Listening and Cookies...   Beats the Soapbox

Some college students have families supporting them.

Others, like some of the students The Reverend Teddy Hardy serves, have families more likely to steal from them or find other ways to interfere with the learning process.  

Joan was one such student, enrolled at Houston Community College System's Central Collage (HCC Central) to try to better herself while dealing with a less-than-favorable home life.   Possibly lured to Teddy's "listening  post" table by the cookies and snacks  being offered, she sat down one day and told Teddy her story:

Joan lives in her own home with an adult son and a daughter with three children.  Disabled in a drive-by shooting, the daughter is dependent on her mom for financial support and help with the children.   She's demanding, rude and hard to live with.  Her son is a worse case.  He uses and sells drugs and blames his mother for all that is wrong in his life. Joan felt overwhelmed by the situation.

Teddy invited Joan to pray with her.  When Joan returned several days later, she told Teddy that she had given up on God before she stopped to talk.   Now she believed that with God's help she was ready to face her problems and take care of herself.

The student service known formally as The Listening Post is available at four Houston colleges.  Each listening post is part of the work of the United Campus Ministry Greater Houston, which is supported by three denominations:   The Presbyterian Church USA, the Christian Church (Disciples), and the United Church of Christ (UCC).  

UCC’s First Congregational Church has for years supported this ministry in various ways. 

Teddy works at two campuses:  professionally, part time, at HCC Central, where she trains volunteers to work with her at The Listening Post, and as a volunteer at Rice University, with another volunteer, husband Phil.  The Endowment Fund at First Congregational Church supports the work at Texas Southern University.  And each year the Women’s Fellowship at FCC provides lunch for some 150 students of all faiths at the University of Houston.

"Campus ministry," says Teddy, "lets us reach folks who may not otherwise have the chance for a relationship with God.   Most of the students who stop by our table are not church members, and some have been rejected by a church or its members.

"We're effective," she adds, "because we work through active listening.   A listening post does a lot more good than a soapbox."

With cookies, of course.

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