The air brakes hissed on Jimmy Wheat's rig as the trucker parked at the Delaware Truck Plaza. This particular truck stop had a wild reputation, but tonight he was too tired to care. True to form, truckers partied hard at the plaza that night, hanging out of their cabs and whooping it up on the CB. Leaving his 40-pound Australian cattle dog, Mintuk, to guard the front cab, Jimmy crawled into the sleeper, missing his wife.

In the middle of the night, Mintuk's angry barks shattered his sleep. The dog clawed at the window as a woman stood outside, knocking. Immediately Jimmy understood who she was, but he couldn't believe his eyes. "Even with the 'Jesus is Precious to Me' license plate in my windshield and my four-legged co-driver sounding off, a bold hooker still banged on my door," recalls Jimmy. He shook the sleep off, prayed and drove away, looking for somewhere else to rest.

Jimmy knows the pressures of life on the road--he's been driving since he left the military in 1975. Prostitutes, loneliness, even little irritations like waiting three hours to use a truck-stop shower, all come with the job. In spite of everything, he loves what he does. And though he delivers furniture for Sunbelt Furniture Express, this neighborly 43-year old calls himself a trucker for Christ. "I am full-goose-bozo for God," he says with a laugh.

Jimmy became a Christian as a 6-year-old, but soon rebelled against authority. He remembers being handcuffed and hauled out of junior high school nearly every week for stealing cars or breaking into stores. As an adult, he continued running from God. Finally, while on the road in September 1992, Jimmy got reacquainted with his Savior.

He had just delivered a shipment in New Jersey and stopped in Pennsylvania around 2 a.m. to pick up his next load. Parked at the loading dock and exhausted from the 14-hour drive, Jimmy fell asleep in his sleeper. Awakened three times by a voice calling his name and finally by an unexplained light filling his cab, Jimmy says he received a call from God to serve Him as a full-time trucker, founding Truckers for Christ.

Jimmy tried telling God He had the wrong guy but finally understood God only wanted a willing vessel. "Jesus knew He had a garbage can He could use," he says quietly.

God wanted to use Jimmy as an ambassador to other truckers--a transient group of up to 3 million men and women criss-crossing America. At first, Jimmy wrestled with the misconception that Christianity wasn't macho. God brought him to the Cross. "Nothing about a man could be classified as a sissy when He gives His life for people who hate His guts," he says, his graying brown hair stuffed under a baseball cap. "You've got to be more of a man to stand up for Christ than to run from Him."

Not that anyone would dare call Jimmy a sissy. "I'm not some little puny guy. I weigh 270 pounds," he says with a Southern drawl, "so when I come bouncing out of the truck talking about Jesus, and I am just as ugly and grungy as they are, these guys look at me and say, 'Huh. Must be something to this Jesus stuff.'"

Most of the people Jimmy talks to hear him on the CB before seeing him. And though they may meet at a truck stop, he usually never sees them again. "Just before I came off the road and started running local, I had the opportunity to meet two fellas I had shared [Jesus] with over three years ago," Jimmy says, excited about this rare glimpse at results. "One said his life had been completely different since then."

But Jimmy doesn't do it to see results. He talks to other truckers because God asked him. And, according to Jimmy, effective evangelism requires listening. That was the key to a memorable CB conversation between Jimmy and a trucker using the "handle" (CB nickname) Dragonfly.

Ruffled by a recent truck accident, Dragonfly referred to the surviving driver as lucky. Always looking for a spiritual segue, Jimmy replied over the airwaves that it wasn't luck, but God's favor. "We got on to a discussion about God and Jesus and everything--the next thing you know we are talking really heavy," Jimmy recalls. He said God could help Dragonfly deal with the personal problems he'd mentioned earlier.

"I'm too bad," Dragonfly said. "He can't do anything for me."

"Oh yes He can," Jimmy answered. That summer night on the CB, Dragonfly prayed and surrendered His life to Christ's control.

Through evangelistic tracts written specifically for truckers, Jimmy also reaches people he'll never meet. Relating ideas familiar to their industry with spiritual concepts of salvation, these two-page pamphlets include a prayer for the reader to become a Christian.

Not everybody Jimmy talks to wants to meet Jesus. But that doesn't stop him. "God showed me that even if you don't see any change, you have to plant that seed like Johnny Appleseed," he says. "Get out there and plant, plant, plant."

Seeds planted in the asphalt of America's highways, it would seem, could never sprout. But by God's power, even a rose can bloom through concrete. Just ask Jimmy.

For more information about Truckers for Christ, call (704) 632-8842.