the long walk
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, North Carolina’s Outer Banks
Back in 2009 when I rode my bicycle from the Continental United States to the tip-top of Alaska, a Christian brother gave me a book from his library that he thought I might appreciate. Entitled The Long Walk, it details the incredible 1941 escape of the Polish author and six other prisoners from a Siberian gulag. These escaped through a hole in the fence during a terrible blizzard and literally walked more than 4,000 miles out of Siberia, through Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, over the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and down into British India where the three who survived the entire journey were rescued and nursed back to health. The author, a Polish military officer named Slavomir Rawicz who was arrested by the Soviets during WWII, survived to raise a family of five children in England as a cabinetmaker. He retired in the early 1970’s and was finally convinced by his wife to put his story down on paper by the hand of an amanuensis. Slavomir Rawicz died in 2004.
I devoured this book back in 2009 and marveled at how men could walk over some of the most inhospitable terrain on the face of the earth with little more than the clothes on their backs and what they could hunt or gather. This story prompted me to keep pedaling that bicycle and not to quit. By God’s grace, I didn’t. When I got to the top of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay, I turned around and pedaled all the way to the southern end of the Alaskan road at Homer, also the western terminus of the North American road system, where my family stood waiting for me at the finish line. Wow, that was a sight for sore eyes! Suffice it to say that The Long Walk is an inspiring read, a testimony of true endurance.
Dear brethren, in my last update I professed that I had been seeking the LORD and that He had shown me clearly what He wants me to do. The Bible says in Ephesians 5:17:
“Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”
How can we be so? Understanding God’s will for big decisions in our lives that don’t involve questions of morality or violation of God’s Word (God’s will would NEVER lead us into immorality or against what is written in the Scriptures, NEVER) can be discerned through seeking the LORD in the Scriptures (II Timothy 3:16-17), through prayer (James 1:5-6), through the multitude of wise counsel (Proverbs 11:14), by the Hand of Providence in outward circumstances (Proverbs 16:9), and in a peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7). In and through all these things, the LORD reminded me of something I had written down in my journal way back on September 10, 2003 when I was first bicycling across America for the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ, preaching all along the way. I was somewhere up in Michigan, and the LORD caught my attention in Genesis 13:17 where He told Abraham:
“Arise, WALK THROUGH THE LAND in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.”
In reading these words almost 18 years ago, I was pressed in my spirit. Would I be willing to walk across my country if the LORD asked me to do so? In many ways, the bicycle was easy and comfortable. But would I be willing to walk it? In my journal, something I long ago forgot about until the LORD brought it recently before my eyes, I wrote:
“There is much to do on this bicycle journey before I can think about another one. But the key is AM I WILLING? Yes! Lord, I am willing. Lord, show me your will and when the time is right” (9/10/2003).
It’s actually kind of funny. Only three days after I wrote those words, I met a lady on a remote section of US Highway 2 along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who was tramping around the country on foot. Bobby was so thankful for the King James Bible that I gave to her as well as the fresh pair of socks and some Gospel material, a true divine appointment. I pedaled away from that encounter asking myself again AM I WILLING?
Bobby on Highway 2, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (September 13, 2003)
My friends, the TIME IS RIGHT for me to make good on what I told the LORD long ago I was willing to do if He ever asked. Much of our overseas work as been hampered; the Israeli backpackers simply are not traveling right now; and the United States, more than ever, needs a Gospel witness along its rural highways and hedges. My country is in such an awful condition spiritually, far worse than when I first pedaled across it nearly two decades ago. As much as I hunger to get back to Israel, or Nepal, or India, or South America (my heart has always preferred the heathen nations for missions as opposed to my own wicked country), I must be obedient. In ministry, I have only ever wanted to be obedient.
Another element that makes this time RIGHT is that I have a 17-year-old daughter who loves the LORD and has professed openly that she only wants to serve Jesus and tell others about Him. Bethany is going to do this long walk with me; we are going to walk the length and the breadth of the land together. As Eric Trent awaits the birth of his child and for doors to open back up for him and his family to Israeli backpackers in South America, he is also going to come alongside, at least across the state of North Carolina.
