John Mollel started dreaming of starting his own Mount Kilimanjaro trekking company in 2016. He wanted to call it Maasai Brothers and Grand Tour because he is Maasai. During Mission: Kilimanjaro 2024, Part 1, as John was guiding our group, he talked about this dream. The Holy Spirit stirred Climbing For Christ president Gary Fallesen to want to support John in his venture.

“It was a breakthrough to my vision of starting a trekking company,” John said. “After eight years the dream came true when (Climbing For Christ) decided to support me. I made a huge step. I can’t even explain how it happened; it’s only God who did it. I will never forget that day, the moment (Gary) said that (he) would support me. I was in shock for some minutes. In my mind I was asking myself, ‘What did I hear from you?’ I remained speechless.”

Gary asked what he would need to get started. “Still, I remained silent until (Gary) told me to relax. The same situation also happened to my wife and my younger brother when I shared with them the good news. No one believed me until I showed them some texts.”

That day, John changed the name of his company to C4C Maasai Brothers and Grand Tour. “First to honor and recognize what C4C has done for us,” John explained. “Second, it will always remind us that Jesus Christ is the only way and more important it will remind me and the whole team to preach the Gospel on the mountain.”

That’s what the guides and porters in the Kilimanjaro Chapter have been learning for years.

“Since these trainings have started they’ve brought a huge change to porters and guides who attended all the classes,” John said. “They are now filled with knowledge of teaching and reaching the unreached as they are now able to read and interpret the Bible.”

The latest part of training – in addition to learning about “Communicating the Bible” – is outreach on the mountain. “The trained porters and guides are now able to use the acquired knowledge from the trainings and go out to reach (people) as they now know the steps to follow when reaching the unreached,” John said. “Through these (steps) many people have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

“The use of our tools – like the Bible, our (Climbing For Christ) shirt, radios [audio Bibles], and memory cards – have played the big role. For example, the (C4C) shirts bring a positive impact. Whenever people see us wearing them they think it’s a tour company, so they come close to ask some questions. Right away, as a trained (evangelist), this is a starting point, an open door to preach the Gospel.”

THE EXPEDITION: Scheduled for December. Our team will continue classroom instruction with guides and porters in the Kilimanjaro Chapter and then conduct an eight-day outreach expedition on the Lemosho Route on Africa’s tallest mountain (19,341 feet/5,895 meters). There is an opportunity to make a summit attempt if interested. Email info@ClimbingForChrist.org for a mission application. Membership is required to GO on a Climbing For Christ expedition.

This will be Climbing For Christ’s 18th expedition to Tanzania, where C4C was birthed in 1998. We conducted our first mission to Kilimanjaro in 2007. Thirty Climbing For Christ members have participated in Mission: Kilimanjaro, many more than once. Twenty-three members have gone to the summit at least once. Damson Samson, C4C’s Africa Coordinator, is meeting with chapter members four times this year thanks to a grant from the AHEAD Initiative. We did two outreach expeditions in 2024 (the Marangu Route in January and the Machame Route in July) with 30 chapter members sharing the Gospel with 473 people on the mountain –