by REBECCA GRACE | AFA Journal Staff Writer

"Hi. My name is Lucy, and I’m a virgin."

These are the words Teresa Chandler Haynes longs to hear at the beginning of each abstinence education meeting she leads for about 20 teenage girls from the Mississippi Delta.

Haynes, executive director of Sav-A-Life of Cleveland, Mississippi, teaches a group of teenage girls the importance of abstinence before marriage through an education initiative she coined SPICE Ladies. The acronym stands for Sexual Purity, Integrity, Character Excellence.

"I wanted the students to learn how to be ladies," Haynes said. "I wanted the ladies to have the opportunity to develop the character of who they are."

Haynes explained that the program is more than a "just say no to sex" initiative. She wants the young women to develop a sense of self-worth and self-respect.

"[That way] when the situations come up, the question – Am I going to have sex? – would not even be a question," Haynes explained. "That question would have been answered already by the ladies being who they want to be."

Finding one’s identity in Christ is the underlying motivation of the program. "…I really wanted to encourage the girls to ‘step it up,’" Haynes said. "If you’re going to represent the SPICE Ladies, you have to know what you are representing."

That was the thrust of Haynes’ teachings during the last semester as she desires for the girls to recognize themselves as princesses.

"If God, our Father, is king, that makes me, His daughter [through Christ], a princess," she explained.

Tonja Johnson, a former student of Delta State University and now an employee of Cleveland State Bank, is one young lady who recognized the royalty of Christ in her life.

As a college student, Johnson needed to complete community service hours for class credit and decided to do so by volunteering at the local Sav-A-Life Center (www.savalife.org). "I decided to talk to Tonja about working with our abstinence program," Haynes said.

This hit home with Johnson, a single parent at the time, who had recommitted herself to a life of abstinence as a result of her faith in Christ.

In January of 2002, with the assistance of Johnson and her father, The Reverend Darryl Johnson, Sav-A-Life of Cleveland began its first after-school abstinence education program in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

Haynes later named the program SPICE Ladies after it became a project of Restoring Adolescents to Maximize Success (RAMS). RAMS is a health and human service organization founded in 2001 by Johnson and members of Walk of Faith Covenant Church.

"I agreed to teach the program and train Tonja to be a teacher, as well," Haynes explained.

Due to Johnson’s responsibilities as a graduate student working full-time, she was unable to continue with the program. However, Haynes willingly continued the program and has seen some encouraging results over the past few years.

"I want to help the girls to really go beyond the surface and get to the real issues," Haynes explained.

She is doing just that by holding the girls accountable and asking them very pointed questions about their sexual choices as well as having them complete anonymous surveys.

In addition, the SPICE Ladies are required to have an accountability partner to help them stand firm in their commitment to sexual purity. When they are ready, Haynes asks them to sign virginity pledges. Their pledges are celebrated each year through a candlelight ring ceremony – an idea taken from the national True Love Waits campaign.

"The girls receive a ring as a token or symbol of the commitment to remain sexually pure and to abstain from sexual behaviors until marriage," Haynes said.

The sterling silver rings resemble wedding bands and have the word "purity" engraved on them. The girls are asked to wear their rings on their ring fingers to signify that they are already married.

"God is waiting until the right time to introduce each girl to her husband," Haynes explained.

Overall, about 30 girls have or will soon participate in a SPICE Ladies ring ceremony. Approximately 40 girls have been part of the program since its inception.

As SPICE Ladies continues, Rev. Johnson and Haynes are also in the beginning stages of developing an abstinence program for the boys of Mound Bayou.

Haynes said it is important for the fellows who are interested in her SPICE Ladies to know “what’s up with the whole abstinence thing.”