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Mt. Everest Challenge Campaign
By Bob and Maggie McCarty
 We are back from Nepal and Everest—and it was a wonderful adventure. We spent most of April in Nepal with time in Kathmandu, the capital, to acclimatize pre-trek and to recover post-trek! The extra days also provided us an opportunity to reflect on the experience and to work on our sound bites for the trip. We identified three distinct impacts:
- The spectacular beauty of the Himalaya region is beyond what we could capture in our photographs, though we tried. The snow- capped peaks, the deep valleys, the people, and quaint villages along our trekking route are so memorable. The vastness of the region was sometimes overwhelming. We saw Everest for the first time on day three of our trek and it took another seven days to actually reach base camp.
- The trek was physically more challenging than we expected. We flew from Kathmandu to Lukla in the Himalayan range, located at 8,000 feet elevation. Lukla is the starting point for the trek to Everest base camp, which is about 18,000 feet in elevation. Each day included significant descents and then ascents as we trekked steadily higher into the Himalayas. But it was also the impact of the altitude on our breathing. Once we passed 14,000 feet in altitude, breathing was noticeably challenging – and we walked slower. We have great admiration for those mountaineers who actually summit Everest—another 11,000 feet above base camp.
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 The complete immersion in a third world, non-Christian country experiencing political unrest was powerful. We did find the one Catholic Church in Kathmandu for Mass on Palm Sunday, but our time was primarily spent in a blend of Hindu-Buddhist culture. Nepal is in the midst of a one year old experiment with democracy. This was highlighted after we returned home and read that the parish in Kathmandu was bombed during Mass by a Hindu terrorist faction and that four people were killed and twelve were critically injured. The attack was less about religion and more about bringing back the monarchy. Religious tolerance was probably considered a democratic value.
We are grateful to everyone who provided support for our trek through e-mails and prayers for us and through financial donations for the Catholic Youth Foundation USA. Nearly $15,000 has been raised in donations and pledges for NCYC scholarships and grants for creative youth ministry projects.
The Everest experience was truly a blessing for us, combining our personal adventure with our professional commitment to the young church. And we have the photos to prove it!
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By Robert McCarty
Executive Director
 The yearlong economic downturn has certainly affected every aspect of our lives: job security and job hunting; retirement planning and unplanning; house selling and house buying; attending four-year colleges and community colleges; and vacation trips and vacations at home. It is no surprise, then, that church ministry has been equally affected.
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 Looking Ahead
From the NFCYM Board Chair
Carole Goodwin
It is summer! Do you find yourself inundated with seasonal youth ministry programming? Do you have time to breathe as you move into high gear with mission trips, camps, leadership training, several national youth training conferences, organizing NCYC delegations, and more and more? Summer can be burdensome for all of us in youth ministry and any added activity impacts a chance for rest and respite. Even in the midst of the busy season, your board of directors will gather and work in the midst of this summer cycle of ongoing diocesan programming.
Read the entire column. . .
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. . . reporting from:
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By Robert McCarty
Executive Director
It does not always seem so.
A safe statement—I am getting older. And one of the signs for me is a new sense of humility . . . a sense that I might be wrong. About what? Pick a topic: sports teams, matching colors of clothes, how to get from here to there, political issues, church issues, youth ministry approaches, definition of “Catholic,” and the list goes on.
I miss my early days of self-assuredness and self-righteousness. Though some might say that those days have not passed yet, I know that era is definitely receding. It was easier when I was always right. There was less need to listen to others, to engage in discussion, to consider options or opposing opinions. Always being right enabled me to disregard those who thought differently.
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