The community I live in the Superintendent prays at school board meetings and at public events. She is shown praying and asking for prayer in the local newspaper. She encourages Christians to be bold. There is only one school here, K-12.

Despite all that, despite the clusters of churches every 1/4 mile, despite vacation bible school in each one, despite all those efforts the graduating class of seniors lacks an ability to express exactly what he/she believes.

There is great open, verbal love for the Lord in this community but without discipline or desire for doctrine.

In a closed small Christian community of 700 why then is the divorce rate so unusually high for generations now? The number of fatherless children so many? The arrests of youth, parents and even grandparents for drugs and theft of property so high? The number of alcohol related automobile accidents so high in a dry county? The convictions of child molestation one too many? The incidents of child abuse and neglect so high? The plea for more and more foster parents?

Nearly 4 years ago we relocated to an isolated historically poor rural community in North Alabama from Central Florida.

Being active in the community, also active in the horse community, my daughter befriended many people. I'll speak only of the daughters.

But first I'll preface by saying there is a high rate of broken marriages here for generations now. Men are absent, or simply not "present" in the relationship.

An astonishing number of them have "testimony" of underage drinking and whoring as teens even though this is a dry county and there is a church every 1/4 mile in a population of 700.

We befriended young public school girls through horse activities. To make this short: they attach themselves to a boy by 7th grade, begin to dress like prostitutes - I like fashion, I'm from Miami, but there is a difference - all the years of Sunday School for both boys and girls, they early profession of faith, all for naught.