“Two roads diverged in the woods and I took the road less traveled… and it hurt, man! Really bad. Rocks, thorns, glass! Not cool, Robert Frost.” -Kid President

SO IT’S POSSIBLE THAT I QUOTED THIS FAMOUS KID PRESIDENT LINE WHILE TREKKING THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS A FEW WEEKS AGO.

It hurt, man! We spent about 33 hours on the train, 9 hours on a bus, and walked more than 30 miles plus an additional vertical mile up and down the sides of mountains. I sprained my ankle on Day 2, and by Day 3 had the most ridiculous blisters you can imagine. I’ll spare you the picture, but let’s just say that they were so large and puffed out that you could see them through my socks. Yeah. We also got caught in a thunderstorm, crossed rickety suspension brides, ate grasshoppers, climbed over fences and onto a bee hive, and had some close encounters of the water buffalo variety.

IT HURT, MAN! BUT IT DEFINITELY WAS ALSO COOL.

Kid President goes on to say, “If there really are two paths, I want to be on the one that leads to awesome.” It wasn’t awesome because of the adventure or the stunning scenery or my epic bamboo walking stick. The path led to awesome because it led to the people who have never heard. The unreached are unreached for a reason: they’re hard to reach. But once we reached the area, we prayed for God to build His Kingdom here… and here… and here… everywhere our feet stepped.

According to The Joshua Project, there are still more than 751 unreached people groups in Southeast Asia, representing about 50% of the total population of the region.

The story above was written by a Cafe 1040 staff member in Southeast Asia.