WhiteLine
Newsletter Page 3
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(800) USA-HURT |
TransAlive USA |
Internet Edition 2008.01 |
LifeLine - Companies Helping Drivers and Their Families
Kay Atkins, TEXAN
Correspondent
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At a Wyoming truck stop 1,600 miles from his family or any support system, Louisiana truck driver Charles Worcester had to be rushed to a local hospital, and within hours underwent surgery for colon cancer, beginning a three-month, long-distance ordeal for Worcester and his wife, Charlene. When Worcester nearly died because of complications, he was relocated to Salt Lake City. This lengthy crisis could have been very lonely for Worcester, and very worrisome for Charlene. But Christians in Wyoming and Utah were called to aid the Worcesters with practical physical and spiritual support, thanks to the networking of Bob Hataways TransAlive ministry. |
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Hataway is a chaplain for the North American Mission Board for the Southern Baptist Convention, and a member of First Baptist Church in Fort Worth with a lifelong passion for the trucking industry. Since he started TransAlive in 1984, he has been the hub for ministry to about 200 distressed truckers per year. His call to this ministry began one day in 1975 when he stopped at the scene of a traffic accident on Interstate 35 in Hillsboro. He went to the hospital to check on the Indianapolis truck driver injured in |
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that
accident. Hataway and his wife, Carol,
ministered to the driver and his wife for more than eight weeks,
helping them cope with the trauma and manage the life change they would
undergo because of the accident. Hataway began to be burdened by the plight of truckers, who, by the nature of their work, are isolated from their support system. Who comes to their aid if they become seriously ill or injured while in transit? Who cares for a family in the tragic event of the driver’s death while away from home? “I was moved by what had been done for that [Indianapolis] truck driver,” Hataway said. He involved people with ministering to that man. “I began to visualize the needs of drivers like him who needed help across the country. I was not some super hero for that driver, but I knew that people have an innate desire to help their fellow man. In many cases the only reason people do not help is that they are not aware of the problem in the first place. Setting up a plan to notify the right people became my goal in the industry.” Through the partnerships he has made with many major trucking companies, Bob is one of the first individuals notified when a trucker has passed away, or experiences serious illness or injury while on a run. Services provided to drivers and their families through TransAlive are free to the drivers. Hataway said, “We need only to hear that a driver and/or family members are in distress anywhere in the continental United States and we move quickly to remove the uncertainty and replace it with warm, caring friends willing to assist whatever the task.” The 43,000 Southern Baptist Churches nationwide are his first resource to find the “warm, caring friends” to whom Hataway refers. Using the SBC Church Search on www.SBC.net, Hataway immediately seeks out a Southern Baptist minister to be Gods representative” to that trucker or his family. But his ministry isn’t merely networking with churches to meet truckers needs in their communities. In addition to writing articles on trucking safety for various websites, the Hataways often hit the roads themselves. Driving TransAlive’s AmCoach, a bus equipped with a special adjustable bed, couches, bathroom facilities and a kitchenette, they drive across the states to carry recovering truck drivers back to their homes. “The AmCoach provides an alternative to air charter for drivers who cannot travel in a sitting up position. Neither commercial flights nor standard buses will allow the driver to lay down in all cases during transit,” Hataway said. Charles Worcester was one of about 20 drivers each year that Hataway transports because the costs of chartering special transportation were unaffordable. The Hataways drove from Texas through a snow storm in Utah to carry Charles back home to Louisiana in the AmCoach. Charlene Worcester recounted: “Charles had not been with the company long enough to be covered by insurance and the VA hospital did not have a resource for transporting him home. The ride home could not have been more comfortable for Charles. I cannot say too much about the AmCoach or the Hataways in what they did in helping us get home. They were truly a Godsend for us.” The time the Hataways spend with the drivers on the AmCoach gives them an opportunity to meet needs and share Christ. Hataway said, “On the coach itself, several have come to Christ,” Hataway said. “We have shared with many on the coach who have said that it was the first time they’ve seen Christianity with a new understanding – they become less critical. We share Christ with a cup of cold water in their time of thirst.” Hataway explained the dilemma of the group of truckers to whom he most often ministers: the owner/operators. He said, “They own their own truck and lease to a company for the purposes of moving their freight. That affects the driver benefits. For example, right now we are dealing with a case of an owner/operator driver who passed away in Seattle, Washington, and the company that contracted him won’t do anything to transport the body back to his home. “There are insurances available to owner/operators that are a supplement, like workers comp for employees, but it doesn’t cover everything as it should. And many cannot afford adequate coverage -- they