I’ve been thinking a lot this week about Twitter for Good, a book I wrote about using Twitter well. When I wrote that book I also launched an online video course alongside it. But things change, and it’s time for that course to sunset (at least for 2013). If you’re interested, you’ve got two days to get it here.

But back to my story. 

My story of coming to write that book.

Here’s how it goes:

{As originally published at (in)courage last year}

I went to Kenya to climb a mountain.

It was the end of 2006, and I had spent the previous nine months on a dreamed-of adventure: traveling the world, and writing about it. In nineteen countries, I did exactly what I wanted to do – and nothing more.
I trained for my first marathon on a two-week cruise across the Atlantic and skydived in South Africa. I trekked to the base camp of Mt. Everest. I spent months on Indian beaches, and fulfilled one long-held dream when I boarded the Transiberian Railroad in Mongolia, bound for Moscow. (It was dusty, though, and a day later I jumped off. I flew the rest of the way.)

I started a blog. I read 100 books, and no one batted an eyelash. I lived for myself, and for no one else.

Kenya was the last stop on my tour and despite my poor experiences with altitude sickness on Everest I was dedicated to climbing Mt. Kenya. When the friend of a friend recommended a cheap guest house near the base of Mt.Kenya where I could stay the night before starting the trek, I gladly accepted. The fact that the guest house was owned by an orphanage (Tumaini Children’s Home) was immaterial; I just needed a place to sleep. I wasn’t looking for a dozen new friends, let alone of the orphan variety.

By the time we arrived at Tumaini Children’s Home in Nyeri, Kenya I was famished. Our lunch of biscuits at a roadside gas station – although ideal for the nausea-inducing roads — had done little to curb my appetite. When the teens asked me if I wanted to have lunch with the church elders (the orphanage standing on the ground of a Presbyterian church), I jumped.

It was in the middle of the lunch that something changed. Maybe it was the little girl I glimpsed weeding the orphanage gardens with a smile as wide as Oklahoma, or the bright-yellow sun on the grassy lawns, or the milk tea and food in my belly. Or maybe it was Him…

Find the entire four-part series in the links below:

• June 18: How I Learned to Use Twitter for Good (Part 1)
• June 19: How I Learned to Use Twitter for Good (Part 2)
• June 20: How I Learned to Use Twitter for Good (Part 3)
• June 21: How I Learned to Use Twitter for Good (Part 4)