A house of worship having multitude of travel lovers who are zealously ready to travel around the globe. What is it? It may sound odd to hear that though it could be true to some extent. Precisely speaking, it is a church whose youngsters are so eager to spread the good news to almost every corner of the world.

 

On a street near my home near the coastal region of Jakarta, I was surprised to see at two young men, one caucasian guy  and the other was apparently Indonesian. A few weeks before I happened to see a group of these young men in Rome’s Terminus train station where they grouped near one gate. They all wore similar attire, white shirt along with black trousers as well as a black name tag with their name printed on it. Amazing, they are everywhere ! This is what I call as travel lovers whose temporary job is the so-called missionary. Lately, last week I saw those young men again, as always they work in team of two men, in the main street of Jakarta. It is not to mention that last year I saw them in Jakarta Kota train station  

 

I am talking about Mormon church or also known as the church of saints of latter days. Every years, thousands of its young members go to doing missionary work in foreign countries. They travel, live in foreign country to do street evangelism. I am not going to talk about their controversy or debatable bible version of Mormons, it is just that amazing to see a congregation sending thousands of followers to many countries every summer to spread their belief. I even consider that this church, whose headquarter is in Utah, US,  has been truly travel conscious than any other denominations

 

Apart of their zeal for their missionary work, it takes strong interest for travelling to enable someone to do this job. If someone is not interested for travelling, it would be quite difficult to do that.

 

It reminds of the world’s biggest missionary institution called Youth With A Mission or YWAM. Thanks to divine intervention, their headquarter is beautifully located in  Kona, a Hawaian region with amazing surrounding. Apparently the Omnipotent One has known that He needs to bestow the magnificent view for missionary wannabe.

 

In the middle age when the missionary work might still be in its heyday, I wonder what typical characters required from a missionary, I think that one of them is, undoubtedly, strong willingness for travelling. Imagine that a man from civilized world left everything behind for encounters with new “uncivilized” world, to explore new undiscovered tribes, get first-hand experience with exotic cultures, endure long travel to arrive in breattaking tropical paradise. Does it seem familiar for travellers? Travel lovers are in love with traditional tribes, exotic cultures, meeting new friends from different background, enjoying tropical paradise or breathtaking view.

 

Despite the differences, travellers and missionaries have something in common, a need for bible. The “slight” difference, as I assume like that, is the name for missionaries they must have what their own holy bible that is not going to be updated, it is totally fixed. On the other hand, travellers would use their bible that is always updated perpetually and periodically published by certain publishers like Lonely Planet.