Pray at the Pump founder says God listened to its pleas for cheaper gas
Published 11:03 pm Wednesday, August 13, 2008
WASHINGTON — Forget Congress. Forget President Bush. About four months ago, frustrated by the apparently immutable laws of supply and demand, Rocky Twyman turned to a higher authority in his quest for cheaper gasoline.
The recent dip in prices, he says, is proof of divine intervention.
“Prayer is the answer to every problem in life,” said Twyman, founder of the Pray at the Pump Movement, whose followers huddle around gas pumps and ask the Almighty to lower gasoline prices. “If the whole country keeps on praying, we can bring down prices even more, to even less than $2.”
On Wednesday, at a Shell station in Washington’s Petworth neighborhood, Twyman and eight others linked hands and sang, changing the words of the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to “We’ll have lower gas prices.” They prayed for prices to come down — and for comedian Jay Leno, who joked about them in a monologue last month.
According to AAA, which tracks such matters, the average nationwide price for a gallon of gas Wednesday was $3.78 — down from $4.10 a month ago, but still 25 cents higher than on April 23.
The group’s efforts began that day just a few blocks away, at the soup kitchen of First Seventh-day Adventist Church. When the soup kitchen’s volunteers, many of them seniors, began talking about cutting back their time because they couldn’t afford to drive, Twyman said, “God just impressed me to take them over to the pump, and the rest is history.”
Since then Twyman, 59, has crisscrossed the country, praying at pumps from Baltimore to San Francisco and several points in between.
On Wednesday, as Twyman’s group sang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” Edwin Jones, 50, held $9 in cash — a five-dollar bill, three ones, three quarters, two dimes and a nickel — to pay for his gasoline. He said he works about 50 hours a week as a tutor and aquarium maintenance man, driving up to 95 miles a day, six days a week, and spends about $20 on gas per day.
“I like their idea,” Jones said. “Congress, as usual, is divided. Lord, what else can we do?”
In these times, Twyman said, faith can’t be put in politicians: “It’s better to trust in God than to trust in princes.”
