Dear Friends:
I had not intended to report on our ministry in the truck stops this past Christmas Day again this month until I received the following letter. It blessed me so much I just had to share it with you. So, here is the letter from Carolyn Schwab, a 2010 Christmas Day volunteer: “For the past few years my dear friend, Pauline, and I have made it part of our Christmas tradition to bake cookies for Steering Wheel Ministries’ Christmas Day cookie give-away. We have been blessed abundantly each year in doing this. We’ve had many, many dozens of cookies to donate to Steering Wheel Ministries while at the same time making enough over to gift our friends and also have plenty for our own families. However, before this Christmas, I had not had the privilege of participating in giving out the cookies at one of our local truck stops. What a blessing it was to be at Love’s truck stop on I-5 at 8 a.m. Christmas Day passing out cookies. I never really thought about the types or number of men and women who drive our national highways daily as the behind-the-scenes part of our transportation and delivery system whereby the goods we all purchase and use on a daily basis reach their final destinations in our local areas. There are even husband/wife teams. I was amazed at the number of men and women who drive hundreds of miles each day, park their ‘big-rigs’ on the site of a truck stop for the night, then get up early the next morning to shower, eat and do it all over again. They do this day in and day out to get the goods to us that we use daily.

“We must have passed out 100 boxes of cookies and literature about Jesus and His great saving grace that morning between 8 and 10 a.m. There were drivers of all nationalities coming and going, many of them with turbans in place of hats. One Hispanic family came back to our table 3 times looking at the material Merwin had supplied. The first time it was mother and daughter to get cookies. They came back again to make a donation and look over the material and the third time they returned they had dad with them. The wife looked longingly at the Spanish language Bible on the table as dad made another donation. They said they were on the way to spend Christmas in Seattle with their son. I had noticed the wife gazing at the Spanish Bible, I asked her what her native language was and she replied ‘Spanish.’ ‘Here,’ I said, ‘You take this one then.’ I was so thankful that Merwin had the Spanish version available because even if someone may be fluent in speaking a language not native to them, it’s not quite so easy reading in that same language.

“As the morning wore on we continued passing out cookies and sometimes the recipients would say ‘Here,’ giving us back the literature about Jesus, ‘You keep this because I’ll just throw it away,’ but they always accepted the cookies with joy and anticipation in their eyes. The rejection of the literature also said something good about America’s long-haul drivers though; that they wanted to be up front and honest, and didn’t want our literature just thrown away. Plus, I knew that just by taking the cookies, a seed was being sown that might take fruit at the next truck stop where they might stop and ‘accidentally’ find themselves at a gospel jamboree or some other trucker’s outreach.

“Many of the drivers were rushed and in a hurry to get back out on the road but their faces always lit up when they accepted our box of cookies. I had been glancing over one of the sets of material Merwin had available that the back of the brochure. When a turbaned driver stopped to accept our cookies and stood for several minutes chatting, he was quite sociable and seemed reluctant to go out to his truck and continue on his way. His gaze wandered over the entire table but always came back to the ‘hieroglyphics’ literature. I asked ‘What is your country of origin, sir?’ ‘India,’ he replied. ‘Here, then’ I answered, ‘You take this one,’ as I handed him the packet of hieroglyphics literature. He began looking at the front of the clear plastic envelope intently, unzipped the top zipper of it and started pulling it out of the envelop to read it as he immediately thanked us, tucked his cookies under his arm and headed out the door to his truck. It was almost as if he was specifically waiting for exactly that, and the cookies were really only a secondary blessing.

“What a blessed beginning to my Christmas it was that morning! The sun was out, it was very cold but crystal clear and seeing the many, many bright faces as the drivers accepted our cookies and our ‘Merry Christmas!’ on Christmas morning set the tone for a day of abundant thanksgiving to our blessed Lord and Savior. I was sorry to leave that morning when 10 o’clock came around but I had to get on to my kids and grandkids. The grand finale to that wonderful 2 hours was when Kaye and Andy showed up and I got to give Kaye a big hug and shake hands with Andy. Andy immediately grabbed an armful of cookie boxes and with a bright, happy face took the volunteer who had been helping me out to the lot where many trucks were still parked to see if any drivers might be up and ready for the gift of a dozen homemade cookies. This experience will be a cherished memory for years to come and I only hope circumstances will allow me to participate again next Christmas.”

Carolyn mentioned some drivers giving the literature back. Well, they only thought they gave it all back, there was still the paper inside the package that told them the cookies are homemade by people from area churches who love them. It also told them who Steering Wheel Ministries is. The “hieroglyphics” she mentioned is Punjabi, one of the languages from India. The truckers in this part of the United States who are from India speak and read Punjabi and most are of the Sikh religion. The Punjabi Gospel packet contains the Gospel of John and other Gospel tracts. As you know, there are a lot of false teachers around just like Jesus said there will be at the end before He comes back—I addressed one of those false teachers in a recent email newsletter. As I said there, we here at Steering Wheel Ministries promise to keep teaching the true and contextual Word of God no matter what the cost, even if the cost is prison or death—which, as we see in the news is close to happening.

God worked it so the weather and our welder’s schedule came together so our propane tank is now installed and so is the rack for our steps, (both can be seen in this picture). Now our steps can be safely stored while we travel from truck stop to truck stop. He also got the rack built for our generator so we are all set for traveling. I am trusting the Lord that by the time you get this letter we will have received the funds so that the 50 gallon propane tank will be full of propane so we have heat, because we cannot take the chapel out if we do not have heat. We do not have enough power to run electric area heaters.

God is keeping His promise to keep the expenses paid on the Mobile Chapel as we need them. He is doing that by using you to send in the funds. I know I have said this before, but God has never written a check Himself, He only uses people to write the checks, or go online to give to the ministry He tells them to give to.

In behalf of the truck drivers Jesus Christ is reaching through Steering Wheel Ministries, thank you for giving to the Lord so this 18-wheel Mobile Chapel can stay out there on the road doing what God put it there to do.

In Christ's service,
Merwin Johnson-Rhoades
Chaplain/President