This past week, we literally put feet to that obedience and set out for as far east as you can go in North Carolina, the Outer Banks. We had three good days to take those first steps. Actually, it proved to be about 100,000 steps. We started at the original location of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and walked across both Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands. After a long ferry ride, we resumed Highway 12 on Cedar Island and finished at the gate to an abandoned airfield along Old Cedar Island Road just outside of the small hamlet of Atlantic on the North Carolina mainland. In total, it was a little over 42 miles, and there were divine appointments in which the Lord confirmed this calling, including a Jewish girl who took a Hebrew tract, a young man who was just finishing the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail that he started back in December, another young man who was bicycling across America, and a fisherman named Scott who was real open to the truth right at our “starting line.” Our message was simple: America is in BIG TROUBLE with God. We need to get right with the God of the Bible and His Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only then can we live free and please the Lord. I even got to do a little public preaching—to a group of teenagers in Buxton and a construction crew in Ocracoke—and I got to share Christ with a Mexican man on his front porch in Spanish. Glory to God!
The Starting Line at Cape Hatteras
Bethany walks on Hatteras Island
Eric approaches a fisherman with the Gospel out at Cape Point.
Ocracoke Lighthouse
Encounters like with this young man who was pedaling through his 41st State proved divine appointments. I guess a guy pedaling across the country is more apt to listen to a guy who has also pedaled across the country and is now walking across it :)
Walking across America is far slower than riding a bicycle across America. And it’s the long flat roads that prove most taxing by late afternoon.
This is the spot where we will resume in April. Even Mindy Trent, who is almost nine months pregnant, walked a few miles with us.
After 3 days, we had to return home because Eric and I had committed weeks before to join a college campus preaching circuit in Texas with some good and faithful brothers. We leave this morning and won’t return to North Carolina until nearer the end of March. I love preaching on college campuses, and it always seems that we find Jewish students along these circuits. Please pray for us in this.
So, why did I bother getting started on this walk across America, knowing I couldn’t resume until next month? Why didn’t I just wait until I got back from the campuses in Texas? I’ll tell you why. The gulf between a calling from the Lord and a first step of obedience can often be wide and daunting. And like standing on the edge of a high diving board, if you hesitate, even for a moment, you won’t jump. You will be climbing back down the ladder. However, if you just jump, the next jump and the next and the next will be easier and easier until it is a “want to” instead of a “have to.” With 42 miles now in the books, it will be much easier to go back and continue along a path far less glamorous and exciting than campus preaching. Moreover, there can be no rationalizing something away that has already begun, especially with others watching and praying. So, this is the lesson. If God is calling you to do something, get started, even if you are forced to take an early break. Get started. It’s always better to be obedient early rather than later. And no, you don’t need to “deputize” or go out and raise a certain amount of support before you can go to the field. If God is calling you to go, GO, and trust Him to provide what you need once you get there. That is how we have done ministry since DAY ONE on the bicycle. And, that is how we are going to keep doing it. I know no other way. LOL, I remember when Jamie and I left to go start that cross-country bicycle ride also on the North Carolina coast. I think we only had about $700 in a checking account. God provided everything we needed.
And I praise God today, for He has already provided us a place to base in a Christian family’s camper for as long as it takes near where I left off walking, as well as some Christian company to go along for a few days when I get back down there the first of next month. Bethany and I are greatly looking forward to crossing the Croatan National Forest and pacing through some of those small towns out there. Thanks to the 3-day warm-up, I also now know I need some new shoes, more Gospel material, a better flag pole, and some bug dope.
Please pray for this labour from the LORD. We won’t be walking the inhospitable terrain that Slavomir Rawicz and his companions walked from Siberia to India in 1941. But, the United States of America is as SPIRITUALLY INHOSPITABLE today as that route was geographically all those many years ago. For this reason, we will also refer to our journey as THE LONG WALK. I have no idea how long it will take or what specific routes we may ultimately follow. I think we have to take that day by day and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
My desire is not to walk well-traveled highways or to traverse big cities or metropolitan areas. No, I want walk along roads with names, not numbers. I want to go through the rural areas and “red counties,” praying for this nation and its people as I walk by their homes and small businesses and calling all I might meet in these highways and hedges to repentance. It is in these rural areas that many decent hard-working people have political sense, largely disapprove of where the country is headed, despise socialism, and rightly see liberalism as a mental disorder . . . BUT their hearts are still far from the LORD and shackled by the fear of man (as evidenced by all the church closures and capitulation to unlawful government power grabs during the Covid scare).
