Lindsay Hamon has carried a wooden cross “for about 8,000 kilometres in different countries around the world”. Recently, the Independent spotted Mr Hamon, who hails from Cornwall in England, and his friend from Yamba, Rob Hulland, who was carrying the cross along Yamba Road. “Lindsay is my long-time friend,” Mr Hulland says. “Lindsay is an evangelist and he … decided to put a cross together and do a walk into Yamba.” Mr Hamon, who has been carrying the cross for about 29 years, was a social worker in his late 20s when he “realised that the kids I was working with had far deeper issues” than he had experienced. Since then, he has “been working on the streets in different countries; working with the people that might be outside churchianity”. “My greatest joy is when somebody says, ‘that’s what I want in my life’. When they experience God touching them it’s almost like witnessing a new birth,” he says. He recalls a memorable experience on the road from Kathmandu to Pokhara in Nepal. “A lady insisted that I have a cup of tea with her. I protested, saying, ‘look, I’ve really got to get to the next town before it gets dark’; but I eventually gave in. She said, ‘the reason I want you to have tea with me is because I had a dream last night of a man carrying a cross, and I knew that man had to pray for me’. “Obviously it touched me; in fact, I’m feeling goose bumps telling the story now. It’s one of those precious moments that you could never orchestrate. I’ve got a lifetime of those sorts of experiences. “It often makes me cry.” Who are you crying for? “I don’t know mate,” he says, “I’m soft in my old age, I think I cry at what I’m supposed to cry at, I cry when I see hurt in people. I think it’s more of an awareness; the Bible talks about God being a god of love, and when you see he cares about a little lady in Nepal, it touches the little boy inside of me.” What do you think about the idea of religion being used by man as a tool to hold power over fellow man? “That was the very thing that got Jesus on the cross. It was the religious people that hated the fact he didn’t play by the rules. That he actually loved the people who, say, got caught up in adultery, or a woman that was a prostitute. Women who are prostitutes don’t end up worshipping a Jesus that condemns them; it’s the Jesus that actually loves them and accepts them.” Reflecting on where he comes from, where he has been and where he is going, Mr Hamon says: “Back in Cornwall it’s a surfing sort of place, which is why my son lives out here now. I’ve personally got a heart for surfing people; they are always chasing the next wave. I spend a lot of time in England talking with surfers and going to different countries. “I’ve got a heart for everybody really, but I like helping youngsters because, well, I’ve never grown up.”