HELPING THE COMMUNITY WHERE IT HURTS
By VIRGINIA BIGGINS Daily Press
NEWPORT NEWS — The church wanted to help the community where it hurt so the church formed Contact Peninsula, says the Rev. Walter Kennedy, who helped First Presbyterian Church in downtown Newport News develop the 24-hour, telephone-run crisis hot line 25 years ago.
''It has been a most rewarding ministry for all involved,'' he says.
''It has lost none of its vigor. There are new volunteers coming in all the time. The telephone ministry was started by one church but now is supported by dozens of churches of all denominations.''
Kennedy himself manned the hot line nights for 20 years until illness caused him to stop for a while.
''Oh, I hope to return to the telephone ministry most any day,'' he says.
Kennedy is retired from the First Presbyterian and now serves as interim pastor for the First Presbyterian Church in Portsmouth. He also teaches four courses for St. Leo College at Langley Air Force Base.
Contact Peninsula started out as a hot-line ministry aimed at the downtown section of Newport News but is now meant for the entire Peninsula.
''There is no moralizing, no scolding, and no dismay is expressed. The telephone conversation is absolutely confidential between the caller and the listener,'' says Kennedy.
Kennedy recalls a few years ago receiving a hot line call from a captain of a barge in the Norfolk harbor who had marital problems and was contemplating suicide.
Kennedy says he spent three hours talking to the man who, he says, gave up thoughts of killing himself.
''We had another caller with suicide on his mind. His drunkenness had caused him to lose his family, his job and his desire to live. One of the hot-line volunteers, who wrestled with the man all night long, learned that he had gotten the phone number from one of the billboards advertising the hot-line service,'' says Kennedy.
''He gave up the thought of suicide and even attended church.