I am on a teen speaking group called C.A.T.S., which stands for Concerned About Teen Sexuality.  The group is a branch of Akron Pregnancy Services, which serves as our home base.  The C.A.T.S. team travels around to local area high schools and churches, and we have been spread­ing out as far as Cleveland and New Philadelphia.  The main message of C.A.T.S. is that the safest form of sex is abstinence; that is, that sex should be saved until marriage.

I had become interested in joining C.A.T.S. when they had a recruiting assembly at my school.  I thought that I could use my writing abilities for a good cause and write skits and speeches for team members.  Merely writing the material seemed just fine for me, but I thought that there was no way that I myself could get up in front of hundreds of teens to discuss sex.  Well, I was some­how coaxed into presenting a C.A.T.S. talk and my speaking career took flight.  I am now in my second year of being on the team and have spoken to thousands of teens about the importance of sexuality and virginity.

I believe that the media and peer pressure is causing the teen-agers of America to sell them­selves out and have sex before marriage.  By having pre-marital sex, they trade in their vir­ginity for a chance to get a Sexually Transmitted Disease (including A.I.D.S.), an unwanted preg­nancy, and/or the emotional heartache that goes along with it.  I believe that our sexuality is a precious God-given gift that is meant to be shared with only one person: our future husband or wife.

Time after time I have seen the responses of teens, thanking us for taking such a strong stand.  We are changing lives by offering people an alternative to the lifestyle taught in today’s world.  We are the light in the darkness.  We bring Truth into their lives.

I have seen my thoughts, feelings and writing ability transformed into something that touches people’s lives.  If there is even one person in the entire crowd that listens and responds to what I have to say, then I have done my job.  I have experienced plenty of pain in my life and knowing that I’m helping another person avoid it is a great achievement to me.  It is an ex­perience that no school can teach, something money cannot buy.