Park, then pray: Chaplains park at truck stops, lend an ear to drivers

Jul. 25—BEAVERDAM, Ohio — A chaplain is nothing if not a good listener.

And that's a good thing at the semi-trailer behind the Flying J Travel Center in northwest Ohio's Allen County, where a highway intersection and a couple of truck stops draw big rigs by the dozens.

Because drivers? They can get to talking.

"We meet a lot of drivers that are just — they've haven't been able to talk to anybody. They might talk nonstop for about eight hours," said Jim Spallinger, a volunteer chaplain with TFC Global, with a chuckle. "We just try to listen to them, and interject the Bible where we can."

Tim Stockman, a fellow chaplain in Beaverdam, agreed.

"It's probably 80 or 90 percent listening," he said.

But it's all good. That's in large part why the chaplains are there, a volunteer team of more than a dozen who split up daily 12-hour shifts in the two semi-trailers-turned-chapels behind Flying J and, just across Beaverdam's Main Street, the Pilot Travel Center.

There's a reason, Bill Woolum quipped, that "God gave us two ears and one mouth."

Beaverdam has long been a destination for drivers, at least for a quick break to stretch and refuel near the intersection of Interstate 75 and U.S. Route 30. The truck stops themselves fuel the economy of the small village, where the population hovers around 400.

So Beaverdam presents an effective ministry field for chaplains like Mr. Spallinger, Mr. Stockman, and Mr. Woolum, who after years of conversations with drivers are attuned to the sorts of challenges that the road presents. There are the long stretches of isolation, the tensions with the spouses and children they leave behind for weeks or sometimes months; they hear about struggles with addiction or pornography.

"We have found that drivers are significantly more prone to divorces, prone to mental health issues, prone to addictions, because of the isolation aspect of what they do," said Joanna Maart, vice president of ministry support for TFC Global.

Chaplains said there's no typical day inside the chapels in Beaverdam — or outside of them, where they'll often catch drivers as they walk between the parking lots and the travel centers. There are rebuffs, there are friendly exchanges, and there are drivers who take them up on their offers of a longer chat in the chapel, sometimes social, sometimes spiritual.

They try to man the chapels between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., but they know drivers often keep erratic schedules. And if there's an opportunity to share the good news, they'll stick around.

Mr. Spallinger recalled a recent conversation with a driver who was new to Christianity, and was eager to sit with him and comb through a paperback Bible, to learn more about his commitment.

"When we left, it was 20 till 2 in the morning," he said.

ON THE ROAD

TFC Global launched as Transport for Christ in Canada 1951, initially utilizing a roving chapel that reached drivers where they were stopped along the sides of the highways, according to a history provided on the ministry's website. By the 1980s, they were beginning to shift toward stationary chapels at truck stops, in the model they continue today.

Ms. Maart said there are currently 15 sites across the United States; TFC Canada is a sister organization that remains active above the border.

Beaverdam welcomed its first chapel at the Pilot Travel Center in 2008, and its second in 2014. (There was also a chapel in Stony Ridge, just outside Toledo, until 2019.) Chaplains based in Beaverdam say their across-the-street arrangement is unique under the ministry, and credit it with accommodating drivers who have a firm preference for one travel center or the other.

"They find their favorite, and that's where they go. So the drivers that love Pilot, they go to Pilot every single time. The drivers that like Flying J go to Flying J every single time," volunteer chaplain Rick Lamb said. "And we found that the drivers at Flying J, they had no idea there was a chapel just across the road."

TFC Global is one of several ministries to recognize the open road as a mission field, or at least recognize that its drivers are a demographic in need of spiritual support. Truckstop Ministries, based in Jackson, Ga., operates tractor-trailer chapels in Toledo and North Baltimore, two of their 70 sites in 29 states, according to president and chaplain David Owen.

Jerry Lusher is currently in the region as a national recruiter for Truckstop Ministries, a role that sees him travel the country with his wife, Jewel Lusher, to establish a network of partner churches and chaplains. They were singing and recruiting last week at a church in Milan, Ohio, they said in a phone call this week from Sandusky.

It's an important ministry, Mr. Lusher said, echoing a point he makes in his presentations.

"There are 8 million truck drivers on the highway every day," he said. "I drove for 18 years, so I know what it's like. A lot of these folks don't get home for sometimes two or three months. They don't have the ability to go to church, when you're 75 feet long, and you weigh 40 tons, you can't just go looking for a church. It's very impractical. And most of the time, we're not dressed for it.

"So what we do is we take church to them," he continued.

Truckstop Ministries' volunteer chaplains prioritize availability on Sundays, including an active ministry in North Baltimore, which Mr. Lusher said brings gospel singers out for the service almost every weekend. But they staff their chapels as their numbers allow throughout the rest of the week, too, Mr. Owen said.

"A lot of truck drivers, they're just looking for somebody to talk to, somebody to listen. They're in their trucks all the time, they very rarely have people to communicate with them, except for places where they're picking up and dropping off. And they just need someone to listen to them," he said, echoing his counterparts in Beaverdam. "That's a big part of being a chaplain, just being there for that driver and meeting their immediate needs."

ON THE LOT

Randy Lewis, of Kent, Ohio, likes to drop in at the chapels along his routes. He isn't out on weekends often these days, but back when he was, he said he'd sometimes be there on a Sunday. TFC Global, too, prioritizes Sundays, but the driver and the chaplains said what a Sunday service actually looks like can vary significantly based on who's around.

"When they have a service, it's four or five people, and usually the people who come have their own church tradition and maybe gifts they share," Mr. Lewis said. "Several times, there's been someone who's offered a song, just spontaneously, because it's on their heart."

A former pastor, and now a driver of more than 20 years, Mr. Lewis is a welcome conversation in the chapels, including in Beaverdam, where he stopped to chat on a recent weekday afternoon. But he's also not a typical one, based on his experience in ministry and at the chapels.

"Some drivers are involved in church, and that's the place to worship. But that's probably not the most typical person to come through here. People who come through ministries like this are typically hurting," he said. "And they're looking for somebody who cares."

Chaplains based in Beaverdam echoed his sentiments; they've seen and heard it all by now, and they aim to be a steady, supportive, and spiritual presence to the drivers who share their struggles and their stories. Ms. Maart sees the chapels, too, as sometimes even a secular respite for drivers, who might stop in to FaceTime their families in relative comfort, or simply take a break away from the drivers' lounges back in the travel plazas.

Mr. Lamb said they take their cues from the drivers themselves.

"What are they looking for, what do they need?" he offered as an example. "It's pretty easy to diagnose if they don't know Jesus yet, and that's one of our primary focuses, is to teach them about Jesus. Sometimes we're seed sowers, sometimes we're waterers, and sometimes we get to enter into the harvest field, too. That's the best."

The chaplains tend to remember these. In a line of work that by its nature brings relationships that are fleeting — just stopping to refuel, just passing through — it's a special moment when they see a driver commit themselves to Christianity.

Mr. Woolum remembers a driver's name in one such case; Mr. Lamb remembers another that happened on Easter.

Mr. Spallinger recalls an encounter amid a snowstorm.

"We knelt right here on our knees in front of these chairs, and he prayed to the Lord."

For more information on TFC Global in Beaverdam, call 419-296-0361; for more information on Truckstop Ministries, go to truckstopministries.org.