Kingdom City, USA - The billboards out the window in this part of central Missouri advertise rock-bottom prices on adult videos and getaways to the Ozark Mountains. But at the truck stop just off Interstate 70, Chaplain Bob Holt is making another kind of promise to weary truckers: salvation.
For eight years, Holt has led daily services from a converted trailer parked in a truck stop — a place he sees as filled with temptation. And on Thursday, he and fellow missionaries at nearly 100 travel plaza chapels across the country will hold a morning fellowship meeting to celebrate their calling on the seventh annual National Day of Prayer for Truckers.
"The devil's trying to keep them from coming in here," said Holt, standing in his modest trailer.
"Every time the truckers stop, there's ladies that come around and pick on the door," the 74-year-old retired commercial driver said. "But if you just let them talk for a few minutes, you can figure out what their needs are. Then we're able to pray about those needs."
The romance of the road and chance to make an independent living have helped steer more than 2.5 million truckers into the business, but weeks away from home make for a solitary life aggravated by tight drop-off schedules.
"There isn't a product that you're wearing that hasn't been handled by a trucker," said Bob Hataway, a former truck driver who will lead Thursday's prayer at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky. "We wanted to put on a red letter event to focus on the needs of truckers. They need our prayers."
Christian truckers say chapels and organizations like Hataway's TransAlive USA, Inc., which helps drivers who have been hospitalized, are an oasis from a subculture of foul-mouthed radio chatter and truck stops sometimes rife with prostitution.
Hundreds of volunteers staff ministries at truck stop chapels from Fort Wayne, Ind., to Madera, Calif. Holt's mission at the Exit 148 stop in east-central Missouri is one of the country's most active, with services each night of the week and on Sunday mornings.
Each prayer meeting begins the same way. In the candy-red light of the lobby counter, he announces the Bible study three times over the PA. Then he restocks a rack of brochures geared toward truckers, including one proclaiming Jesus "would have driven an 18-wheeler."
The pamphlets came from Truckstop Ministries, Inc., a Jackson, Ga.-based non-denominational Christian nonprofit that celebrates its 25th anniversary this month. Since 1991, the group has opened 39 missions, and this year plans to triple its budget.
Holt's sessions start each night at 7 p.m. inside the single-wide trailer, decorated with an airbrushed passage that reads "Jesus said: Come to me all you truckers who are weary and heavy loaded and I will give you rest."
On a recent evening, just one trucker showed up for services: Ed Boelter, of Jud, N.D., who was on his way north hauling a load of industrial fans.
Nathan Howard, another volunteer chaplain, broke the ice by talking about his time in the military and all the marijuana he saw growing in Colombia.
Soon, Boelter opened up, talking about his spiritual needs and how he felt after weeks on the highway.
"Lonely. Like the world's a bunch of garbage," he said, looking up. "I just want peace of mind. Quiet. Everybody working together like a baseball team. Isn't that how it's supposed to be on the road?"