UNESCO Dual Pilgrim<\/a> as I have become in walking both the Kumano and the Camino. There are only about 10,000 people in the world who have walked and completed both the Camino and the Kumano.<\/p>\nI walked and walked to settle sibling rivalry, but in the end, I discovered something quite unexpected. I discovered the role of a prayer walker.<\/p>\n
Before I walked the Caminho Portugu\u00e9s beginning in Tui to Santiago in 2021, I was playing my last tennis game when my tennis partner told four women playing in the other court that in the next couple of weeks, they wouldn\u2019t have to compete with us to find an available court. When I told Shirley where I was going, she asked if she could hold both of my forearms. When I said yes, she asked if I would pray for her daughter. I left the courts that day with a purpose to walk the Camino.<\/p>\n
Privileged with this task, I placed stones on granite markers that look like miniature Transamerica buildings that show the way to Santiago. I fashioned grapevines into a cross and knitted it to a wire fence. Every day I took a moment to stop and prayed for Shirley\u2019s daughter, never needing to ask what the reason was for prayer but only to lift up a stranger\u2019s need to be in God\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n
Daily walking has been said to lead to good health. For me, after walking the Camino de Santiago twice over the past two years, walking has now become a way to be with God.<\/p>\n
Growing up a Baptist and trained as a Protestant particularly in Catholic Boston, I was familiar with the belief that believers can pray directly to God without an intercessor. I always wondered about the confessional booth. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray what we have come to know today as \u201cThe Lord\u2019s Prayer,\u201d we recite it in Sunday worship as a weekly reminder that we can pray directly to God, \u201cOur Father\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s no need for me to pray for others when they can do that for themselves, why do we as pastors receive prayer requests? Before my Camino Primitivo, a colleague asked me to pray for safe travel as he and his wife were traveling overseas for a family member\u2019s funeral. I accepted this request as I have done for years as a pastor at every Sunday worship when it was time for the \u201cPrayer of God\u2019s People\u201d in worship. Again, I stopped every day from Lugo to Santiago to pray for safe travels and soon unexpectedly, others on my Facebook universe started to request prayers. There was a recent death of a longtime member, a friend in the hospital, a family member experiencing ADHD. I became a prayer walker.<\/p>\n
I know that I can\u2019t command God to heal someone; only God can do that in God\u2019s time. I know that if I usher all my might and strength that I can\u2019t prevent suffering from happening. I know that I am the creature and God is the Creator of all things and all life.<\/p>\n
After walking the Camino twice, I discovered that what has changed is me. My part in God\u2019s will is to simply be one who prays as he walks on the Camino as well as anytime and in any place in God\u2019s vast world. While some might see me as \u201chumanly holy,\u201d I only see myself as one who is present with people and who has been given the grace to be in the presence of God our Maker.<\/p>\n
For me, it has taken extraordinary journeys to Spain to discover the power of prayer. While not everyone can travel overseas for a variety of reasons, some have experienced the meaning and power of prayer through walking the labyrinth, found in many spiritual sites closer to home.<\/p>\n
The meaning of prayer has never been what I can do, but it has always been to trust God to do what God does. When I walk and pray to God to deliver us, I witness God\u2019s immanence every day. I have become a prayer walker.<\/p>\n
Rev. Donald Ng was president, American Baptist Churches, USA, 2014-15, the first Asian American to serve in this elected position. For 17 years, he was senior pastor of the historic First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. He retired from full-time ministry in 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daily walking has been said to lead to good health. For me, walking has now become a way to be with God. In the past two years, I have walkedContinue readingPrayer Walker<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-ng-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4245,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions\/4245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}