5Q4 > A Mountain Climber

David Samarasinghe completed a climb-athon on Mount Cooroora, a 438-metre volcanic plug on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, to raise funds to attend the South Pacific Division’s youth congress in Fiji this summer.

1 What did the climb-athon entail? > I climbed Mount Cooroora 12 times in 12 hours and raised more than $A4000 through sponsorship for my efforts. My workmates from Living Valley Springs health resort supported me by providing food and massages during the day.

2 What did you do in Fiji? > I travelled with the Vicyouth group and spent a week in Suva at the congress. Then went over to the island of Qamea to rebuild a school that was destroyed in a cyclone two years ago. Then we got to chill out for a few days and just enjoy Fiji.

3 How did you come to be on staff at Living Valley Springs? > Originally I came as a guest in February 2003. My cousin was working here and asked me to come and do the program. I was pretty lost back then, had no vision and was living a self-destructive lifestyle. After I completed the program the staff didn’t want to just send me back to my home town of Mildura, so they put me in the kitchen to help prepare food and do other various jobs around the resort.

4 What does an average workday hold for you? > On days when guests are eating and not fasting I spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food. We put most of our guests on three-day juice fasts, so some mornings I just do a heap of juicing. After work I go to the gym and sometimes also have a steam bath.

5 What message about health would you like to give Edge readers? > Well here’s a quote: “Disease is an effort of nature to free the system from conditions that result from a violation of the laws of health” (The Ministry of Healing, Ellen White, p 127). If you think about that, you'll see that any illness we encounter has a root. Don’t just suppress the fruit or symptoms of that root with drugs and stuff, look for the cause and correct that.