Pregnancy and Adoption Resources

I saw an article online the other day that caught my eye.  It stated something about the state that just topped the charts for the highest teen birth rates.  Wondering if it was Mississippi, I clicked to view the full article and saw that it was indeed Mississippi.  We took the place of Texas and New Mexico to top the charts.  Our rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006.   Across the board in America, about 435,000 of 4.3 million births in 2006 were to girls between 15 and 19 years of age.  In Mississippi, there were about 68 births to girls 15 to 19 for every 1,000 births (Clarion-Ledger).

What can we be doing differently to change these stats?  According to the Clarion article, several factors can contribute to the high rates…culture, poverty, and racial demographics bieng some of them.  The stats can seem a bit overwhelming and make you want to throw in the towel before you ever join the game.  And without hope, it would only make sense to do that and to give up.  But…when there’s hope, throwing in the towel is not even an option.  And there IS hope.

Sometimes all our strength and energy might seem like raindrops in an ocean, but we can’t turn our backs and look the other way.  Pretending this isn’t happening won’t make it not happen.  The fact is…it IS happening.  More and more teens are becoming mothers.  We care about these girls.  We care about the children they’re bearing.  We care what happens to them both.

So…by the grace of God and through the patient endurance He alone can give…we are trying to help those that come to us for help, one girl at a time.  Maybe our efforts won’t make a huge dent in the stats or have a huge effect on society as a whole.  But it may have a huge effect in the lives of those we help.  And that makes all the raindrops worth the effort.

Grace and peace,

Renae