Hollas Hoffman, 70, Finds New Calling Preaching To Transient Workers In The Oil Fields Of Texas

Maybe God knew the price of crude oil would fall so far so fast. Across Texas, drilling rigs would come down. The bust would leave behind disposal wells and empty hotels, ruined roads and men with no place to go.

God was the one, Hollas Hoffman says, who called him out of retirement at the height of the boom, not even two years ago, to take up a new ministry in the oil fields. God sent him to address early morning safety meetings, to hand out his phone number and most of all to lend an ear in times of grief, addiction and loneliness. God told him, hale at the age of 70, to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to the transient workers of the Eagle Ford Shale.

And God, as layoffs accelerate, has not given any clear order to stop.

“The telephone calls have increased,” Hoffman told the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1AX938y). “As they lose their jobs, we get calls. I get calls from people who just want to talk. You can tell they’re crying. I get calls from wives, I get calls from men. Marriage breakups are fairly common. We’ve had suicidal calls. We just try to respond to whatever they call about.”

From the border to this small town 75 miles east of San Antonio, across the Permian Basin and up through the Panhandle, fading rural churches once hoped to replenish their pews with the arrival of thousands of roughnecks, tool pushers and middle managers, especially those with families in tow. But while some counted an increase in tithing as members leased their land for petroleum extraction, most of the aged congregations gained little in the way of new membership.

“There’s kind of a cultural disconnect between the quote-unquote ‘oil trash’ and the community, the itinerant versus stationary groups,” said Andrew Fiser, an earnest young reverend dispatched to coordinate efforts across South Texas for the United Methodist Church. “We really struggled to find the faith communities and specifically lay people that were able to do that work.”

One day a couple of weeks ago, Hoffman returned to the home of the trucker who had broken his neck, John Salmon, known around the fleet yard as Stretch. He was still in a neck brace, but he was up walking around, shooing the chickens in his yard and the dogs in his living room.

After an exchange of pleasantries, Hoffman asked about surgery schedules. Salmon said little; his wife and his mother and the other women in the house did most of the talking. A date in the spring was mentioned, though all present agreed that his recovery was in the hands of God.

“We’re going to have a prayer with you, if that’s OK, and then we’re going to get down the road,” Hoffman said. The women bowed their heads. Salmon could not, but he closed his eyes. “Father,” Hoffman prayed, “thank you for your healing hand. We ask that you be with us as we go out and minister to others. We thank you for healing John. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

“Amen,” said everybody.

Then Hoffman got on down the road. Over chicken fried steaks in the dining room of the local auction barn, he chatted up the communal table and offered a prayer. Then he drove out through fields of pumpjacks and grazing cattle, down rutted dirt roads past empty well pad sites and rows of abandoned mobile home hookups. He kept his phone close, and when it rang he felt compelled to answer the call.

The Huffington Post