But 10 years later, according to Halvorsen, the Holy Spirit began prompting him that “Your walking days are not over.”


First prayer walk
Halvorsen and his family left Ireland in 1996 after living and working there for several years. He began to feel a real burden for America around this time. Not knowing what God had planned for his life, Halvorsen began praying about the next steps.

“The thought of walking across America kind of came to me,” he said. “I just couldn’t get the idea of [prayer] walking America out of my mind. At the same time I was really wrestling with it, because I thought, Maybe this is a mid-life crisis.”

After talking with close friends, Halvorsen decided God was in this calling, and he decided to tackle it.

After completing his walk across America in the late 1990s, Halvorsen returned to a more conventional ministry position and pastored a church in Duluth for five years. He thought his prayer walking days were over.


Walking across Europe
Several years ago, however, Halvorsen was in Spain and “it was like the beginning all over again, he said. “The Holy Spirit was like, ‘Your walking days are not over.’”

And this time, Halvorsen felt the Holy Spirit calling him to prayer walk across Europe—from Spain or Portugal to China. The feeling only became stronger as he visited Spain again a year or so later. After returning home, he made it a matter of prayer and determined the Lord indeed was calling him once again to prayer walk.

On December 2, 2008, Halvorsen began his walk across Europe, traveling through Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria—and reached Istanbul, Turkey on July 2 of this year.

Halvorsen has made the trip so far with his wife, Sandy, and their daughter Laura. Each day during the first leg, Halvorsen would walk, on average, 20 miles a day, five days a week. He made sure to cover 100 miles a week. Some weekends he also walked, in order to make up any lost miles from the previous week.

Sandy and Laura accompanied him in an RV, which Halvorsen describes as “our home on wheels.” At night, the family would spend time together in the RV.

Halvorsen said prayer walking gives him a sensitivity to the culture and the people. “God has really been using it [the prayer walk] to birth within my heart just a deep love for the countries we walk through. We’ve had so many opportunities to touch lives.”


Many more miles
After completing the first leg of the prayer walk on July 2, which totaled 2,805 miles, Halvorsen will begin the second leg in early November, walking through some difficult countries, like Iran. “We’re going to need governmental overrides, all kinds of things to do this,” he said, referring to the perceived difficulties that lie ahead in getting approval to travel through restricted countries.

The third and final leg of the trip will bring Halvorsen across China, but that won’t occur for another two years.


Message of this walk
Halvorsen said the message of this prayer walk is much different. “The message of this walk—I don’t know fully what to make of it—but it’s like, ‘As the waters cover the sea, so will the knowledge of my glory, my spirit, my presence cover the entire earth,” he said.

“Every once in a while [God] calls people to do what I would call ‘prophetic acts,’” he said. “They don’t appear to have a whole lot of intrinsic value in themselves; they’re synced with something He’s doing. And I think this walk is somehow synced with something He’s doing. I feel God has got us walking because He’s planning to do something unique over there” [in Europe and Asia].


ACTION BOX: To find out more about John Halvorsen’s prayer walk, visit www.worldprayerwalk.org.