CASSANDRA NEHF
Staff Writer
While students are rushing from class to class or stopping in the Cafeteria for a bite to eat, Pepperdine staff members Associate Director of Creative Services Lyn Klodt and Account Resolution Couselor Vincenta Jacobs spend their Thursday lunch hour from 12-1 p.m. in the Bettingen Room in prayer. They are members of Moms in Touch International, an organization focused on bringing mothers together in prayer for their children.
Moms In Touch groups meet regularly, praying for children of every age group, including college-aged students.
Klodt is the leader of the Moms in Touch group on campus. She was involved with Moms In Touch while her son was in high school, and now that he has graduated from Conejo Valley High School in 2002, she has started a group here on campus for mothers of college-aged students, as well as mothers of those just out of college and starting careers.
“As your kids get older, you don’t have any control over them,” Klodt said. “This is one way you can influence them without lecturing, hug them without touching … just love them at a distance.”
Her son is living on his own and attending DeVry University. He is not a Christian, and so the ability praying for him is especially important, Klodt said.
Meetings are an hour-long structured prayer time, consisting of praise, silent confession, thanksgiving and specific child-focused prayer requests. Much of the prayer is focused on individual Bible verses.
“We lower our children, our concerns, our heart breaks right in front of Jesus,” Moms in Touch founder, Fern Nichols, wrote in her newsletter, Heart to Heart. She references a passage in Luke in which Jesus was in a crowded room and a paralyzed man was lowered through the roof to be healed.
The Moms In Touch group on campus prays for character issues, for maturity and growth, for opportunities, for wise decisions and the strength to resist temptations, for friendships and dating relationships, for their children’s professors and for parenting issues.
“These things may seem like little things,” Klodt said, “but as moms, we stress and that’s one great way (to alleviate stress) — to pray.”
The group has been meeting only since Jan. 4, but already, it is attracting the attention of other mothers on campus. Nancy Shatzer, Internship Coordinator in the Career Center joined recently, and as a mother of a two college students, she said prayer is a “powerful opportunity for us.”
Klodt said she looks forward to seeing more mothers attending on a regular basis, not just for prayer, but also to share stories of prayers answered.
When her son was looking for a second job to help support himself, Klodt prayed about it with Moms In Touch.
Another mother prayed for her daughter, who was treated unfairly at work. It was her first job, and she was nervous. Her mother prayed about it one week, and by the next week, she brought news that her daughter had confronted her boss and the issue had been resolved with no complications.
“It encourages us to see answered prayers,” Klodt said. “Just that consistency. I think God honors persistent prayers of a mom.”
She extends her welcome to teachers, grandmothers, mothers of adopted children and other women in the community willing to pray. But above growth, she said her main goal is to maintain the integrity and confidentiality, to maintain the feeling of comfort and trust for those involved.
The safety of Moms in Touch initially drew her in four years ago when she first joined. Now, she hopes it will draw others as well.
But for Klodt, it’s about the prayer above all: “If nobody showed up, I’d probably sit there and pray anyways.”
02-24-2005