Sunday April 13, 2008

Answers to Your Questions

I am receiving more questions than usual, so will try to answer them in one entry.

1. I have Internet access through a Verizon Broadband card.  Minutes do not count from 7:00 p.m. through 7:00 a.m., so I do most of my posting then.  I check my email every two to three hours, during the day, trying not to use up all my other free minutes – since we will be on the road for three weeks.  I usually have access at truck stops, but not always while we are driving.  Saturday and Sunday minutes do not count.  It works like a cell phone.
2. You can find information about TFC at www.transportforchrist.org. 
3. TFC was founded in 1951 – in Canada.
4. Cerwin and I are just a small part of sixty-plus, paid staff. 
5. Staff members raise their support like other missionaries. 
6. There are even more volunteers – mostly chaplains who serve on the chapels.

7. TFC is served by a Board, President & CEO, Vice President, Director of Development, Director of Chaplains, two Directors for Chaplain Care, Director of Church and Community Relations, Director of Business & Finance, Overseas Director, Canadian Director, and an International office staff of eleven (if I counted correctly) .

8. Cerwin and I serve on the leadership team.  He is Director of Chapel Construction, and I am Director of Communications.
9. TFC in an interdenominational ministry of born-again Christians.
10. Yes, Cerwin was a truck driver.  He started out driving a dump truck for a stone quarry, then went to a big rig in 1966 when he began hauling propane for a local company.  He retired from that same location forty years later – at the end of 2006.
11. We became involved with TFC about 1970 – on a volunteer basis, then in 1990 Cerwin began serving as Northeast Region Director.  That office moved to our house, which is where I still work today.  In 2006 the ministry changed from regions to a leadership team.   
12. Cerwin continued driving and volunteered his time to TFC, until his retirement in 2006.  He is now on salary. 
13. I volunteered a day a week in the Northeast Region office from 1977 to 1987 when our children were in school (our youngest, usually went with me, until she was in school.)  During the summer, my sister and I exchanged babysitting one day a week.   In 1990  the Region office moved to our house (following the death of the former director).  By that time our three oldest were married.
14. We have five chapels in Canada and twenty-five in the United States.  There are several locations where ministry is conducted in the room of a truck stop.  There is also ministry in Africa and Australia that is associated with TFC, and we have three chapels in a country that we don’t make public on the Internet.  There is one promotional chapel (at the Marietta, PA, office) which is taken to truck shows, fairs, churches, schools, etc.
15. The chapels stay at truck stops – usually for many years.  A few chapels have been moved to a new location when management changed and they no longer wanted  a chapel, or when we no longer had staff to keep it open.
16. The one we are pulling right now is a replacement chapel for Chilliwack, where they have had a double-wide for many years.  Because the old one is deteriorating, and the staff in that area raised funds for this project, they are receiving a new one.
17. After arriving in Chilliwack – probably Monday afternoon – we will help set it up, stay for a banquet and chapel dedication next weekned, then bobtail to Wisconsin, where we will pick up a donated trailer and take it back to the shop in Pennsylvania, where Cerwin will convert it into a chapel for Racine, WI.
18. Concerning chapel services:  As a rule there are two worship services each Sunday – 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.  During the week, chapels are open according to available staff and volunteers.  Many are open every day, some only in the evening.  They are open for drivers who need one-on-one discipling.  Many chaplains conduct Bible studies in the evening.  They make the services known by the CB, truck stop public address system, and  walking the lot and inviting the drivers to come to the chapel.
19. On the personal level.  Yes, we enjoy sleeping in the cab – and sleep quite well.  There are double bunks.  We have a porta-potty.    Truck stops have showers.
20. Keep asking!  Remember, my job is communications.