enlarge Jason McKibben/Morning Sentinel

Umbrellas sprout among the crowd as black-gowned graduates participate in the 188th commencement exercises at Colby College in Waterville on Sunday.

WATERVILLE — Sunday morning's steady rain was the perfect backdrop for author Greg Mortenson's address to the 188th graduating class at Colby College, on the lawn at Miller Library.

Mortenson quoted the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., telling the 509 graduating seniors, their families and friends: " 'Even if the world ends tomorrow, I'm going to plant my seed today.'

"But I guess you guys have already been planting your seeds and now the rain is falling to start spreading your good hope around the world."

Rabbi Raymond Krinsky of Waterville, the Jewish chaplain at Colby, gave the invocation. Krinsky said the graduating students are blessed for all they have accomplished "during a time of enormous turbulence" in the world.

In his keynote address, Mortenson, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute and founder of Pennies for Peace, said that even if times are dark, there is a Persian proverb that offers hope, by saying: "When it is dark, you can see the stars."

"I think that's a good thing to hold onto," he said.

Mortenson has dedicated his life to promoting community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He has established more than 80 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan that provide education to more than 25,000 children, including 14,000 girls, for whom few educational opportunities existed before.

Mortenson was one of two grass-roots crusaders for education addressing the Colby graduating class. The other was Qiamuddin Amiry, a 2009 Colby graduate from Kabul, Afghanistan, who was elected by his class to deliver the student address.

In his engaging and often humorous remarks to his class, Amiry said he grew up under repressive regimes, where speaking up for what one believes could result in any manner of punishment.

"I grew up in a society where speaking up was not such a good idea," he said.

"I brought that 'don't speak up' mentality to Colby, where I learned from my fellow students the importance of speaking my mind. Here at Colby, you showed leadership, classmates."

He said reaction to the much-publicized events of Easter morning this year at the Pugh Center that brought police to campus to quell a disturbance was an example of bold student voices rising to meet the occasion.

"I believe that we can find our best selves in the worst moments," he said. "And this event united our class and made the administration see us differently. I salute you for your uncompromising determination, which you carry with wisdom and maturity.

"I encourage underclassmates to be more vocal."

Mortenson, who was born in Minnesota and grew up in Tanzania, has had to overcome numerous obstacles to meet his goals, including death threats from Americans for helping Muslim children.

This year, he'll receive Pakistan's highest civil award for his humanitarian efforts. His books include the New York Times bestseller "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time."

"What 'Three Cups of Tea' means is that the first cup, you're a stranger, the second cup, a friend, and third cup, you become family," Mortenson said. "And for a family, we're prepared to do anything, even die.

"Now that doesn't mean you just go around the world drinking tea and having peace and prosperity. What it means is that we have to build relationships with each other. We have to listen."

Mortenson said the first chapter in "Three Cups of Tea" contains an "f" word – failure.

"We don't like to talk about it here in the U.S. – failure," he said. "And today is your day of success. I'm going to talk to you just about failure a little bit because I think failure's very important.

"We all make mistakes in our lives and we all fail sometimes. All of you have not failed...