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Salute to a Trucker Chaplain
By John W. Kennedy | June 19, 2008
The New York Times on Wednesday published a complimentary article on Assemblies of God trucker chaplain Shannon Rust. Through the ministry Headlight in Trucking, Shannon and his father, Sam, have been ministering to lonely truckers along the Pennsylvania turnpike for decades. Sam, at 74, is still at it. On Wednesday, he told me on the phone, “Just staying faithful to the call is the main thing.” The article I wrote for TPE in November 2006 about the amazing father-son team is reprinted below:
Father-son chaplains minister to dispirited truckers
By John W. Kennedy
Sam Rust grabs the microphone on his citizens band radio in the cab of his 18-wheeler as he approaches TA Truck Stop in Breezewood, Pa. After identifying himself as a chaplain, Sam commends drivers for the hard work they do and then prays a blessing for the hurting and depressed. He paraphrases Matthew 11:28: “Come, unto me all you drivers who are pulling hard and overloaded, and I’ll shift your load onto Me.”
“Thank you man,” a trucker replies on the CB channel.
“Amen,” responds another.
“Bless you,” says a third driver.
As he draws closer to the truck stop, Sam asks God to open up a parking space near the main doors of the plaza containing a variety of restaurants and other facilities. Visibility is important for Sam’s mission. As he maneuvers around dozens of tractor-trailers in the congested parking lot, Sam eyes the prize: a vacant spot closest to the stairs of the truck stop doors. He skillfully pulls into the tight space. Truckers will have to walk past his rig to get into the two-story complex.
Although he has ministered across the continental United States, on most Sundays and Wednesdays Sam Rust can be found at TA Truck Stop near the intersection of interstates 76 and 70 in south-central Pennsylvania.
His Headlight in Trucking ministry clearly has an evangelistic mission. As the chaplain with distinguished-looking silver hair opens the side trailer doors, one panel reveals the Lord’s Prayer, the other the Ten Commandments. The back door quotes Psalm 119:105.
Anymore, though, Sam spends a great deal of time trying to hold marriages together. Many financially strapped truckers get into the industry with unrealistic expectations of what they can earn, at least initially. When money shortfalls persist, depression may result. A nationwide shortage means the 1.8 million existing heavy-duty drivers frequently are on the road for days, or weeks, at a time. While loneliness is a major struggle, truckers also face temptations such as indulging in pornography or drinking alcohol to excess.
Although Sam usually is accompanied by Norma, his supportive wife of 51 years, trucker chaplaincy can be lonely and discouraging. Sometimes Sam waits for hours and no one climbs aboard his trailer, which is a ready-made chapel. Sam keeps at it, even though he underwent triple heart bypass surgery a year ago.
“I’ve wanted to give up many times, but the Lord reminds me it’s not my ministry,” says Sam, 72. “Enough good things happen to make me keep coming back.”
As Sam opens up the trailer doors, Ed Small, a long-haul driver for Wal-Mart starts a conversation.
“Too many of us drivers are out here seven days a week,” says Small, of Dwight, Kan. “We don’t have a chance to get home for church, so having a chaplain on the road gives us a chance to fellowship with others who know the Lord. We have problems just like people back home.”
In a few minutes, Sam is ready to start a Sunday morning church service in the trailer, outfitted with padded pews, a podium and communion cups.
Two married couples come aboard. Sam, acclimated to the trucking culture with blue jeans, a denim shirt and black boots, spends several minutes getting to know his congregation of the day. He commends the husband-wife teams for hitting the road together, saying that will help them stay together.
Richard and Joy Hunt of Elizabeth, N.J., bring a Bible with them. Initially a bit miffed that his wife needed a restroom break, Richard is now grateful.
“It was meant for me to pull off the interstate,” Richard tells Sam. “I have to confess I haven’t been to church in quite a while.”
The other couple, Curtis and Bonnie Jones of Dallas, are in their early 20s and take turns driving across the country.
The couples watch a safety training video that re-enacts the true account of a 64-year-old trucker who, after being on the road for 950 miles, fell asleep. His rig struck a school bus and killed a 6-year-old girl.
The safety film makes an impact on Richard, who has been driving since 1979. He’s been thinking about packing it in, or at least going on hiatus. His wife accompanies him, but doesn’t drive.
Sam goes on to relate a gripping story of a truck wreck that he came upon in which a driver named Bill crashed on a foggy mountain. Tears well up in his eyes as he recalls how God miraculously enabled Bill to escape certain death.
“I could sit here all day long hearing you talk,” Curtis says after the informal service. “I like it that you’re not afraid to get emotional.”
Afterward, the couples stay to chat with the chaplain, who knows the dangers semi drivers face firsthand. During the late 1950s and 1960s, he drove a moving van, a logging truck and a tanker carrying acids. He knows what it is to contend with blinding snow and icy pavement on mountain roads.
Sam had been pastoring a thriving church in Silver Spring, Md., when he sensed the Lord calling him to minister to truck drivers in 1974. Initially, Assemblies of God officials told him they had no place for such a ministry. Undeterred, Sam went out and raised his own financial support. The AG granted him appointment as its first trucker chaplain.
