Kim Trudell
‘Three Cups of Tea’ author and co-founder and director of the Central Asia Institute Greg Mortenson, right, visits with seventh-grade Social Studies teacher Bill Shull and resident Kim Trudell before Mortenson’s talk at the Veterans Middle School in Marblehead, Mass. April 2, 2008
Photo by Ian Hurley of the Marblehead Reporter
The New York Times bestseller, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace…One School at Time, describes how Greg Mortenson delivered medical books to the Kabul Medical Institute in Afghanistan during the Spring of 2002: "Kim Trudell, from Marblehead, Massachusetts, had lost her husband, Frederick Rimmele, when, on his way to a medical conference in California on September 11, his flight, United Airlines 175, vaporized in a cloud of jet fuel against the south tower of the World Trade Center. Trudell asked Mortenson to carry her husband's medical books to Kabul, believing education was the key to resolving the crisis with militant Islam." (p. 287, 2007 edition)
Five years after the tragedy, The Boston Globe reported how things were with survivors. Ms. Trudell replied: "I've tried to carry on with my life - but in a new way. I've come to see education, particularly girls' and women's education, as a means to alleviate some of the desperation that arises from extreme poverty. I truly see what happened as an act of desperation. I now do nonprofit work, educating women and girls in some of the most poverty-stricken parts of the developing world, many of which are Muslim. That's my life's passion."
Kim's passion inspired her community. In April 2008, The Marblehead Reporter said, "Since January through the collaborative efforts of St. Andrews Church, Marblehead public schools and the community at large, the town has sponsored Mortenson’s national campaign, Pennies for Peace. The town-wide effort has brought in $25,000 of the necessary $50,000 required to build and staff a new school in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and fund raising continues."
Kim is a living witness to Jesus' way of peace and his teaching, "Love your enemies.