It is the red counties all across this nation that I want to call to repentance as Bethany and I walk across them flying an upside-down American flag (United States Flag Code, Section 8A: “The flag should never be displayed with the union down, EXCEPT as a signal of DIRE DISTRESS in instances of extreme danger to life or property) and the same “Jesus Saves” Christian flag I flew from the back of my bicycle back in 2003. We will also be carrying a cross bearing both an English and a Hebrew Gospel message. It is the Hebrew that will draw out any Jewish folks who cross my path, and I am quite confident the LORD will orchestrate that by His divine hand of Providence. He has already done so the times we have used that cross while preaching in places I never expected to meet a lost sheep from the House of Israel.
Those first three days of walking were already incredible in terms of such ends. Many took Gospel tracts and listened as I spoke of our nation under God’s judgment and the necessity that we repent and get right with the LORD, putting our hope and trust in Jesus the Messiah and NOT in political figures that men have made into demi-gods. While out in the highways and hedges, I also want to encourage other believers to stop living in fear and to be a public witness while we still have a little time. Stop ceding the things that belong to God over to Caesar and live free to please the LORD! Even in those first three days of walking, we were able to do this.
Here is a little gallery below that shows the route we have already walked, about 42 miles in total.
For now, pray for Eric Trent and I as we head down to Texas in a few minutes. This state has finally tossed its unconstitutional mask mandate and is open 100%. We will be hitting a few college campuses while basing out of College Station with some good and faithful brothers. Lord willing, we will be back in North Carolina before the end of the month. Then, THE LONG WALK must resume from that abandoned airfield in Carteret County.
There is an open invitation to any Christian at any point of THE LONG WALK to come alongside, even if for only a day, to walk a few miles and to be a public witness with us. Walk a long as you like, and we will fellowship together and share Christ together. Come next month, we will be back out there. For now, all Bethany and I know is that we have to walk across our own state. What comes next, God only knows; and the day will eventually reveal it. If we end up near you, come out and walk with us! Already, Eric’s wife, who is 9 months pregnant, walked a few miles with us, as did Pastor Brandon Gwaltney, one of FPGM’s Trustees who has a terminal lung disease. This brother walked a long stint with us on Hatteras Island and was a bold witness. If a pregnant sister in Christ and a brother in Christ who is on oxygen can do it, so can you!
Brother Brandon Gwaltney, one of FPGM’s Trustees, walked a good stint with us on Hatteras Island. Here, he and Eric stopped to witness to this photographer.
This past Saturday, after we got back from walking along the NC coast, I went with my family to a nearby rural park to walk a few miles. I wasn’t on the route, but I guess I do need to keep training when I’m not. Anyway, an interesting contrast of trees caught my eye, so I photographed it:
This contrast reminded me of something sad, a reason why I must walk the highways and hedges across this nation and call the people of the small towns and communities to repentance. Those full and beautiful pines in the backdrop are how America and Americans, both liberals and conservatives, both Republicans and Democrats, both secular society and the American Church, see themselves: as spreading green trees shadowing the ground and in need of nothing. But, my friends, that whited dead hardwood in the foreground is how the LORD sees us, the nation and the Laodicean American Church. Meditate upon Revelation 3:14-23 and Psalm 37:34-36 for a bit. How true for us in America! What God sees and what man sees are often as much of a contrast as this dead tree from its beautiful coniferous backdrop.
Here are a couple of videos I shot while out walking last week. The first is from the starting line (the wind makes it difficult to hear my words, sorry) and the second was from Day 3 on the mainland.
Thank you for your prayers and support. As mentioned, it isn’t our practice to wait until we “raise” a certain amount of financial support before we go to the mission field or step out in obedience to the LORD. God never guides where He does not provide. He has done so for us time and time again over the years, and I have no reason to think THE LONG WALK will prove any different. We go first and then trust that we will have what we need to keep going.
If the LORD should lay it upon your heart to give financially to this ministry and THE LONG WALK across America to preach the Gospel and call men to repentance, it would be most appreciated and put to good use in these dark days. All contributions are tax-deductible, and giving online is easy. Thank you dear brethren.
For now, stay tuned for testimony from some Texas college campuses and later from THE LONG WALK. Pray the LORD will put lost sheep from the House of Israel into our path as we preach to many Gentiles I gotta get going. It’s a long drive to College Station.
For the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus the Messiah,
Jesse Boyd, President
Full Proof Gospel Ministries