Compared to when he started as a chaplain, Sam today sees more drivers taking risks on the road. Highways in the scenic mountains of the Keystone State are dotted with signs reading “Beware of Aggressive Drivers” and “Don’t Tailgate.” The CB airwaves are raunchier. And greater numbers of women are hauling, some more hardened to the gospel than their male counterparts.
In such an environment, it’s important to have a good-natured, tenderhearted and soft-spoken chaplain such as Sam Rust around.
For the past 15 years, Sam’s son Shannon also has been a part of the Headlight in Trucking ministry, making the duo the only father-son trucker chaplain team in the AG. Although they rarely work together, they usually are in the same vicinity.
This Sunday morning, Shannon is just on the other side of the highway in the basement of the Petro Truck Stop.
Shannon, 37, fell in love with the chaplain ministry as he saw his dad reach seemingly unreachable truckers time after time.
“If just one soul is saved from hell, it’s worth it,” says Shannon, a burly man with a broad smile and gregarious laugh. Shannon announces over the plaza’s intercom that a service will start in 10 minutes.
Petro allows Shannon to hold meetings in its TV room, which is next to a tattoo parlor and across the hall from video poker machines.
At the scheduled time, no drivers have arrived, but Shannon’s wife, Becky, who has brought a portable sound system and accompanying instrumental tracks, begins to belt out Southern gospel songs.
“God will send people who are supposed to be here,” Shannon says.
Soon, a driver from Michigan stops by and compliments Becky. The trucker inquires and learns that Shannon and Becky’s son Matthias, who is sitting in the front row, is a third grader.
“Pay attention to what the teacher tells you,” the driver advises the boy. “If I had it to do all over again I’d pay better attention; I wouldn’t have to be doing this.”
The trucker asks Shannon to pray for a safe trip that he is about to make to Washington, D.C.
As the service winds to a close, a cynical, argumentative driver enters the room. “How come the Lord forgets some people?” he asks Shannon. “Is He choosy or somethin’?”
The low-key Shannon calmly explains how the Lord has helped him throughout his life. The agitated driver agrees to take a copy of God’s Word for Today. As the Rusts pack up for the day, they see the driver seated on a bench near the video machines, reading the Bible devotional.
Although Sam has an ever-shifting congregation, many truckers fondly remember him. After lunch at his home of 32 years south of Bedford, Sam receives a phone call from Jim, a trucker he met a quarter century ago. Back then, a distraught Jim met with Sam in West Virginia and pleaded with the chaplain to pray for his daughter who had run away from home two days earlier. A few days later, while at a truck stop in Mississippi, Jim found his daughter.
Jim hadn’t been in touch with Sam for years, but today he phones for another need: he has lung cancer. Jim, saying he still has the Bible Sam gave to him 25 years ago, asks the chaplain to pray for him.
Although most people his age no longer are involved in the trucking industry, Sam knows he is needed. There are few chaplains dealing with the myriad troubles facing truckers such as depression, loneliness and marital strife. “When a driver takes the time to go aboard a truck stop chapel, he is ready for an answer to prayer,” Sam says.
Topics: chaplaincy |
June 20th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
This story hit me right where I (used to) live! I drove OTR for many years…God Bless those brothers for ministering to some of the hardest working,most taken for granted and abused people in the world! And God Bless the American Trucker!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
To: John W. Kennedy
Thank you for “Salute To A Trucker Chaplain”.
John, your story introduced me to Sam & Norma, Shannon, Becky & Matthias, or, as I like to think of them, “The Rust Family For Jesus”.
I have talked with them on the phone. I have shared my life’s work for the Lord with them.
I have shared CD my God called, God sent CD recordings with them.I have prayed with/for them.
In 1974, at age 40, God called me to become one of his family members. I accepted JESUS as my Lord and Savior, Master & Friend, Teacher, Counselor and Helper. For 34 years God has kept me busy,working for him. Part of that work is an outreach,recorings on CDs, (songs that God shares with/thru me) and sharing KJV New Testamants with/thru truck stop ministries, large & small, coast to coast.
John, thanks again for introducing me to yet another family of trucks top chaplains, i.e.,
Sam & Norma, Shannon, Becky & Matthias, the
Rusk Family.
Wendell Austin,
care-taker & messenger
Gospel Music Ministry, BMI
348 RT 2
Winn, Maine 04495
(207) 736-2225
gosmuswa@midmaine.com
July 30th, 2008 at 9:20 am
What an encouraging article. All Chaplains in the trucking ministry can relate to Sam’s work. Drivers are wonderful people who need Christ, encouragement, guidance and discipleship. God will use those who are available.
Chaplain Kevin Kurtz
Petro Carnesville, Ga.
Exit 160 I-85
kevkur@gmail.com
August 8th, 2008 at 9:39 am
What a great, uplifting, inspirational article.
I myself was an OTR trucker and became a Christian at a truck stop ministry in Knoxville TN (Petro)in 2000.
This part, “When a driver takes the time to go aboard a truck stop chapel, he is ready for an answer to prayer,” is sooooo very true.
I was desparately looking for something in my life, depressed, lonely, etc. and WOW!! What a blessing i recieved!
Chaplains, NEVER think it is all in vain. We are out there and we do need you!
God has put in my own heart a calling to be involved in a T/S ministry. He wont let it lay and while Im personally not sure how to go about it exactly…Im sure Ill find out somehow!
God’s Blessing’s
Randy Smuts
Geneva, IN.