a sacrifice for me, he chose not to. I know if we hadn’t gotten together, that’s the path he would have chosen. Making sacrifices is an act of love. It shows your partner that you choose to be together even if it requires an unfavorable situation for you.

  Harold and I always remind each other that we have a lifetime to work toward our dreams and we don’t have to make them happen all at once. We are working to reach our goals together. In relationships, it’s important to remember the reason behind what you’re both working toward. What is it that you both want most out of life? What kind of life are you trying to build together? For Harold and me, our ultimate cause is to live a fulfilling life full of love while using our gifts to bring glory to God. We live by a little saying I came up with: “Love God, love people, make a difference, and be thankful.” Our hope is to live a life that exemplifies those actions and inspires other people to do the same.

  As his pursuit of Everest picked up speed, I began to worry that Harold was leaving God out of it. I knew he could accomplish great feats, but I was nervous he was getting so wrapped up in his own plans that he wasn’t intentionally pursuing God through them.

  HAROLD

  I’m not good at stopping and asking God what I should do. I just go and don’t pause. I don’t know for sure that God is actually speaking to me every time I get a strong desire. I’m more like 52 percent sure. I must discern each call, being careful to not listen to my ego or selfish desires but rather to learn to hear God’s voice the loudest. I’ve learned over time and by making many wrong decisions with good intentions that my heart must first be focused on Him to see the signs He’s giving me.

  Even if I’m not necessarily pursuing God, He is always pursuing me. Sometimes He works through other people to speak truth into our lives, which is exactly what happened with one of my mentors. I met Command Sergeant Major Todd Burnett in basic training when he came up to me one morning and made me do push-ups because my socks weren’t pulled up straight enough.

  “Why aren’t those socks motivated, Cadet? They’re sagging like your back when you do push-ups.” As soon as I dropped to the ground, he dropped down next to me and said, “Let’s see how many you can do!”

  I proceeded to do more push-ups than I had in my entire life, and I started to get tired.

  “Come on! Is that all you can do?” he said as he continued to rep out push-ups and smack-talk me the whole time.

  When I got up, he put his arm around me and said, “Nice work, Soldier.” CSM Burnett has a scar across his face and looks like he fought the entire Iraq War by himself. He’s in incredible shape for his age. I watched as he walked over to another new cadet. “That shirt is three sizes too big; let’s help you fill it out,” he said as he began doing push-ups again. I smiled in disbelief. Who is this man?

  A cadre trainer later told me that he knew someone who had served with CSM Burnett and that he was once shot in the helmet twice in one day.

  He was a big baseball fan and came to nearly every practice. Over the next three years, we built a strong bond; he became a mentor to me in leadership, my spiritual life, and my family. So, when he asked me a question about Everest, I listened.

  “Harold, you talk about what you are wanting to do by climbing Mount Everest, but why are you doing it? Is there a nexus to all this?”

  I didn’t have an answer other than that climbing Everest was something I’d always wanted to do, I felt God calling me to it, and it would be historic for the Army.

  “What if you climb for a cause?” he said. “You could climb for awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  I was a young Soldier and had no idea what PTSD really looked like or how deeply it affected our military ranks. If I’m being completely transparent, I ashamedly thought climbing for a cause could possibly bring in more money and lend credibility to what we were doing. It wasn’t until months later when I heard more of CSM Burnett’s personal story and stories of other American heroes like him that I learned the tragic impact PTSD has on our service members. Death by suicide was claiming the lives of one active-duty Soldier a day and twenty-two veterans a day. My heart was broken.

  When CSM Burnett told me about his struggles with PTSD, the climb took on new meaning. He had been through a lot of personal tragedies, including the deaths of his brothers. One had recently been killed in a motorcycle accident; the other committed suicide just a month later. I’ve dealt with only one family death, my grandfather’s, and it crushed me. I can’t even imagine his heartache of losing two brothers, in addition to the numerous brothers and sisters he’d lost in combat.

  CSM Burnett’s struggle with PTSD intensified to the point of wanting to take his own life. I sat and listened to my hero, an incomparable warrior and someone many of us looked up to, say he’d wanted to kill himself due to PTSD. I was speechless. The reason behind climbing Everest became very real to me in that instant. My drive to make the expedition happen shifted from self-centered motives to something much bigger.

  I was no longer climbing for myself; now I was climbing for my brothers and sisters who were struggling. I made it my mission to create awareness of PTSD so that encouragement would be provided to veterans in the midst of climbing their own mountains of adversity. All the sacrifices Rachel and I were making would be worth it if we could save just one life.

  God was communicating with me more clearly than ever, and it was through a man I looked up to. Thankfully, I was listening in the right way to hear it.

  * Dan Pallotta, “The Dream We Haven’t Dared to Dream,” February 2016, TED Talk, 11:49, www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_dream_we_haven_t_dared_to_dream/transcript?language=en.

  April 24, 2016

  After several days of acclimatization, I’m accustomed to more than just the thin air. I’m used to the same Base Camp breakfast: donkey meat medallions, eggs, and potatoes cooked in yak grease, served with toast and butter made from yak milk. Tomorrow we’ll be heading up to Interim Camp and then on to Everest’s Advanced Camp.

  Acclimatization on Everest is extremely important. This process allows the body to start adjusting to the high altitude while gaining the strength needed to climb. We begin the process immediately, climbing a section, coming back to rest, and then repeating
the process. Each time our goal is to climb a little higher.

  Many climbers who die on Everest get a common illness, like a head cold or stomach bug, but decide to climb anyway, even though the illness rapidly accelerates the body’s deterioration with every step in elevation. Before leaving, I told myself that if I were confronted with a situation that would considerably increase my risk, I would turn around and stop climbing. This is not a hard decision when I have a beautiful new bride back home, but for others, it’s not always an obvious decision.

  Staring up at the mountain, it is easy for me to focus solely on completing the goal: make it to the top and back down. Amid this intense focus, there are a few lighthearted moments.

  This morning, Tommy leaves our yak-filled breakfast to go to the bathroom at the toilet pit. The toilet pit is exactly what it sounds like: a six-foot hole with a tent draped over it for privacy. I’m finishing breakfast when Tommy starts yelling. I run over to the toilet tent to see what’s happening.

  “Tom, you all right?”

  “My water bottle fell in a pile of poop!”

  “Did you get it?”

  “No, I left it there!”

  Dave and Chad, two of the guys on our USX team, hear what’s going on and come over. One of them says, “You need to get it out. It’s not right to leave it there.”

  Tommy knows they’re right, so he heads back in to retrieve his water bottle. Dave and Chad go with him for moral support.

  Somehow Tommy gets it out using a string and a stick. When we see the bottom of the water bottle covered in poop with toilet paper stuck on it, all of us start rolling with laughter. The Sherpas do too. They feel sorry for Tommy and help him clean it off using buckets of hand sanitizer. Later, when the team goes to the mess tent for dinner, Tommy unthinkingly sets his water bottle on the table. We eye it suspiciously. I guess it’s clean, but it still doesn’t seem right to have it so close to our food!