May's Focus: Angela Shelton Foundation

You know how some people are so totally passionate about a particular cause that you can't help but take notice? My friend Tracie is one of those people; she is passionate about raising awareness about sexual abuse, educating communities and individuals about this issue, and providing healing to the victims of abuse. Tracie is herself a survivor of sexual abuse, and on Saturday, May 15th she will be hosting a blog-a-thon to raise money for the Angela Shelton Foundation.

In order to truly understand how the Angela Shelton Foundation has changed Tracie's life, you'll want to follow her blog-a-thon since she will be writing her story as part of the event. But for simplicity's sake, it all started with the documentary Searching for Angela Shelton.

A few years ago, filmmaker Angela Shelton decided to travel across the country to produce a documentary. The purpose behind the film was to contact every woman named Angela Shelton in the US and try to interview as many of them as possible in order to get a cross-section image of what the lives of women in the United States look like today. During the process, she found that of the 40 women who shared her name, 24 of them had been beaten, raped, or molested. Twenty-four out of forty.

The project quickly took on a different perspective as Angela, who had also been molested as a child, realized just what an epidemic this actually is today. Some stats for you to consider: one in four girls and one in six boys will be molested before the age of 18.  Every two minutes, someone somewhere in America is sexually assaulted.  One sex offender molests an average of 117 children, most of whom never report the crime. If those numbers don't speak volumes, I'm not sure what will.

Be sure to check out the Angela Shelton Foundation and how you could get involved; it is amazing to see the network of abuse survivors banding together to fight this evil in our world. You can support Tracie and her blog-a-thon by giving here. But first, you might want to start by watching the movie, Searching for Angela Shelton. It's available in its entirety on Hulu; I wouldn't let young children watch the movie, as it discusses some material which is not suitable for them.  Also please be advised there is some crude language in the film.  However, the film does a wonderful job at taking an honest look at this issue, especially as you see Angela Shelton, filmmaker, deal with her experience.

To all the survivors of abuse, including my beloved friend Tracie, I pray the Lord would bring healing to your life and that He would grant justice through His infinite mercy.