American Baptist pastor Reverend Arthur Blessitt carries his cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan during his epic pilgrimage.

Hippie minister Arthur Blessitt (October 27, 1940 – January 14, 2025) visited every country with his 4m cross

Most people have a metaphorical cross to bear, but Arthur Blessitt had a real one.

It was four metres tall and two metres across, made of wood, and over the course of half a century from 1969 the American evangelist joyfully bore it to every country in the world, preaching as he went.

He carried his cross up mountains, across deserts, through jungles and countless war and disaster zones, into Warsaw Pact states during the Cold War, and even into North Korea.

He claimed to have been arrested 24 times.

He was, he said, chased by elephants in Tanzania, confronted by baboons in Kenya and attacked by crocodiles in Zimbabwe. He narrowly escaped being injured by a bomb in Northern Ireland during the early years of the Troubles.

He was abused and embraced, shot at and pelted with stones as he talked, or sought to talk, to all those he encountered along the road.

Blessitt didn’t just meet the poor and lowly. He also spoke to political and religious leaders including George W. Bush, Pope John Paul II, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, Bob Dylan, Billy Graham and Menachem Begin.

Road warrior
“My church and congregation are out there on the road. That’s where my home is,” Blessitt would say.

“Some people see me and shout, ‘You’re a nut!’. I say ‘That’s all right. At least I’m screwed on the right bolt’.”

In Zanzibar in June 2008 he completed his goal of carrying his cross to every nation, large inhabited island group and territory in the world – more than 320 in total.

A few years after that he entered Guinness World Records for the longest round-the-world ongoing pilgrimage – 64,751km and counting.

Once, on Mount Sinai in 1977, he had thought of stopping. But, he said, he prayed and Jesus told him: “I’ve called you to the common man, with peasants of the world, to sweat, walk in the rain, smell exhaust fumes, sleep on the road. Go! I want you to go all the way.”





Roving pilgrim Arthur Blessitt makes his way Down Under Dec 2000 - Feb 2001 along the Midland Highway in country Victoria.


Humble beginnings
He was raised in Louisiana, where his father managed a cotton farm.

As Blessitt told it, he “accepted Christ” at a revivalist meeting when he was seven, and was called to preach at the age of 15.

He was ordained as a 20-year-old student at a Mississippi Bible college, and became an itinerant preacher in the mountain states of the western US before arriving in Los Angeles at the height of the counterculture movement in 1967.

Along the way he married Sherry Simmons, a nurse, just three weeks after their first date. They would go on to have two daughters, Gina and Joy, and four sons – Joel, Joshua, Joseph and Jerusalem (who were all given the first name Arthur).






Reverend Blessitt carrying his cross and Bible at Mascot in September 1976.


His Place on Sunset Strip
In LA, Blessitt opened a Christian refuge called His Place next to a bar on Sunset Strip in Hollywood.

He began preaching in clubs and bars, and ministering to hippies, drug addicts, the homeless and runaways. Long-haired and sandalled, he spoke in the argot of the time.

“You don’t have to drop pills to get loaded,” the “Minister of Sunset Strip” would proclaim. “Jes’ drop a little Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Christ is the ultimate, eternal trip.”

Blessitt made his original wooden cross to hang on the wall of His Place, but he would take it out on short walks around Hollywood.

Jesus then told him, he claimed, to carry his message to “the highways, roadsides, where the people are”.

On Christmas Day 1969, he set out to walk across the country to Washington DC – a journey that took six months – and after that he just kept going.

He said he “heard the voice of Jesus calling him to walk to every nation”.

That first cross weighed 50kg, but he later built himself a lighter one that weighed just 20kg and could be dismantled so he could take it on planes.

To its base he attached a small wheel, so he could put the cross over his shoulder and pull it quite comfortably. A stickler for statistics, he reckoned the tyres on the wheel lasted 3000km on average, and his boots 750km before they needed resoling.

Over the subsequent decades he walked through what are, or were, some of the world’s most dangerous countries: Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon and Cuba.

He climbed Mount Fuji in Japan with his cross. He also took it to Moscow for five days shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He then traversed the formidable Darien Gap jungle between Colombia and Panama before crossing Africa from west to east – a journey that took almost two years.

He was allowed into North Korea in 2008, but only for a symbolic walk on the street outside his hotel.

Those walks “put me in touch with people in all their hurts, pain, struggles, dreams, wars, happiness, hunger, greed, generosity, hate and love”, he said. “Sometimes I feel the cross is the lightest weight I bear.”

Political run
In 1976 Blessitt mounted a quixotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, stumping the snowy roads of New Hampshire and winning all of 800 votes in that state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

He divorced his wife in 1990 and married his second, Denise Irja Brown, later that year.

Brown accompanied Blessitt on his trips, usually driving ahead of him in a vehicle. As he walked, he handed out stickers proclaiming “Smile! Jesus loves you”.

