NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Out of a job, "Snooky" from Maryland turns to a 1-800 number.
It's not an employment service, though. It's a 24-hour prayer line.
The call reaches the home of an 89-year-old woman — one of a legion of volunteers — who writes down the woman's prayer request and asks God to help.
"Be with her right now, Lord, and help her shut her eyes and see you," the volunteer prays. "Let her open her ears and hear what you have to say just to her."
The Nashville-based Upper Room Living Prayer Center, an ecumenical ministry funded by United Methodist Men, receives more than 25,000 telephone prayer requests each month and an additional 5,000 by e-mail, fax and regular mail.
It is one of many telephone lines and Web sites across the nation trying to connect people with God.
From the Assemblies of God's "1-800-4-PRAYER" line in Springfield, Mo., to the Peale Center for Christian Living prayer center in Pawling, N.Y., volunteers take prayer requests around the clock.
Mary O. Benedict, manager of the Upper Room prayer line, said callers like the anonymity the ministry offers. Volunteers ask only for first names and home state or country, but providing even that information is optional.
The telephone requests are forwarded around the world to 350 prayer groups who recite the prayer for 30 days.
"People sometimes are afraid to have other people know they have a problem," Benedict said. But with the Upper Room prayer line, "they can call and know they're safe and share that concern and have someone pray for them."
Sometimes callers can get help even if a volunteer isn't immediately available. "At the tone, leave your message and rest assured that your request will be prayed for," said a recording on the Peale prayer line recently. A voice on the Silent Unity Prayer Ministry in Kansas City, Mo., comforts callers on hold with the recording, "While you wait, be assured that God's love is with you."
Yet callers should still be careful not to be too trusting, watchdog groups like the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation warn. They advise against giving an address or credit card number to people working for prayer lines.
"I've always said, 'If you call a prayer line and they want anything more than your first name, hang up on them because God knows your last name,' "said Ole Anthony, Trinity president.
While Upper Room is a ministry of the 8.3-million member United Methodist Church, volunteers are from several Christian denominations. About 120 people in Nashville routinely answer calls on weekdays.
Some work from the Upper Room office, but most have calls forwarded to their homes. Nationally, 6,000 people working two-hour shifts keep the line staffed at night and on weekends — 365 days a year.
"There's so many people that don't have a place to turn," said Clayton Easter, a prayer line volunteer in Columbia, S.C.
The prayer line started in 1977 as a vision of Maxie Dunnam, who was then an editor of Upper Room devotional magazine. The publication still advertises the toll free number — 1-800-251-2468 — but some find the line through chance. A Texas waitress told North Carolina volunteer Jim Davenport she saw the line on a dollar bill she received as a tip.
Margie Smith, 71, answers calls for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday — whether she's in Nashville or at her family's retirement home in Florida. On a recent morning, her phone rang 28 times.
"The Lord has blessed me in many, many ways. If I can impart some of the Lord's blessings on the people that call, that is all I can hope for," said Smith, a Presbyterian who credits prayer with helping her husband of 47 years survive lung cancer.
Some callers want God to cure their cancer. Others need help fixing broken relationships. A few hope to win the lottery. Jim Roy, who retired as the center's manager on Sept. 30, said the volunteers don't try to convince callers to pray for something else but instead hope God can move the person in the right direction.
"We can't be in the judgment business," Roy said. "We can't be into counseling or giving advice or proselytizing or telling our problems. We simply pray for them."
In one case, that meant honoring the prayer request of a woman who called every day for two months asking God for a red Jeep Cherokee. A few years later, she called back.
"She said, 'I didn't get the new red Jeep Cherokee,' " Roy said. "But she said, 'The evangelist who led me to Christ drove up in a brand new red Jeep Cherokee.' "
"That was a good lesson for all of us."