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The footprints in My Heart

What InterCept meant to one Eighth Grade Girl

A while ago I received and email from one of my friends that had various quotes inside it. One specific quote sticks inside my mind.

"Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart."

Those friends who leave footprints in my heart would be every single person here in InterCept. I will remember this experience for the rest of my life. I'm sure all of us girls will. One thing that I will definitely remember is camp. I remember before we left, Heather said by the last day of camp, we will all be friends and get along with each other. Or something close to that. The first one or two days were hectic I have to say. But by Saturday night, we were getting along perfectly. Some might say that it was a coincidence. But it wasn't. When we had our "nice things about each other circle" as I would call it, we were good friends. We were crying and hugging. We probably used three boxes of tissue. But it was worth it. I guess the point that I'm trying to get to is don't judge people until you really get to know them. Because you will miss out on a lot of things that are inside them that you didn't know was there. 

InterCept has taught us so much about life. What I learned is that life is one big adventure, but then it's short, so live it to the fullest (without getting in trouble). And when you are feeling like you can't go on any further, remember all our lives we walk among heavenly beings whether we believe in heaven or not. All our lives we are surrounded by individuals who spend their lives invisibly cheering us on. 

And I would like to thank every single person involved with InterCept. And a huge congratulations to all of us girls! We learned to be strong and confident. And we will pass every single little thing that we learned to other people as our lives go on. And we will continue to be strong. But before I'm done, there are certain people that we need to thank for allowing us to be involved in this program. Those people are our parents.

By Lonnie

What effect has being in InterCept had on the eighth graders?  This is what they revealed just one month after beginning the program. In my experience there are 12 other girls that I wasn't all that good of friends with, but now that I got to know them all, think they're all nice. InterCept has kept many girls from the past to now out of drugs and bad things like fights or gangs. We met a [high school InterCept] girl at camp. She was in InterCept ever since eighth grade. If it weren't for this program, she would be out [making unhealthy choices]. At camp, us girls learned how to work as a team. Our InterCept group achieved expressing emotions. At camp we sat in the lunchroom and started working on projects then we all started talking about our problems and the people we love then we just started crying and talking. It helped us to become closer to each other. We achieved tolerance. We might not have like the person we were bunking with, but we bit our tongues and tolerated one another for the night. One of my personal achievements is that I know that no one can pressure me into sex too early. I know I probably won't be abstinent but I will not do it until I am positive that we are safe and ready. We learned just because people are different, doesn't mean they aren't nice. Because of InterCept, I look at people in a whole new way. I have more respect for people I thought were weird. I have learned how to deal with my problems without using violence. Before, someone would have got hit for messing with me, but now I just try to solve the problem before it gets bigger. I've changed my attitude toward people and I start to take people's feelings in consideration more strongly. We have achieved the truthly friendship. Most of these people that are in InterCept didn't even like me and I didn't like them. But I strongly agree that the truth of friendship came out. I don't lie any more. We have all changed the way we treat and act toward other people. The one thing that helped me achieve in this class was at camp when we all felt each other's pain.