The Little Truck That Preaches

Michael Daniels uses his vintage 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck, complete with TWR360 logo, as he makes his rounds to let churches in his part of Tennessee know about the ministry of TWR. [ Photo courtesy of Michael Daniels ]

Some people wear their passion on their sleeves. Michael Daniels wears his on his pickup truck.

Make no mistake. The 61-year-old Tennessee man is passionate about Jesus, first and foremost. But within that is a passion for the work of TWR that shows up in the TWR360 logo he had placed on the door of his restored, cyan-colored 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck. He drives it as he visits churches in the area where he lives, outside of Clarksville and about 50 miles up the road from Nashville.

“That little truck preaches a sermon everywhere I go,” Daniels said.

Everywhere he goes, he talks about TWR, and especially our Radios for Africa campaign. He’s a fervent, self-directed, unpaid ambassador. “Not paid, don’t wanna be paid,” he said. “It’s just between me and the Lord, you know?”

Bob Hall, TWR’s director of Donor Services, has seen that clearly in his interactions with Daniels.

“He’s not in it for fame,” Hall said of Daniels. “He doesn’t want an ‘attaboy’ or anything like that. He just genuinely loves the Lord and loves the lost.”

Those twin loves pour out from Daniels almost from the first moment of a conversation. It’s clear from everything he says that he experiences the abundant life Jesus talked about in John 10:10, though it’s far from a life of wealth and ease. He lives in a fifth-wheel trailer on property he owns in Cunningham, Tennessee, although he hopes to build himself a cottage this year.

Season of Loss

The pickup truck came out of a time of loss and illness in Daniels’ life.

It was September 2021 when Daniels, his twin brother and his sister all came down with serious cases of COVID. Daniels, who had lived in New Mexico for 20 years, had moved back to Tennessee to care for his brother, who was in poor health.

Daniels was in the 10th day of hospitalization when he was told his brother had died. His sister died in October.

When Daniels was released from the hospital, he was still on oxygen and so weak that he was in a wheelchair. His daughter, who had come from New Mexico to care for him, objected when he said he’d go to church. He went, although he was so weak he was trembling, he said. But the Holy Spirit told him to lift his hands in praise.

“And I picked up my hands and I began to praise the Lord,” he related. “And I had an oxygen meter on my finger, and once I began to praise the Lord that oxygen meter went up from the low 80s to the high 90s, and it stayed there for the whole service.”

A normal oxygen reading is 95%, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Daniels had quit his job to care for his brother. His income came from buying junk cars, fixing them up and selling them. But it took several months for him to regain his strength from COVID. In the interview, he never said he’d been in a hard place financially. But he talked about that truck.

It had been owned by a friend of his, a former Green Beret who had become paralyzed in an accident while training men in Africa. Daniels had made offers for the truck, he said, to no avail.

But during Daniels’ recovery from COVID, the man approached him.

“He said, ‘How have you been making it?’” Daniels related. “I said, ‘Well, my daughter set me up a Go Fund Me,’ and I said, ‘I sold some stuff I had, and I’m faring OK.’

“And he said, ‘Well, the Lord told me to give you this.’ And he handed me the keys to that little truck.”

Isaiah 45:22

Daniels went to work on the truck, which had been restored in 1999. He put in a two-barrel carburetor and electronic ignition. He added radial tires and replaced the seat covers.

One thing he didn’t have to do was paint it. It came in brilliant, all-over cyan, which happens to be the color used in the rings on the TWR logo. He added the TWR360 logo in black, and later he added a verse, Isaiah 45:22: “Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.”

Daniels was inspired to choose that verse after seeing it referred to in a TWR Magazine column by Lauren Libby, TWR’s president.

Daniels first became familiar with TWR while he was living in New Mexico. After he returned to Tennessee in 2013, he learned more through his regional Christian radio station, Missionary Radio WNKJ in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Eventually, he obtained contact information for TWR through the radio station. Daniels doesn’t remember exactly when that was, but he knows it was before the war in Ukraine began.

“He just called up one day, I think to make a donation,” Bob Hall recalled. “And he had mentioned that he had been a WNKJ listener, and he was really impressed with TWR’s ministry from what he heard, and he wanted to tell everybody about it.”

‘What can I do?’

Among the materials Hall sent Daniels was a TWR Magazine with an article about Radios for Africa, a campaign to provide hand-cranked radios for those who might not have electricity.

“When I opened that, the Holy Spirit got a-hold of my heart and I weeped,” Daniels said. “And I just begged God, ‘What can I do to help? What can I do?’ I said, ‘There ain’t much of me left, but what can I do?’”

He could visit churches and tell them about the work of TWR, Daniels decided. Hall sent him 50 “Radios for the World” catalogs and other materials. Daniels burned through those, so Hall sent 200 more.

Everywhere he goes, the little truck gets attention, Daniels said. The TWR360 logo prompts questions that he’s well-prepared to answer.

“I say, ‘Let me tell you about it,’” Daniels said. “And then I get to share with them. I said, ‘If you’ve got kids, it’s for your kids, it’s for your wife, it’s for you, it’s for your congregation. It’s for whoever needs to hear about Jesus.’”

Not every church agrees to let him speak, Daniels said, but he just keeps asking. He spoke to one Sunday school class, and 10 people decided to buy radios for Africa. Along the way, he makes friends.

“I buried my dad, my mom, my brother, my sister, my son,” Daniels said. “I’ve got a daughter in New Mexico and three grandkids, but they’re out there living their own life. I don’t have family any more. They’re all gone. So I just make family out of people.”

The Vision

When Daniels was 19, he nearly died from an illness, he said. When he was under anesthesia for a life-or-death operation, he had a vision. He was walking up a hill and hearing music that he has never been able to describe. He felt pressure on his stomach and realized that people were pulling on him. He looked back and people were behind him as far as he could see.

“And I asked this man: ‘Who are all these people, and why are they pulling on me?’” Daniels related. “He said, ‘Michael, Michael. Those are the people you’ve led to Christ.’”

Daniels was leading people to Christ before he even left the hospital. But he only fully understood the vision recently.

“Now, TWR makes me understand that vision,” he said.

Through Daniels’ efforts, seeds are being sown in Africa, among people he will never meet this side of heaven. Perhaps an entire village will come to faith in Christ from listening to gospel preaching on a hand-cranked radio purchased by the donation of someone in a Sunday school class that Daniels spoke to in a rural Tennessee church.

In God’s mathematics, the smallest can produce the biggest results, Daniels said.

“When you go into a church, if there's 20 people or 500 people, that don’t mean nothing with God,” he said. “Because he can take one person in that 20 and he’ll do more than them 500 people will do.”

Daniels’ passion is a blessing to TWR, Hall said.

“It’s really heartwarming, because you know we all work here and we live and breathe it every day, and we know why we’re here,” he said. “But to hear a donor be … as passionate and maybe even more than we are at times is really an inspiration. And you think, wow, this makes my job even more worthwhile.”

Images: Michael Daniels uses his vintage 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck, complete with TWR360 logo, as he makes his rounds to let churches in his part of Tennessee know about the ministry of TWR. [ Photos courtesy of Michael Daniels ]