Help us walk/run the 8350 miles to Mindanao Island in the Philippines to benefit the Burnham Center for Global Engagement!
In 2001 Martin and Gracia Burnham, both alumni of Calvary University and missionaries with New Tribes Mission were held captive in the Philippine Jungle for over a year. Gracia would be rescued and Martin would tragically lose his life during that rescue attempt. The Burnham name is now known to many and they are also honored and remembered through the Burnham Center for Global Engagement at Calvary University. The mission of the Burnham Center is to train and equip the next generation of cross-cultural servants of Christ to meet the challenges of ministry in an ever-changing world. The Inaugural Race to the Philippines seeks to raise funds to help the Burnham Center in this mission.
The Race to the Philippines is a virtual walk/run. This, of course, solves the problem that unlike Jesus, none of us can walk on water! Undoubtedly you may be asking yourself, what is a virtual race?
What is a virtual race?
I am glad you asked!
While 5k’s 10k’s and marathons have been around for a long time as ways for organizations to raise awareness for their cause and raise funds, virtual racing is a recent phenomenon. A virtual race could be summed up with the tagline, Your Race, Your Place, Your Pace. Unlike traditional walk/runs there is no set date and time to do the event, there is no set course marked out to follow, and no set place to travel to in order to participate. You can walk, run, crawl, skip, or ride a bike, wherever you are, whenever you have time to complete your distance. While we have set a suggested date of April 21st to complete the event it really is up to you. We will not be asking you to “prove” that you have gone the distance either.
We have created a Facebook event page here where we would like you to post a selfie or other picture of yourself completing your distance. Our hope is to gather pictures of people all around the world participating in this event so that it is truly a global event.
There is also the option of purchasing a race shirt here: Shirts are an extra charge but we do receive a portion of the funds towards our overall goal, and we think they look pretty sweet! Kudos to Callie Weeks for her design work!
Everyone who registers will receive an event medal, pictured here–>
What is the Goal?
Every great event has a great goal and ours is nothing short of legendary. The goal of the Race to the Philippines is to walk/run or otherwise cover the 8350 miles between Calvary’s Kansas City Campus and Mindanao Island in the Philippines. Mindanao is the island were Martin and Gracia were held captive.
There are two ways that we hope to accomplish this. When you register you will be signed up to walk/run the minimum requested distance of a 5k (3.1 miles). In addition, we have created another form where others can sponsor you to run/walk additional miles. So gather all your friends and have them sponsor you for an additional 10 miles and then walk a half-marathon! If you need to you can always break the distance up. Or you can sponsor Burnham Center Director Joshua Paxton for as many miles as you want, he plans on walking/running 1000 miles this year anyway as a personal goal.
So sign up today and join us as we Race to the Philippines!