He slept wherever he found shelter, and financed his travels through donations and selling books, CDs, stickers, T-shirts and playing cards on his official website.

Blessitt and his wife settled in Denver, Colorado, but he continued his “cross walks” well into his old age, sometimes live-streaming them.

He announced his own death with a message on his website he had presumably written in advance.

“I, Arthur Blessitt, have completed my walk and mission on Earth,” it read. “These feet that have walked so far on roads of dirt and tar will now be walking on the streets of gold.”

THE TIMES

Extract from his web page re Father's Day

Father’s Day, Notes from my Children!

The theme of today is ‘Father’s Day’ a time set aside to honor fathers.

Let’s look at earthly fathers. While the Old Testament has many stories and pages of family interaction the New Testament has few. The best example of fathers in the N.T. is Joseph.

I would like to share the ‘Father’s Day’ greeting of my own children and mix it with a story of each.

Gina Dream Blessitt: Works and does drama and outreach in Denver, Colorado.

“Dad, I wish you Happy Fathers Day!
As I think of what a father is supposed to be and the things a father is to teach, train and show his children, I think of how God interacts in our life! I am grateful for you… You have made it so easy to live a life with God.
I grew up knowing love, acceptance and excitement! I have never doubted your love for me. We have lived a life with God and each other. There was never a division between ministry and home life. You raised us knowing our life is a ministry, everyday, everywhere, no matter what ever we are going through God is in it and glory will be given to him!
Very few people have a father with such a unique, consuming, lifelong, one of a kind, worldwide call on his life. Some people might find it hard to share you with the world but your example has formed me into the woman of God that I am today. The boldness and peace I live comes greatly from our awesome lifestyle. We are close, because for so many years we were all we had and there’s a bond that cannot be broken. You never stopped, no matter what and really no matter what!! And I find that today this is one of the greatest traits you have imbedded in my spirit.
Many parents tell their children how to live… well you showed us by a living example. I love you more than mere words could carry. Only the Spirit of God can truly reveal the depths of my heart!
Your Dream Girl… Gina Blessitt”

Arthur Joel Blessitt: A senior pastor at The Potters House – Denver, Colorado

“Thank you dad for all you have taught me through out my life. To walk this earth besides you in the shadow of the cross, all those miles just you, me, and God. What a way to grow up. I would not trade it for the world.
You have taught me to be faithful, strong, and reliant on God. You have shown me the best way to live ones life… In God’s will.
I love you dad,
Arthur Joel Blessitt

Joy Ann Blessitt: A mother who works and lives in Denver, Colorado

“Daddy you are my father and my friend. You’ve shown me unconditional love and forgiveness. Your passion for Jesus has always taught me to put Him first. I pray that I will also give my children the gift of love, forgiveness and most important the passion for Jesus. My life with you has been a wild ride and I thank you so much for that.
I love you daddy. Happy Father’s Day”

Arthur Joshua Blessitt: Ministers, lives and ministers out of Norway to the world.

Dad, you have given me the best days of my life. Being with you has given me excitement, adventure, friendship, joy, laughter and a close relationship with God.
You are a great father and a great role model.
YOU are the world’s #1 dad.
Love you,
Joshua
P. S. I want to give a super BIG hallelujah thanks to our heavenly Father for letting you be here another year on Father’s Day.

Arthur Joseph Blessitt: Lives and blesses many lives in Denver, Colorado

“Hi, Da Da. Go Go Good Bye”

Arthur Jerusalem Blessitt: Lives and works in Denver, Colorado

“All my life I’ve looked up to you. Of all the heroes I could have had I chose you!
I love you Dad”

Sophia Isabella Blessitt: Lives at home and goes to school in Denver and travels with us around the world.

“You are my best daddy in the whole wide world and I love you SOOOOO much. I like when we pick flowers and work in the garden. I like to carry the cross around the world with you.”

The best way to see what is meant to be a Father is to look at the Father through the life and words of Jesus.

159 times Jesus uses the word ‘Father’

Mt 7:11 “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Matthew 11:25-27 “At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Luke 12:32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

John 3:35 “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.”

John 4:23 “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

John 5:19-20 “So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.”

John 6:40 “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 6:57-58 “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

John 10:15 “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

John 16:32 “Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”

John 17:1 “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you”,

Mark 14:36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Luke 6:36 “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

Matthew 6:9 Pray then like this: “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”

John 14:2 “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

John 14:23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

John 17:11 I am coming to you. Holy Father

John 17:24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

John 17:25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

John 18:11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

John 20:17 ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Luke 23:46 “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.”

John 20:21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Acts 1:4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me;

Hebrews 12:5-7
Let us not forget that a loving father also is a correcting father.
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

To God be the Glory,

Arthur Blessitt, Luke 18:1

** End of article

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