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Ministering to the struggles of young women
By Elizabeth Glass-Turner

After working for eight years in juvenile corrections facilities and emergency protective services, Nancy Alcorn saw many girls funneled through the system without any hope of actual change. Many had been raised by drug addicts, prostitutes, or the foster system. Others came from seemingly benign suburban homes.

Determined to halt the cycle of generational addictions and wounds, she opened Mercy Ministries. Today, the ministry has a global presence that reaches young women with addictions, eating disorders, unplanned pregnancies, abuse, and depression.

While Mercy Ministries is an interdenominational enterprise, Nancy’s own faith roots plunge deep within the United Methodist Church: her conversion blossomed from a Lay Witness Mission event. As Mercy Ministries celebrates its 25th anniversary, founder Nancy Alcorn spoke with Elizabeth Glass-Turner about helping young women who are struggling with life-controlling issues.

Good News: How do you view the work of Mercy Ministries?

Nancy Alcorn: We are an interdenominational Christian social service organization placed in the community to help hurting people.

While many treatment programs for girls charge anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 a day, we believe in taking girls in free-of-charge. We recognize that we’re not equipped to help every situation—but we do try to specialize in problematic issues facing young women. If a girl comes to us, we’re going to do everything we can to help her. If she walks away feeling like she didn’t get the help she needed, at least she’s not walking away with a big bill that she’ll spend the rest of her life trying to pay.

When it comes to pregnancy, our heart is to provide a practical way that a young girl who’s in that situation can choose life and receive all the possible choices that she can make—whether that be single parenting, or placing a child up for adoption. We have our own adoption agency for girls who want to choose that option.

What was your motivation in starting Mercy Ministries?

While I was working in the correctional facility for girls and with the emergency protective services, we were told that we couldn’t share our Christianity and we couldn’t talk about the forgiveness of God and new beginnings and actually overcoming things in your past.

I began to see a pattern. The kids would go back home to the same environment and a lot of the girls that were locked up there had been involved in gangs; and some had been involved with drug dealers. Some had been involved in prostitution and their pimps were waiting on them. We try to change them from the outside, change their behavior, but only Jesus Christ can change your heart, give you a new heart and a new spirit.

I had only been a Christian a few years, but I knew that the same Jesus Christ that changed my life could change theirs, too. And I said, “God, I don’t want to spend my whole career life working in a system where I’m not allowed to talk about the only one I know who can really change a life.”

What has surprised you most about the growth of Mercy Ministries and the women it’s influenced?

First, the more girls we see transformed, the more that young girls are going out and telling their story to other young girls across the country and even in other nations. When one girl tells how she got help, it gives those other girls still hurting that hope. So even though we’re opening new facilities and we’re helping more girls than we ever have before, our waiting list continues to grow.

The second thing that surprises me is how many of these young ladies have actually, in their own way, decided to make a difference in the world. We’ve got young women on the mission field, becoming nurses, doctors, attorneys, school teachers. We’ve got girls going into full-time ministry, girls that have had government jobs open up to them. Some girls are working in various people-helping organizations in different parts of the world. They not only realize that they’re forgiven, but that they actually have a destiny of their own to fulfill. It’s very exciting to see all these different ways that girls are seeing their dreams fulfilled!

What do you want pastors and church members to know about young women who are sitting in their pews, in their youth groups, and who are going to college?

Well, this may be a surprising answer to some, but the girls who are sitting in their pews—percentage wise, they’re dealing with the very same issues that girls who are not sitting in their pews are dealing with—eating disorders, cutting, sexual abuse. And sometimes young girls who are in the youth group or sitting in a church pew find themselves in trouble and saying, “Hey, I’m supposed to be a Christian and now I’ve messed up and gotten pregnant.” There may be pressure on that young woman to go get an abortion. We’ve had many young girls come to us—even pastor’s kids come to us with a lot of these issues.

I thank God for our churches that really want to address these issues and create a safe place where young people can actually share that they are going through these things, and that they can be welcomed.

That’s why we’ve released a new series of books called “The Mercy For” Series. “Cut: Mercy for Self-Harm,” “Trapped: Mercy for Addictions,” “Starved: Mercy for Eating Disorders,” and “Violated: Mercy for Sexual Abuse.” We wanted to create resources churches and youth groups could have, real stories that girls can relate to. Because there’s a lot of brave young girls that call us up and decide to enter this program—but there’s a lot of young girls out there that, for various reasons, won’t take the step to make that call. But they would pick up a book and read it. So we’ve tried to create the same life-changing principles based on what we believe the truth of God’s Word to be, and with real life stories of girls who’ve overcome. So we try to get them out there where people who are struggling with these issues can find these resources, without coming necessarily to a particular place.

