Camino Missions is a nonprofit organization dedicated to doing direct evangelism on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. We work with churches and individuals for the purpose of evangelizing, praying for, and ministering to pilgrims hiking the Camino and locals along the Camino in northern Spain. We are leading teams of individuals on the Camino to evangelize, distribute the word of God, and form relationships with non-Christians who are seeking.

Tara Taylor is a nutrition therapist and has life coaching experience. She is an experienced evangelist and ministry student. She speaks and understands Spanish well. She has personally traveled on the Camino a dozen times, distributing bibles, tracts and bracelets with bible verses on them to the people that she encountered and with whom she formed relationships. Camino Missions was her vision and direct inspiration from God. As the Camino is a hiking trip, there is often time to meet people and walk along with them as they share their stories.

Brian Taylor is co-leading this trip. He is a family physician from York, PA, who had been on the Camino three times before, completing one prior missions trip on the Camino. He brings medical expertise, physical strength, and endurance to support the team.

The Camino de Santiago is an ancient Christian pilgrimage route that travels across northern Spain from east to west, ending in the town of Santiago de Compostela. The entire Camino is a world heritage site. It is believed to be the route travelled by James the Apostle through Spain. It is a popular destination for many people around the world, and thousands of people go on this pilgrimage every year. It is often people who are at transition points in life, or those who have suffered through a health crisis or a tragedy, who often do this pilgrimage. This is why the Camino is a very rich missions field. Those who do it are often hurting and seeking something greater in their lives. It is our goal to meet them in their need and introduce them to Jesus as the ultimate solution to their trials.

On the Camino, pilgrims hike from town to town, but there is ample housing in the form of hostels so that sleeping outside is never necessary. The hostels are often inexpensive and provide communal meals and other activities for evangelists to engage other pilgrims organically.

If you would like to get a better sense of the Camino and what it is like, there is a movie called “The Way”, starring Martin Sheen, which is about a Camino pilgrimage. There are also several YouTube videos, and there is a book authored by John Brierley called “A pilgrim’s guide to the Camino de Santiago,” which is quite useful.

We intend to have a group of 7, including the two leaders, on the trip in August. If you are interested, you will need to complete a waiver on the website and a self-reflection questionnaire to be accepted on the trip. We will take the first five people who sign the waiver and submit a positive self-reflection form.

This trip is by invitation or referral only. An application process is not necessary, though we may institute one in the future for other trips. We are asking everyone to sign the legal waiver and prayerfully go through and sign the self-reflection form to be a participating member of the team.

We will all be staying at the same hostel. Walkers will wake in the morning, and quietly leave the hostel early to not wake up other pilgrims. We will use headlamps to light our way, which can be switched off as the sun gradually rises over the stunning Spanish landscape. We will hike in the morning to arrive at our final destination before

noon. We will engage other pilgrims when travelling and listen to them, hear their stories, and hopefully share the gospel. When we arrive at the next hostel, we will plan dinner and have dinner and an evening meeting to share the encounters for the day and pray for those souls we encountered and to whom we have witnessed. We will also cover logistics for the following day.

8-9 miles on most days

Absolutely! For non-walkers, we envision taking a taxi to the next hostel destination. When arrived at the next town, non-hikers can tour the town, obtain food for the group and evangelize in the area surrounding the hostel. They can also provide prayer support for those who are hiking.

August tends to be dry in northern Spain, and hot in the afternoons, though it can get quite cold at night. Northern Spain is cooler, and it does get breeze off of the ocean. There is often shade for rest along the part of the Camino that we will be hiking this year.

The most common language spoken by travelers on the Camino is English. Tara speaks Spanish well and will be handling most of the logistics. We will be learning some very basic Spanish together to sound more polite when greeting people or handing out tracts. That being said, we have never had an issue communicating in English to get directions, our basic needs met, etc. We do not believe that speaking Spanish is necessary for a successful missions trip on the Camino. Most European speak English well.

Each participant will need to secure their own flight to Spain since we will all be flying in from different parts of the world. Average cost of flights is between $600 and $800 dollars. We will arrive likely in Pamplona on August 1st (but more details come on that). Like many other European countries, getting around in Spain is much easier than in the US. Some methods of getting around are; local trains, busses, taxis, ubers, lifts, blah-blah cars (formalized ride sharing). There will be two travel days, and 7 days hiking.

We are planning training in the following areas:

Culturally sensitive evangelism training

Teambuilding

Very basic Spanish

Best camino apps and websites and how to use them

Road and camino signage

Help with what to pack

Pitfalls to watch out for

General preparation advice

Building home-based prayer support teams

Things that we are praying into but have not yet planned: Spiritual preparation for the trip

Participants can enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) which is government site that provides travel information, warnings and information about your destination. You can find that by Googling it if you so desire.

If you desire to get trip insurance, we recommend using World Nomads. Their prices are reasonable. That being said, Spain is a first world country and the healthcare system is reliable. We have never personally gotten trip insurance on our prior missions trips to Spain.

Guthooks – Guthooks is a paid satellite geo-location app that we highly recommend everyone buying. When using Guthooks it is impossible to get lost. We will also discuss other phone apps and hacks.

A visit to an urgent care facility in Spain generally costs anywhere from $25 euros to $100 euros. An emergency department visit would be more in the neighborhood of 150 – 300 euros. Most insurances cover emergency room visits abroad. ERs can also be used for non-urgent visits if you want them to be covered by insurance. That being said, I am a family physician and will be functioning informally in that capacity on this trip. I will have basic first aid supplies and a limited pharmacy that we can access with your consent. We have never felt the need to buy supplemental insurance.

If you want to raise money for the trip, we recommend using give/send/go.

Items that we believe we should have enough for a group of 7.

We have 7 backpacks.

We have a lot of small containers.

We have 7 sleeping bags.

We have extra rain ponchos.

We have headlamps.

We have bibles, tracts and bracelets.

We have some extra:

Trekking poles (some people prefer to buy a pilgrim’s staff in Spain)

Things you will need:

We are putting out a full packing list.

Pilgrim Hat

Good hiking shoes.

European outlet converter.

Personal items.

Some hostel are donation only, other hostels cost 10-15 euros a night (equivalent to 10-15 dollars). Hostels are very individual. They can be anything from ancient monasteries to modern buildings.

Things the hostels will have:

Pillows

Blankets

Kitchen cooking supplies, cups and silverware.

Often laundry soap.

Drying rack

Showers

First world bathroom facilities

Often pilgrim dinners and breakfasts

Kitchens

Refrigerators