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A Man’s 29,000 km Journey for Unity

By bluepanjeet on Jun 14, 2007 in *Open Door

45th---dlsimages

Do you know any man in history who traveled around the world for 80 days? I know none except from the adventure novel of French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club.

In real life however, Tim and Cindie Travis, an ordinary American couple decided to live out their dreams by setting off to travel around the world by bicycle starting on March 2002 and have been on the road ever since.In 1924, four Douglas World Cruisers and eight American crewmembers set out from Seattle to attempt the first around-the-world flight. 175 days later three of the aircraft completed the flight. Nine years later, another American did it in only 7 days.

Anthony Steward on the other hand, journeyed around the globe using only a small open boat.

Dave Kunst was the first man to walk around the world. Starting in Waseca, Minnesota on 20 June 1970, he completed the journey in 4 years, 3 months and 16 days. He wore out 21 pairs of shoes in more than 20 million steps to cover 23,250 km (14,450 miles).He is known as the Earth-walker.

And today, another man is attempting to travel around the world, not for the coveted world record, but for a noble cause.

After five years working with Youth Mission Team Australia, fresh from his post as the legendary Melbourne YMT Manager, Samuel Clear, has decided to take a year out to walk 29,000 kilometers around the globe praying for the unity of all Christians!

Setting out on the 14th of December 2006, Samuel Clear will walk from Cape Branco, the eastern most point of Brazil, up through South America, Central America and North America, across Russia and down through Europe to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The journey will encompass approximately 29,000km over 564 days of which approximately 18,000km will be travelled on foot.

The entire journey is a pilgrimage and day by day, each location is in itself the destination. As Sam slowly travels around the world he will be praying for the unity of all Christians and inviting Christian’s worldwide to join him in walking and praying for unity.

Below is an excerpt of Sam’s reflection on his internal journey with Christ that led him to journey the world in the name of Christian unity…

iamsama “I was walking from Mitcham to Burwood in Melbourne and praying a rosary. At the end of the rosary I asked God if there was a specific time in the day that I should ask people to pray for unity. Immediately I had a sense that the Lord wanted me to pray at four o’clock. I then had an image of the number one and I thought, “‘4:01’. 4:01? God, that’s stupid! What significance does 4:01 have?�

Then I realised that 4:01 was exactly what I was doing – praying for one – praying 4:01. So it has been since that day that at 4:01pm (I added the pm – go for your life if you want to do the am thing…) I have been inviting people to set their watch or phone alarm to go off at 4:01pm as a reminder to pray for unity.

I set about asking as many people as possible to join in praying for the unity of Christians, but I began to get frustrated at not being able reach more people outside my immediate friendship group.

As it happened, I was looking at a world atlas one night and as I looked at the world, I had a rather innocent thought, “I could walk around the world and invite people to pray for unity.�
That thought never left me and over the following year, I met with many people I consider more faith-filled and wiser than myself and pulled apart and prayed about the possibility of me traveling around the world praying for unity and inviting others to pray for unity.�

As of this writing, Sam is now in El Salvador continuing the noble cause of Unifying all Christians around the world. Now as a blogger can we ever take part on his Journey? The answer is Yes.How can we get involved?

There are many ways to join Sam Clear in his God inspired quest to pray for the unity of all Christians:

1. Set your mobile or watch alarm to 4.01pm each day and join a growing band of Christians right across the globe, who are stopping for a few minutes at this time each day to pray for Christian unity with this prayer:

Father,

we come together to surrender our entire selves to your vision of unity. Lead us to truth and speak gently into the very depths of our hearts. Help us to cast all bitterness and pride to the foot of the cross so that we may fully embrace the truth of Christ, our Saviour. Please unite all Christians as one body, Father, as your son, Jesus, is one in you and you are in him. Send your Holy Spirit, Lord, to draw us together that we may become, as one, apostles of love to the entire world. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

2. Jump on a plane - If your toes are tingling and you feel like jumping on the next plane to America or Europe, check out Sam’s itinerary & as he says, “please join me on the road; either on foot, on your bike, in a car or on a lama, it really doesn’t matter – any way or how I’d love to see you!�

3. Be Counted and register online to pledge your prayer every 4:01 pm

4. Sending text message is a very simple way for you to spread the message to all the Christians you know by forwarding this SMS on - a cheap and effective way to get the news of Walk4One and Pray4One out to those in your church communities.

“Invitation to every Christian on the planet to pray for Christian unity at 4.01pm daily in a world wide prayer effort! 2 join in visit www.ymt.com.au/walk4one/ Forward this to every Christian you can - help us circulate this msg across the globe!�

5. Watch his travel on YouTube and subscribe to his Channel

6. Read Sam’s blog to get updated on his present Itinerary.

7. Log in to the official website regularly to read Sam’s blogs detailing his adventures as he walks for one!

The Lord calls everyone of us in our own vocations: some of us chose to be married, other were called to the religious life, many are called to teach, to nurse, to cure or to serve the country, but only few people are called to spread the Gospel in a very special way. And this is the vocation of Sam Clear: to journey literally across the globe to spread the Gospel in virtue of his campaign for World Unity Of Christians. In your own lirttle way, what has been the call of the Lord for you to do your share in making the world, or the cyberspace for that matter, a better place to surf/live in?

Just a reflection.







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BluePanjeet Interactives 2007 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License










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  1. 2 Comment(s)

    2. MyAvatars 0.2

  2. By satire and theology on Jun 15, 2007 | Reply

    That is a heck of a walk for unity, and the Fantastic Four/SIlver Surfer trailer is good. I look forward to viewing the movie in a theatre.

    [Reply]

    3. MyAvatars 0.2

  3. By bluepanjeet on Jun 17, 2007 | Reply

    :arrow: Oh boy, I’m gonna watch it today :lol:

    [Reply]

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