He’s “J.L.” on his business card. His wife calls him “Mac.” Some friends call him “James,” although he often forgets to stand up when he’s introduced as James.
LOS ANGELES (BP) – He’s “J.L.” on his business card. His wife calls him “Mac.” Some friends call him “James,” although he often forgets to stand up when he’s introduced as James.
But he’s best known simply as “The Hitchhiker,” especially among Southern Baptists in California.
James L. McCollough’s motto is “Sharing the Gospel around the world, one highway at a time.”
A 59-year-old former Marine, McCollough has been hitchhiking all his life—not because he can’t drive or doesn’t own a car. He can and does.
Hitchhiking is his God-led ministry, his chosen method to share Christ literally on the highways and byways of life.
McCollough is a North American Mission Board (NAMB) Mission Service Corps missionary and works for the Los Angeles Southern Baptist Association.
His ministry is aptly named “BlackTop Ministries.” And from California to Mexico to Indiana to Florida, this man has pounded some serious blacktop.
“I go out about every day,” says The Hitchhiker, who on this day was in Nevada, dressed in his usual “USMC” reflective orange vest, “Jesus Saves” belt buckle, and red “I love Jesus” baseball cap. For added safety, he wears bright yellow reflective wristbands. His NAMB ID badge simply says “The Hitchhiker.”
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he hitches the 25 miles from La Puente to Downey to work at the association office. But on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he’s on the real “Gospel road” again—going wherever the Lord leads and kind drivers will take him. He sticks to the back roads, where hitching is not against the law.
And he prefers not to ride with Christians.
“I’ll only ride with existing Christians, people I’ve ridden with before, or know if it’s almost dark or raining,” he says, explaining that “they don’t need me. I want to ride with the lost. I can help them by sharing Christ.”
McCollough will tell you that hitchhiking is not as easy as in the ‘50s and ‘60s when drivers were more willing to pick up those thumbing for a ride.
“By law, truckers will no longer pick up hitchhikers. You can’t hitchhike on the freeways and interstates although you can on the ramps. By California law, you have to be three feet away from the roadway.”
In today’s world, hitchhikers probably are feared more than ever. Before he’s picked up, a driver will give McCollough a real once-over from a distance to make sure he’s not a threat.
But once McCollough is in the car’s passenger seat, the driver is a captive listener to the Gospel. They’ll also get a tract or a mini-Bible to keep—in Spanish if he’s thumbing in Mexico.
For those who accept Christ, he gives them an autographed Bible signed “from the HH.” McCollough also programs them into his cell phone and calls them back to check on their progress and see if they’re reading their Bible and going to church.”
Hitchhiking is hard work because sometimes McCollough must wait hours in the boiling California sun for a ride. He says this doesn’t discourage him, though.
“If I have to wait a long time between rides, I just look at it as a divine appointment. I view it as there’s someone out there special who God wants me to meet and talk to. I’ve already prayed and trusted someone to be there. And usually it turns out to be someone with a real need.”
He was recently picked up by a woman from Riverside who was fleeing from an abusive relationship with her husband. She had run away with nothing. She had little gas in her car. The Hitchhiker shared Christ with her, bought her a tank of gas at his own expense, and told her to look up Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church in Riverside and tell them The Hitchhiker had sent her.
When the Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting in Indianapolis, McCollough’s Baptist colleagues told him he could fly to Indy at the associational office’s expense.
“I told them to let someone else use the plane tickets, that I’d hitchhike.” So McCollough hitchhiked the 5,000-mile, round trip between La Puente and Indianapolis.
Born in Gastonia, North Carolina, McCollough overcame polio as a youngster during the polio “scare” of the 1950s. Although neither his truck-driving father nor mother attended church, his mother was a prayer warrior.
“I watched several friends pass away or become crippled by polio,” McCollough recalls. “But my mother said, ‘I’m not worried. I’ve already prayed about it. My God is not going to take you,’” his mom told young James.
As a teenager, he started hitchhiking to get to and from local Belmont (N.C.) High School. After high school, McCollough then hitchhiked from his home to Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, where he studied electrical engineering.
But at 19, he joined the Marines, serving in Japan. After his discharge, he decided to make California his home, earning a degree in electronics at Long Beach College. He also worked as manager of a Jack in the Box® restaurant. He still was not a Christian but that was about to change.
“I was hitchhiking to work one day on the 405 North in Long Beach and two guys picked me up and shared Christ with me,” he relives. “I was 30. They gave me a Bible and when I got to work, I dropped it in the trash.” His future wife, Martha, dug it out of the trash can and scolded him.
“A few years later, a hard-headed Marine who’d been running for over 30 years, accepted Christ—along with the daughter of the pastor of Central Baptist Church in Carson, California,” recalls McCollough. The pastor’s daughter was Martha. They’ve now been married 30 years, live in La Puente and have seven children, aged 21-27.
Whether it’s because he’s a bulky, ex-Marine or a child of God, McCollough says he has absolutely no fear when hitchhiking on the road. And in 40 years of thumbing, he’s never been victimized or had a bad experience.
“I just don’t worry about any danger,” he says. “I feel God appointed me to do this.” He says wife Martha doesn’t worry either. “She feels the Lord has laid it on her heart to be supportive, and she has been for 30 years.”
Today, when he’s not thumbing down a California highway, he pastors Hillside Southern Baptist Church in La Puente. He even hitchhikes to the churches that invite him to come and preach.
“It’s sort of joke,” McCollough says. “Most pastors tell other pastors that if ‘you invite James to preach, allow him some extra time to get there!’” Baptist preachers in California also know that if they see James hitchhiking, there’s no need to stop and try to pick him up. He won’t ride with them anyway. He’s looking for a lost sinner to ride with.