New Around the Mission
College Student Ministers to Fellow Pilgrims on a Walk Across Spain
July 31, 2011
For the past 1,200 years, pilgrims have walked the Camino de Santiago, or “Way of Saint James,” seeking peace, time to think, or their version of a religious experience. This summer they were joined by Hunter Van Wagenen, a 22-year-old student at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and attendee of New Grace Church in Fleming Island, Florida. Hunter walked the Camino with his parents in 2007 and decided to return alone this June.
“God has called me to share the Gospel with the many, many lost that walk the Camino each year,” he explains.
Hunter chose Camino Frances, the main pilgrimage route that travels the breadth of Northwest Spain. He walked 500 miles in 30 days, braving blisters, cold mountain nights and noisy albergues or pilgrim hostels. As he walked past mountains, rivers, villages and several major cities, Hunter admired sights like the Leon Cathedral and Pamplona’s beautiful countryside, but most importantly, he befriended his fellow pilgrims.
“One of the most incredible people I met was an older man from Belgium, a true nomad, who has walked every route of the Camino more times than he can remember, and has done the pilgrimages to Assisi, Rome, and even Jerusalem multiple times,” Hunter says.
Some pilgrims needed help treating their blisters, and Hunter took the opportunity to bandage their feet and pray over them. One afternoon he offered to help an atheist from Quebec whom he’d overheard having a heated conversation with an agnostic from California and a pastor from Nebraska.
“I apologized on behalf of the universal Church for the atrocities committed by Christians throughout history, a point that seemed to be her biggest obstacle in listening to or respecting any true believer,” Hunter says. “She allowed me to pray for her feet after I finished with my bandage.”
Hunter’s journey concluded in Santiago, but he stopped to visit the Rt. Reverend Carlos López-Lozano, Bishop of the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church, at his office in Madrid before heading home.
“Bishop Carlos is one of the most down-to-earth bishops I have ever met,” Hunter says. “He was very enthusiastic about the vision God has given me for evangelistic albergues on the Camino and offered prayer support and legal help when the time comes to figure out how a foreigner can serve pilgrims in Spain. ”
Hunter returned to the US in July to share stories of his outreach with New Grace Church and encourage others to walk the Camino. He plans to graduate college, pursue seminary and the priesthood, then return to Spain as soon as the Lord allows.
“Whether they know it or not, every pilgrim on the Camino is walking because the Holy Spirit drew him or her there,” he says. “The problem is, most pilgrims in this day and age are looking for God but do not know or love Jesus Christ. So many who walk are ready to meet him, though, and when God's faithful walk alongside them and act as salt and light, then there will be a large harvest from all over Europe and every continent.”
Learn more at Hunter’s trip blog “Walking in Love”
Posted By: Cynthia P. Brust
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