“And she is off to Africa!!”

That was what Andy Brown posted on Facebook back on July 1st, as his wife Stephanie Zetcher Brown, 55, and her best friend Stacy Godat Donohue, 48, embarked on a journey to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. The Browns are members of CRC.

Stephanie is a Pre-K teacher at the Deutsch Early Childhood Center but, during the summers she leads campers on hiking trips into the mountains all across the country for Camp Manitowa, located near Rend Lake, which the couple owns.

But this hiking trip would be like few others. At 19,341 feet Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and the tallest freestanding mountain in the world; it is one of the Seven Summits. The snow-capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano and can be found inside the Kilimanjaro National Park of Tanzania.

On July 12, 8 days after arriving, Stephanie and Stacy were sitting on top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

“I couldn’t imagine not sharing an experience like climbing Kilimanjaro alone,” said Stephanie, via text from Africa. “I feel so lucky that I was able to share this experience with Stacy. We have hiked so many mountains together that I knew we would get each other to the top. I knew that spending 8 days working so hard to accomplish a life-changing goal could only be done with someone as like-minded as myself.”

Congratulations Stephanie and Stacy! Please enjoy these photos of the pair as they made their journey to the top.