CHURCHES ARE BEING encouraged to turn their attention to an overlooked mission field within hiking distance of their front doors.
Thousands of young international backpackers who follow the country's world famous wilderness trails each year are ready to hear the gospel - and are bright prospects for future missionary service, according to former world traveler George Probek.
Through Backpackers for Jesus, he is recruiting Christians to take to the footways to share their faith with fellow travelers, as well as helping churches learn how to reach out to the walkers as they pass through town.
Tourism has boomed in the country over the past few years, with as many as one in ten of each year's 1.3 million overseas visitors taking to the country's several thousand miles of hiking paths that lead through the spectacular countryside.
Adventurous and often well-educated - many are university students - the backpackers "represent potential leaders, and are usually very open to new idea and spiritual values," said Probek, a Canadian who has covered around 150,000 miles during his own travels during the past ten years.
"They are a nomadic sub-culture of people, many of whom may have little or no contact with the traditional church, and whose spiritual quest is more likely to take them into contact with cults or other religions," he added.
"These travelers, whether they admit it or not, are looking for purpose and destiny in their lives, but there are very few people out there in their midst pointing out to them that Jesus is the key to what they are looking for.
"Jesus was a backpacker, too, in many ways during his time of ministry, traveling from town to town with no real home."
Based at Youth With A Mission center in Oxford, Backpackers for Jesus is preparing to train volunteers to take to the trails and backpacker hotels later this year, praying for and befriending others they meet along the way.
In addition Probek is visiting churches in at major tourist centers to encourage them to find ways of making contact with young travelers as they pass by. "Hospitality, offering a meal or a bed for the night, or picking them up while they are hitch-hiking are great ways to form friendships."
As well as reaching a section of society currently overlooked, Probek believes that focusing on the backpackers could prove to be strategic.
"Many backpackers would make great missionaries - they are adventurous, open to change, and good at interacting with people from different cultures.
"Reaching them with the gospel has the potential of bringing revival to Europe - 30 per cent of travelers to New Zealand are German-speaking - and seeing others take the gospel back with them to Israel and Japan, places where it has been traditionally difficult for overseas missionaries."
Last updated: 1996, June 08 /pf