Thanks for dropping by and for passing on the info. I find it very interesting that she had contact with Teen Challenge considering their appalling record in the states.

Indeed it would seem that their mindset has influenced the structure of Mercy.

She says that they have Mercy Ministries facilities all over the world including Australia (indicating that control of Mercy Ministries Australia remains in the US.

Alcorn also says she’s been to Australia 22 times, so it looks like she’s pretty hands-on.

There’s an interesting backgrounder on her here http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=9752

It shows that some of her statements have been a little misleading. Yes, she did have a background in working with girls at a Texas correctional facility (explaining Mercy Ministries’ jail-like conditions) but Nancy wasn’t a social worker as such..but the girls athletics coach.

“A native Tennessean and huge sports fan, Alcorn has reached out to troubled young women since college. A serious knee injury kept her from playing sports on a collegiate level; however, for five years she coached young women in the “game of life” as an athletic director for Tennessee’s correctional facility for juvenile delinquent girls.

As time passed, Alcorn became frustrated with the system. She wasn’t seeing changes and thought she might see more results if she worked with younger children, so she asked for and received a transfer into the State Department of Human Services. She supervised foster-care placements in the Nashville area and then began to work with the Emergency Child Protective Services Unit, investigating charges of abuse and neglect.

Alcorn heard about Teen Challenge while working at Child Protective Services and began to do volunteer work for the organization. She saw how God’s Word transformed people and renewed their minds, and the positive results gave her a sense of hope that she hadn’t felt in a long time. In 1980, Alcorn accepted a full-time position to serve as the director of women for Nashville Teen Challenge.

In 1982, some close friends of hers moved to Monroe, Louisiana. Alcorn went to visit them and discovered that the area had a huge need for a place like Teen Challenge. When she went back to Nashville, she couldn’t stop thinking about the need.

Finally, she took her vision to the board of Teen Challenge. They liked the idea of establishing a home in Monroe and including an outreach to pregnant teens–but it wasn’t part of their plan.

With Teen Challenge’s blessing and a $1,000 contribution from the organization, she left Tennessee on January 15, 1983, to launch a home in Monroe on her own.”

You also might be interested in an interview with Alcorn from April on the far-right fundamentalist American Family Radio.

http://www.afr.net/audio/040908.mp3

Interview begins 15 minutes into the audio.

Nice to see Tanya writing again BTW.

Lance
ex-Signposts2/Signposts