live paycheck to paycheck.’” J.B. Hunt Trucking Company has called on Bob since 1987 and is one of several trucking companies supporting TransAlive financially. One of the largest companies in the industry, Hunt employs about 16,000 drivers, many of whom are owner/operators. Mark Whitehead, Hunt’s vice president of claims and litigation management, said that after making certain a sick or injured driver receives proper medical attention, the next call they make is to Hataway. To his knowledge, TransAlive is a one-of-a-kind ministry. Whitehead explained, “What we use Bob for more than anything else is to notify families of catastrophic injuries or occasionally the death of a family member. He has a network of pastoral people that can be called on who will make the notification to the family and wait with them until they have the support they need in the initial crisis. We feel its better for Bob to do the contact rather than a police officer who will go and then leave.” Doug Riggs, pastor of Woodland Heights Baptist Church in Bedford, TX was God’s representative on whom Hataway called earlier this year to give a death notice to a family in his community. While on the road in the Northeastern states, the driver had died in his truck of natural causes. Riggs said, “I went to their home and shared with them the tragic news of what had happened. I reached their pastor and I stayed until their pastor came. They were very gracious, kind, and appreciative. It was news they didn’t want to hear, but it was handled through Bob in a way we would want it to be handled.” Despite the great number of SBC churches across the country, Hataway has become increasingly concerned with the lack of availability of ministers to handle off-hours emergencies. He said, “I am finding that more and more churches nationwide are beginning to use the answering recorders. While I understand the need for answering machines, we are not using the technology effectively after hours.” Often he has found that the recordings provide Sunday service schedules, but many do not provide an emergency contact number. Hataway encourages churches to consider providing the emergency contact information at the beginning of a recording so that callers in need do not have to listen through information they don’t need prior to getting the information they do need, and need quickly. For church staffs that rotate the minister on-call duties, Hataway recommends that an emergency cell phone number be included on answering machine recordings, church websites, and the SBC Church Search site. The cell phone could then be passed along to each on-call minister the week of his duty. To illustrate his challenge, Hataway humorously recounted, “Once I was attempting to reach a local pastor in Oklahoma, and had little luck in the morning hours prior to lunch. I decided that beauty salons know everything going on in town so I got a number and called one.” The salon operator said, “Oh, yes, she knew the pastor I needed and she also knew where he was 'right now.’ She gave me the name and number of a local coffee shop in town and told me that he drinks coffee there every morning at this time.” “I called, he was there, and he made the notification.” John Sharp pastors North Point Community Church in a growing area northeast of Columbia, S.C. Around midnight one night in August, he was awakened by a phone call from Hataway telling him that a driver from Columbia had been killed in an accident in Kentucky and asking if he would minister to a family in crisis that night. Sharp said, “My first thought was, ‘is this real, or could this be a dangerous prank or scam’? After confirming its validity, my thought shifted to, ‘can’t you find someone else?’ I just couldn’t seem to hang up the phone or give a good enough reason not to accept the opportunity. God wanted me to answer the phone that night and play a small part in ministering to a family in need. Sharp called the sheriffs department and requested a deputy escort to the door, and they arrived about 1:30 am to deliver the message. He recounted, “A teenage son answered the door and the officer asked him to get his mother, who finally stumbled to the door looking dazed and confused by the late night visit.” “After introducing myself, I shared what happened that night. She was obviously in shock and would need time to process. I offered to stay with them, but she had family that she could call to come over.” When we felt they would be OK, we left. Sharp followed up the next day to check on them and pray with them. He also connected them with a chaplain to truckers in Columbia who offered them additional encouragement and support. Since they live within two miles of his church, and are not regular churchgoers, Sharp has maintained contact and hopes for the day they might visit North Point. Hataway said that John Sharp is one of many pastors who have expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be used by God to minister to a family in crisis. He said, “Every time I call them they respond and 90 percent of the time they call me back and thank me for involving them.” Hataway does not often hear what happens after the pastor has contacted the family, but knows of one instance in Chicago where the church sent in an evangelistic team resulting in two salvation decisions. “We initiate a connection from the driver to the church, and then the church can visit, get to know them, lead them to the Lord, and follow up in baptism,” Hataway said. John
Sharp remarked: “I love the way Bob is connecting local pastors with
families in need, for a possible long-term ministry opportunity. When would a
family be more receptive to ministry than in a time of crisis? It was very
humbling to be a part of.” |
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