What began with a simple request, in 1997, to teach a Bible Study on Purity at a Christian School, revealed to me a great difference between sex education and purity instruction. The origins of each are very different, as are the designed and expected outcomes. I was born in 1961, to Christian parents, was later baptized and attended Christian schools. During my junior high years, I took "sex education" presented by a nurse employed by the school and her text was a widely known Christian sex-ed series. During high school and college years I noticed many of my sex-ed classmates were not chaste and pure prior to marriage as the Bible directs. I often wondered why

In 1984, I met Joe Werner, a youth pastor, and we married in 1985. My husband dealt with abortion, teen pregnancy, teen fornication, pornography and even prostitution among Church youth. Earlier in 1982, I had begun my professional calling as a nurse. After working in E. R. for four years, I began to work in the field of Public Health in 1986, as a school nurse in elementary, junior high and senior high; which included teen mothers. For this position, my training through the state public school system, for county nurses and teachers, was through SIECUS (Sex Information Education Council of the United States). Our trainers assured us that speaking explicitly about sex to children alleviated curiosity and thereby decreased rates of pregnancy and STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases).

The SIECUS training encouraged boldness because "parents aren’t doing their job." It was up to us, they said, to tell other people’s children about sexual contacts and conduct in value neutral terms. We were instructed to disregard the rumor that when you talk to kids about sex, they will go out and do it. "It is simply not true." From 1985 through 1991, I was a public school nurse addressing sexuality and comforted in the knowledge that I was reducing sexual disease and dysfunction associated with ignorance on the subject of "sex."

In May of 1991, the Lord blessed Joe and me with a son and the emphasis of my calling changed. I took a part-time job, again, at the county health department working in the AIDS/STD/Immunization Clinic. The training for this position was provided by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in STD’s (40 hours); and also by the state health department in AIDS counseling (40 hours). The training was the most up-to-date information on sexual health. From 1991 through 1999, my colleagues and I noted some alarming trends; disease and dysfunction were increasing and younger and younger children were being affected. Concurrently my husband and I noticed fellow Christian church workers dealing with their own sexually active children trained in sex-ed, as I had been in Christian schools.

Concerned, I asked myself; "Whatever happened to chastity and purity?" Disease and dysfunction were not the outcomes to be expected from teaching sex education: "Was this all I could hope for my own children? Because of the misinformation in the church, medicine, and in the ministry, it was time to find the truth: What is the origin of sex education? With God’s love and help, Joe and I have taken the lessons learned and have separated the truth from the lies on human love. Matthew XVIII is a ministry we began in 2000, to assist parents in discerning between the beauty of God’s truths of the life process, from deadly lies.