What counseling model do you use at Mercy Ministries?

Well, it’s definitely a biblically-based counseling model. We called it “Choices that Bring Change.” And it relies, first of all, on choice—you may be a victim but you don’t have to stay a victim. So many times people talk about things that get passed down from generation to generation, that become the bad things. But it’s also possible for someone who’s got a tough background to begin a generation of blessing. We try to empower the girls to understand that you do have a choice.

In order to really share a biblically-based counseling model, everything starts out of that personal relationship with Christ and where your heart is. So the girls who come to us know we’re Christian-based.

Another choice that we focus on is choosing to forgive the people who have hurt you—helping people understand what biblical forgiveness really means. It’s not a feeling. And we help them understand what it’s not. It’s not saying that somebody abusing you was okay; it’s not saying that you have to go back and put yourself in that situation again; it’s not saying any of those things.

Another part of our counseling model, we deal with renewing the mind. For example, a girl who has been a prostitute would believe about herself, “I’m dirty; I’m shameful.” “No godly man would ever want me because of my past.” What we help that girl do is renew her mind to what God’s word says, so that she can begin to see herself the way God sees her. So we focus on what we call “replacing lies with the truth.”

Another area is healing life hurts. Anyone that’s got life-controlling issues, particularly young girls who have been sexually abused or raped, there are usually lots of emotional wounds. We believe that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted. It was never God’s will for them to be abused. A lot of girls think that “this happened to me, so it must’ve been what God wanted for my life,” but of course that’s not the truth.

And then the next thing we deal with is what we call “principles for lifelong success.” It’s designed to get girls ready to go back into society and live their lives. But what we do is encourage the girls, regardless of what background they’re from, that wherever they’re going back to, they need to get involved in a local church family. We teach them about committing to live a life of integrity and obedience according to God’s word, in all different practical areas. We don’t assume these girls know anything. We teach them about balancing checkbooks, budgeting, finance, about a lot of different things that have to do with practical aspects of everyday life.

What is the difference between stereotypes of adolescent angst, and the matter-of-fact reality of soul-ravaging addictions? How do help people discern when a young woman needs immediate help?

There are some things that we deal with—serious addictions, life-controlling issues—that are fairly obvious. If a girl’s severely anorexic, that’s going to be fairly obvious, although it’s amazing how many girls can fake their way through that and pretend they’re on a diet, until they become dangerously thin. With cutting and eating disorders, it’s amazing how far out of the way normal-looking young girls will go to cover up those issues. Like the girls who are cutting, they’ll wear long sleeves, the girls with eating disorders, they’ll find reasons to find a bathroom after they eat. You hear all the lies. After a while those become pretty evident.

Some of the girls who are needy and attention-seeking will threaten suicide even though they’re really just seeking attention. Nevertheless, we have to take their threats seriously.

Depression seems to be something that’s pretty strong among today’s youth. So for a parent who thinks, “well, I don’t have to deal with my rebellious teenager ‘cause she goes in her room every night for hours and hours,” it’s probably not the best thing to assume that all is well there. Because there are many things that they may be exposing themselves to through the Internet, or music, or whatever culture they may be involved in.

Is there any difference between the girl who walked through your door in 1983 and the girl who walks through your door in 2008?

In 1983 when we started, there were three primary issues: addictions, sexual abuse, and pregnancy. That was just about it. In the mid to late 1990s, we started getting requests for girls that had eating disorders. Today, seventy percent of girls who call us for help are dealing with eating disorders and cutting. And sometimes they’re dealing with all of the issues: cutting, eating disorders, sexual abuse, and addictions. 

Do groups often sponsor individual girls?

Well, we are supported several different ways. We actually have a lot of individuals who give monthly support. And then we have businesses that believe in giving to charities. Gloria Jean’s gives. Every time the Tennessee Titans football team wins a game, Coach Jeff Fisher and his wife personally send Mercy Ministries a generous contribution. Go Titans!

We actually do have women’s groups in churches that will come out and be a part of a luncheon with our girls, and hear testimonies. We have women who decide they want to give a baby shower to a pregnant girl who’s going to keep her child. We also have different women’s groups from churches go together and sponsor a girl. If folks want to know more, they can inquire about it through our website.

How can our readers get to know Mercy Ministries?

You can go to our website. Anybody who wants to send us an email into our info account and mention that they read your article, we’d be happy to give them a copy of my first book, Echoes of Mercy. That book tells the story of how Mercy came to be and why we exist, with a lot of stories.



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