The Pilgrim’s Way
On June 28, a mission team traveled across the globe to meet our mission partners, the Roegner’s, at Fuente del Peregrino (Pilgrim’s Fountain) on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The purpose of this mission trip was to serve travelers completing the 769 km pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.
On the Camino de Santiago, travelers are often in a transitional stage of life with a very specific motivation for making the pilgrimage. This gives mission partners at Fuente del Peregrino a unique opportunity to connect with the roughly 1000 people passing the house each day. One mission team member, Sophia, shares that she connected with people so quickly after just meeting them and “learned a lot of things that I didn’t know I needed” from this experience.
Since the house’s opening in 1999, they have hosted 22,000 overnight guests and had interactions with 1.5 million passersby. The location of the house is significant because it is near the end of the journey and sees many weary travelers who have been walking for about a month to the tomb of St. James. Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” carry much more weight for these pilgrims because of their long journey.
With each interaction, our mission team and the Roegner family looked for ways to share the transformative message of the gospel through conversations and hospitality. Sophia became good friends with the fellow mission team members while rotating through different roles at Fuente del Peregrino like cooking, greeting new guests, and cleaning the house. These friendships and deep conversations with strangers about her faith in Jesus helped her “let God take control of my life and put my full trust in him.”
Because of the prayer, generosity, and faith of our church, people all the way across the world are finding and following Jesus. Learn how you can continue to have a global impact by supporting our mission partners at hppres.org/global.
