Date When?
I have a question for all of you. Why do you date? Whether you are 13, 16, 18, or 21; I feel that you should have a good reason to want to date. And do you know what it is? You should be looking to get married. I can only imagine the looks on your faces, and the extreme laughter that sentence may have just caused. But really, on a serious note. I have have some good reasons.
If you decide to date and you don’t have that goal of marriage in the end, then you are going to feel as if the only way to get closer to the person you are with is through physical intimacy. You will get to a point where you feel like you want to be as close to that person as possible, and the only thing that you will find to give you that satisfaction may be physical. This is a very, very, very big problem. With physical intimacy comes a lot of confusion, and the possibility of STD’s and unwanted pregnancy.
I have a couple recommendations…
- Don’t date if you don’t plan on getting married.
- Don’t date if you are not in a position where you can get married.
Some of you are probably once again laughing, but just consider this. If you choose to avoid dating until you know you are ready for marriage, then you are going to avoid a lot of heartbreak and confusion. If you date and you are not ready for marriage it is like catching a fish and not wanting to eat it.
I hope that you take this and listen to it. If you are serious about having healthy relationships then you should really consider this advice. Good luck!
What Do You Eat?
Tell me what you eat, and I can tell you who you are,
Tell who are your friends and I can tell you who you are,
Tell me what you read and I can tell you who you are,
First, I must clarify that I am not an oracle or some kind of witch doctor. I am just an ordinary guy. The guy from next door, with an exotic accent.
What we eat largely determines how we look like. Who we hang out with or the kind of friends we make will large reflect our views and perspectives in life. Last but not least, what we read is to a large extent what we associate with.
When I say what you eat determines who you I mean that your type of food will give me an idea whether you are a carnivore, an omnivore or a herbivore. Of course you know carnivores are flesh eaters, omnivores eat both flesh and vegetables while herbivores eat only vegetables. Does that ring a bell?
What we eat is a choice. Just like eating is choice, our sexual inclination is a choice. If you choose to hang out with vultures, the chances are that you may easily behave like a vulture. If you choose to hang out with doves, you may easily behave like them.
In other words if you chose to be singer, dancer or drummer all those too are choices. Some young people choose to wait untill they are married before having sex. Others do not. Some parents choose to advice their kids about sexual relationships while others do not.
All I hope to share here with you is that whatever choice you make, know that it has some consequences and it is worthwhile thinking over your choices. Look before you leap. I do not cherish you leaping before you look as I did when I was younger. He who eats flesh will become a carnivore while he who eats vegetables will more often be a herbivore.
What ever you do, stay healthy.
Sincerely yours,
Gideon
Prodigal Poet
Join Our Group on Facebook
Hey! Just to let you know. We have a group on facebook. On this group there is an area for various discussions, and you can show your support for abstinence by joining! Right now we have about 180 peopl as a part of this group, but we hope to see it grow into the thousands! We want to let the world know that there are people who believe in abstinence, so let’s show everyone that it is something worth standing for!
Do you have a Mentor?
In world full of distractions and distortions
In a world full of disasters and destruction
Everyone needs a mentor who is a true disciple
A mentor whose words can be torch to your feet
I don’t know about you you but I believe having a mentor is extremely important in the context of today. A mentor is someone who can listen, advise and provide some insights regarding your choices. He or she does not need to carry a big whip. But he/sh needs to have some big ideas, or what I call “helicopter view” of life. In other words, he or she can give you a bigger picture of life, thus enabling you to see beyond your immediate location or circumstances.
I have several mentors who guide me. They give me perspectives and ideas that strengthen me. Two of them are based in Singapore. Because I trust their judgment, I don’t mind to pick up the phone and call half way round the world. More often I email to them.
You can do the same. Identify people whom you admire… go them and introduce your self and your desire to have their support as you grow in your career. Take them out for coffee once in a while. Build a relationship and show them your desire to grow. Once they find you trustworthy, once they find that you are a genuine person with a genuine need to grow, they will reach out to you.
Give this idea a try and let me know how it unfolds for you.
Sincerely yours,
Gideon
One Parent Can Make Big Difference
I was born and raised in Africa. In Cameroon where I grew up, almost all homes had two parents. Unfortunately for me, I did not have both. I was told my father had passed away before I was born. I have never known what it means to be in a home with dad, except when I visited my friends or cousins. The uncomfortable part was that I did not meet any grand mother, grand father or grand uncle or aunt. The only parent I had was my Mom. She was alpha and omega.
Looking back, I can never say that I regret for one single moment that I did not have my father or grand parents alive. I did not get to feel their absence because did all she could within her means to give me and my siblings her best. She was an exceptional parent. Even though she barely had about a $2 per month, she never looked for any excuse not to support us.
I recall being a very difficult kid. That made her life worse. Not withstanding that, she tried her best as an uneducated widow to encourage and sometimes push me me to study to get to read and write, a gift that she did not have.
If you are a parent, I want to encourage you not to give up hope of helping your child to be better. Do not leave anything to chance. Your hardwork and dedication will pay off. For me, it took a long time to realize the importance of the words and wisdom from my mother. As I grew older, I sympathized with her struggle and the wiser I became, the harder I worked to embrace the lessons she had taught me.
