John Beale, Post-Gazette Rev. Bruce Maxwell, left, congratulates trucker Mike Gibson of Breezewood on quitting smoking. Click photo for larger image.

BREEZEWOOD -- Even here, in this oasis of neon signs and regular unleaded, the road can feel like the loneliest place on earth.

More than 6 million souls pass through Breezewood each year on their way to Somewhere Else. Most have never been here before, and most will never come back. To them, the place is a credit card swipe and a leg stretch, not a destination. A quarter-mile of motels, truck stops and all-night waffle houses stuck in the middle of farm country, it is neither here nor there.

At night, rows of 80,000-pound tractor-trailers idle in parking lots, huffing diesel fumes into the fog, their running lights like carnivals. Travelers fill the vinyl booths of diners, cradling cups of coffee and calculating mileage, their thoughts already focused on what lies ahead.

But Breezewood is not just a place travelers pass through. It is also a place where people break down, and get stuck, both automotively and spiritually, says the Rev. Bruce Maxwell, chaplain of the Breezewood Trucker/Traveler Ministry.

The ministry has seen them all: the fugitive from the law in search of spiritual counsel, hoping to finally stop running; the chronically homeless man who willingly spends his life in a constant state of motion; the lonely trucker, just wanting someone with whom to talk after days spent staring through a windshield.

There are the kooks and the prophets, the lot lizards and the runaways. There was the pregnant teenager living on dwindling rations of lunch meat, and the illegal Mexican laborers left stranded alongside a totaled van, their driver long gone.

Hospitality is a business here, and Breezewood's reason for being. For Mr Maxwell, however, it is a calling -- an opportunity to offer food, shelter and spiritual assistance to the travelers who find themselves stranded at this Bedford County crossroads.

The ecumenical ministry operates out of the Gateway TA and the All-American Petro travel plazas on either side of Route 30. It began in the late 1980s, organized and sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, which noticed the growing need for pastoral care among the millions who pass through Breezewood.

Mr. Maxwell keeps a CB radio in his office to keep in touch with the truckers. He distributes care packages assembled by volunteers from local churches and gives people rides to hospitals and shelters as far away as Cumberland and Hagerstown, Md. With support from businesses, the ministry arranges meals, emergency lodging, gas money and phone use for down-on-their-luck travelers.

"Many of these folks I would call 'people of the highway,'" said Mr. Maxwell, an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church, who has served as chaplain since 1992. "People who have left home, people who are between homes, people for whom home is wherever they lay their head at night."

Occasionally, Mr. Maxwell gets a call from state police, or from the local hospital. Other times, travelers stumble into the truck drivers' Quiet Lounge, located upstairs in the Gateway truck stop, slide two chairs together, and get a little rest, amid the free Bibles and lending library of Christian-themed cassette tapes.

To the 200 or so permanent residents of the town of Breezewood, these people are the "strangers in our midst," said Mr. Maxwell. Some locals even steer clear of the truck stops, wary of the rough, transient characters they attract.

Breezewood itself doesn't have much: two banks, a school, a post office, a fire company. The business strip is what defines it; the only employment center for miles, people drive in from as far away as Altoona for work.

At times, there has been a disconnect between residents and the travelling masses they see every day. That is another central purpose of the Breezewood Trucker/Traveler Ministry, Mr. Maxwell said -- "to help connect the local community with the world of the traveler."

And that world can be a lonely one, said Ralph Patten, a 57-year old truck driver from Richmond, Va. You've got two choices, he said: Get out on the road and make a good living or drive a lower-paying local route and be home with your family every night. Mr. Patten has logged more than 1.5 million miles over the past 25 years.

"Yeah, it's difficult," said Mr. Patten, who was on his way to Philadelphia on a recent Wednesday night when he stopped at the Gateway TA travel plaza to eat something and give his aching back a rest.

"I missed my daughter growing up. Now she's in college. I didn't plan on that happening, but the bills got out of hand, and that's just the way it went."

Mr. Patten seldom encounters any other truckers in the Quiet Lounge, where he picks up a few cassettes -- food for thought out on the road.

"I'm not like your typical truck driver," said Mr. Patten. "I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't pick up girls. I don't have a CB radio -- I don't want to listen to that garbage. I miss my family. I just try to think about positive things, God and stuff. God wants us to travel the straight and narrow."

Thousands of truck drivers pass through Breezewood, and for many it approximates a home away from home. The coffee shop becomes their kitchen, the TV lounge their living room.

The presence of the ministry does not completely sanitize the environment, however. Drivers can attend Sunday morning services inside the All-American Petro's TV lounge, and at night catch a showing of the movie "Sin City." Mr. Maxwell's old basement office is now a tattoo parlor.

On a bench outside the Quiet Lounge, Charles Buchanan sat smoking a cigarette after a long day's drive.

A lot of truck drivers have a need for Christian fellowship, said Mr. Buchanan, 59, who works for a poultry company and has been driving for 40 years. But religion isn't something you can force on somebody, he said.

"They've got to have reached the end of the road," said Mr. Buchanan, of Hawkinsville, Ga. "They've got to be searching."

When unable to get back home on a Sunday, he has often stopped in for church services at the mobile sanctuaries that can be found at other truck stops around the country. The Christian message helps him stay focused out on the road, when the loneliness gets to be too much. He pointed out the double doors.

"You've got drivers out there in that parking lot just praying to God to watch over their families," said Mr. Buchanan. "And you've got drivers waiting for the girls who go from truck to truck. It's an interesting world."

Because the Trucker/Traveler Ministry also serves employees, Mr. Maxwell spends part of his day offering spiritual counsel and emotional assistance to the waitresses, mechanics, janitors and other workers who make Breezewood run.

Making his "pastoral rounds," he weaves his way through the back parking lots, the garage bays and the fuel line, the coffee shops and convenience store aisles, stopping to talk with everyone. As chaplain, he is one of the few shared entities between the two intensely competitive truck stops, and has virtually total access to the grounds.

The night before, a woman named Patty, a longtime employee of the Perkins Restaurant, passed away after a short battle with cancer. The travel plaza staff was feeling emotionally fragile, and Mr. Maxwell spoke with many of them about the loss.

That morning at 7 a.m., he held a weekly Bible study session in a corner both of the Perkins Restaurant, open to all. He was joined by Randie Kensinger, a former Marine and tractor-trailer mechanic who had just ended his night shift.

Mr. Kensinger has been involved in the ministry since the beginning; two of his three children were baptized by the previous chaplain.

The men thumbed through their Bibles, the pages stuffed with Post-it Notes, while piped-in music played quietly in the background, including, appropriately enough, Joan Osborne's hit "(What if God Was) One of Us."

There are many Bible verses that pertain to travelling, such as the story of the Good Samaritan. But with Epiphany approaching, Mr. Maxwell told the story of the three wise men, who ascertained the stars over Bethlehem, and of Mary and Joseph's flight into Egypt.

"Back in Jesus' time, people were always moving, moving, moving," said Mr. Kensinger. "Just like it is with Breezewood."