Rick Hagans describes Alaska as beautiful, big and brutal, but he didn’t let fear of the wilderness prevent him from taking his “Pilgrimage of a Promise” through the natural beauty of the country’s largest state.
Hagans, founder of Harvest Evangelism in Opelika, began his journey through Alaska on July 21 and walked about 800 miles before he finished his trip Aug. 22.
The walk across Alaska was the latest in a series of pilgrimages that began in 1996 as part of a challenge to provide shoes for children he met while on a missions trip in Mexico. Hagans has a bigger mission than shoes in mind on each trip, however.
“The goal of my walking is to get people off their church pews to do something for God,” he said. “Taking a step is elemental, but taking a step for Christ is spectacular.”
Hagans has taken many steps for Christ in the past two decades. His first walk took him 300 miles across Alabama, east to west. His goal was to collect 10 pairs of shoes for each mile. The next year he walked across Alabama from north to south. Then he began taking his pilgrimages to other states. With the completion of Alaska he has now walked more than 8,000 miles in 35 states.
Alaska presented many challenges to Hagans. Though it is an enormous state, encompassing more than 6.5 million square acres, Alaska has few major highways.
On previous trips Hagans would walk all day then hitchhike back to his vehicle to travel ahead and rest. If he could not catch a ride he would camp overnight. In Alaska that was not possible because of the bears.
There were few cars and people to lend assistance along the miles of isolated highways. Hagans said he walked three days during one stretch and never saw a house or another person. The primary support he did have was from his guide, a military veteran named Broken Spirit. Hagans considered meeting Broken Spirit his first divine appointment of the Alaska trip.
“We pray that on each trip if there are people who can’t get to a church or can’t get to a preacher, that God is going to bring the preacher to them so he can bring Christ to them,” Hagans said.
Meeting Broken Spirit, whose name described both his spiritual and physical condition, not only allowed Hagans to share the gospel with the man and his son but also allowed supporters of Hagans’ ministry to help the family financially.
“Here is a man living in Alaska in a travel trailer with a broken heater, but through the help of people following this walk he now has money to fix his heater and keep his son warm,” Hagans said.
Throughout his journey Hagans met others in need of encouragement from the Lord and found companionship among other travelers. A retired truck driver fighting diabetes. A young mother living in an RV park so she can be near her daughter. A restaurant and bar owner who had been asked not to return to the local church.
“All pitched in and sat down to share a meal and a bit of their heart with ‘the walking preacher,’” Hagans posted on Facebook on Aug. 16.
On each trip Hagans knows he will meet people who might never walk into a church but who just might talk to a walking preacher. He sees every one of these opportunities as a “big deal” because God makes them happen.
Shoe donation
“I tell people we can all do something. Faith invites you to take a step,” he said.
Though Hagans is happy to accept shoe donations from those he meets on his pilgrimages, every offer of help is a chance to remind people that God is working in their own communities. Most shoes are collected after the walk, he said, nearer the annual Christmas missions trip to Mexico when a trailer-load of shoes will be delivered to families there. But when people from Scotland, China, New Zealand, Oregon, Texas or New York ask how they can help, Hagans tells them to get shoes.
“Give them to people in your community. Find a church or charity at home and get involved. Every offer of help is a further opportunity to direct that individual toward Christ,” Hagans said. “That’s what the gospel is about.”
For more information about Rick Hagans and Harvest Evangelism, visit www.harvestevangelism.org.
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