Chaplain and Vietnam Vet bring Christ to truck stop

Finding Jesus at a Georgia truck stop
Story Highlights
Pastor's personal need inspires him to create ministry for truckers

Chaplain hears stories of loneliness and desperation

Truck stop owner: Truckers are "the last American cowboys"

Chaplain's downward was spiral halted by a late-night sermon



By John Blake
CNN


JACKSON, Georgia (CNN) -- "I gave up smoking, women and drinkin' last night," the singer shouts, "and it was the worst 15 minutes of mah life!"


The music blaring from the radio tonight is country. The dessert special is peach cobbler. And the customers are wide-bodied truck drivers, lumbering into a Georgia truck stop at suppertime.

But another group of truckers nearby is singing a new song. They amble into a truck stop trailer adorned with pictures of Jesus and sing the hymn "O Happy Day" in wobbly bass voices.

"I've been back and forth between God and Satan over the years," trucker Harold "Jumper" McBride says as he stands to share his story. "It was a rough life, but I finally found that saving grace to make life a whole lot better."

It's the Wednesday night service at "Chaplain Joe's" truck stop chapel service. The chaplain himself, a lanky, bearded man with tan cowboy boots, sits in the back of his narrow chapel, saying the loudest amens.

For 28 years, the Rev. Joe Hunter has been a chaplain to the truckers. Though most ministers preach to people in the pews, he takes God to people on the go. He reaches out to truckers at fuel stops, in parking lots, on the CB and through a radio show called "Heaven's Road."

He hears all sorts of stories: tales of loneliness, thoughts of suicide, struggles with guilt. A Vietnam veteran, he's even lived a little of what he's heard.
read more here
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/09/23/truck.chaplain/index.html