Am sure if a poor and uneducated parent could make a difference in my life growing up in an impoverished village in Africa, am sure you can a lot better for your child. Wherever, I have gone, I have seldom seen any conditions as bad as my Mom ’s life was. A parent without doubt can be a positive influence in a child ’s life.
Be a parent who can make a difference today!
PRIME Program- Make a Difference in The Lives of Young People
Do you want to make a difference in the lives of young people?
Just imagine how many people have helped you in life. I mean those who have made you a better person. I am certain that besides being a positive influence in the lives of your kids, you also need to reach out to other young people to help them succeed in life.
Our parent program dubbed PRIME (Parents Resolved to Inspire, Mentor and Educate) need you. We need God-fearing men who can help to shape the lives of young people in Reno and Northern Nevada. If you have a burning desire to help young people to become better and you want to serve a Parent Program Advisor, please give us a call at 775 826 8886. Ask to speak with the Parent Program Coordinator.
As a Parent Program Advisor, you thoughts, advice and suggestions will be taken into account in shaping the way the parent program moves forward. Once in a while, we may seek your views on certain plans and programs.
A Parent Program Advisior is volunteer with a heart for the community and young people in particular. It is not a paid position, but it is very fulfilling to help give back to the community.
I count on your help. Please step forward if this is something that you think you can do.
PRIME Program Coordinator
Worth the Wait
775 826 8886
New Teen JAM Video
Last year Worth the Wait presented Teen JAM to Reno, Nv. Here is a video of it! I hope you enjoy!
Abstinence Education: Just Stating the Facts
Hey everybody! I hope you are doing well… Today I was, as usual, browsing through the internet reading what the world is saying about abstinence education. Just in case you didn’t know this but there are a lot of people who do not think that it is effective, in fact a lot of them say that it is making the current situations of teenage pregnancy and STD’s even worse.
Worth the Wait is located in Reno, NV. So I decided to dig into the internet and find some statistics to see how negatively abstinence ed is really effecting our state. In the past year we have spoken to over 13 thousand students in the northern Nevada area. So obviously we haven’t gotten the opportunity to speak with every student, but we have talked to a lot of them. So I looked up the differences in the results of the Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2005 and 2007. I think the results show that Abstinence education is not harming the current situations, and it actually may be helping, although that is contrary to what the media is telling us.
So here is the statistics which I found regarding teens and their sexual choices…
- The amounts of teen who have had sexual intercourse has decreased from 44.1% in 2005 to 42.8% in 2007. A 1.3% decrease.
- The amount of young people having sexual intercourse before the age of 13 decreased from 7.7% in 2005 to 5.6% in 2007. A 2.1% decrease.
- The amount of teenagers who have had sexual intercourse with 4 or more partners in their lifetime has decreased from 15.2% in 2005 to 13.1% in 2007. A 2.1% decrease.
- The amount of teenagers who had sexual intercourse within 3 months of taking the survey decreased from 30.8% in 2005 to 30.5% in 2007. Only a slight decrease of 0.2% but still a decrease, and definitely not an increase.
Then there was this set of data. I want to include this because I constantly am reading about how abstinence only ed is making teens more ignorant in there choices of protection if they do choose to have sexual intercourse. But just take a look at this data.
- The amounts of teens who used a condom the last time they had sexual intercourse increased from 62.4% in 2005 to 69.1% in 2007. A 6.7% increase.
- The amount of teens who used the withdrawl method as a form of contraception the last time they had sexual intercourse decreased from 21.6% in 2005 to 19.3% in 2007. A 2.3% decrease.
I hope that you found this to be encouraging. Abstinence education works. And it will continue to work if we are allowed to speak it and teach it to the teens of our area.
A Second Chance
Today we got an interesting message left on our voice mail, it went something like this… “If I have already lost my virginity is it possible for me to get it back?…” Although, I think this person left the message as a joke, it was a good question.
Our culture today takes two different sides to this issue. Some people will say that it isn’t possible and once you’ve done it there is no reason or benefit to stopping. The other side, which is the stance we take, says that it is totally possible and there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to.
Here at Worth the Wait we call this “Starting Over.” Starting over means that you stop having sexual relations and you begin to abstain from sexual relations. The other side of our culture will tell us that this is impossible, and it is completely worthless.
That is a lie though. It isn’t worthless. You can Start Over and stop taking unnecessary risks. Begin to really avoid STD’s and STI’s. Avoid pre-marital pregnancies, and avoid unneeded heart break. It is possible, just do it, and you will see that the benefits can last a lifetime!
Sexual Freedom?
Today I was thinking… Which is something I do quite a bit, and as I was thinking about this article I was reading concerning abstinence in Uganda, I realized something. In countries like Uganda and other places where they are stricken with the AID’s pandemic, abstinence isn’t viewed as a form of control like it is here in the United States. It is in fact looked at as a freedom. When you choose to be abstinent in a country like this you are guaranteed a far better chance of living a long and healthy life. So why do we tend to reject this as a culture?
Just something to think about…
