What Honeycutt and other callers are finding out is that the Prayerline ministry has recently been outsourced to a call center in New Delhi, India, in order to save money and upgrade their customer service. Fern Wimbley, a spokesperson for Prayerline, confirmed the move. “Certainly the switch to India will be more cost-effective, but frankly, we were looking for some new blood anyway. Our local pool of prayer volunteers had dwindled down to retired folks like Herb Schmidt, an ex-Wal-Mart greeter with prostate trouble. When we started missing calls because Herb was in the bathroom, we knew we needed to make a change.”

Wimbley blames the lack of local prayer volunteers on recent technological advancements in the church. “Let's face it, phone prayer is considered a dinosaur these days. It just doesn't have the glamour and panache of text-messaging prayer. I just wish the kids today would realize that all those confusing abbreviations are the tools of Satan.” Added Wimbley with a sigh, “I guess I'm just a traditionalist.”

When asked about possible problems in forwarding Christian prayer requests to a country that is over 80 percent Hindu, Wimbley seemed undaunted. “I admit that most of the counselors are cow-worshippers, but we feel confident that the prayer team in India has been extensively trained to follow computer screen instructions based on Matthew 6 to pinpoint the caller’s needs and provide them with the proper prayer support. All counselors are taught the latest Christian prayer terminology, like ‘Lord, we lift up so-and-so’ and ‘Amen.’ We believe the prayer experience of our callers will feel just like home.”

But are callers to the Prayerline liking the change? Overall, caller Honeycutt was very pleased with his recent experience. “Not only did Bob help me pray for a bigger house, but afterwards he asked if I was having any trouble with my computer. Hey, Herb never did that.”