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Ten years ago, I subconsciously asked myself, “Can anything good come out of Kosciusko?”  After moving to my husband’s hometown and seeing a totally different place than what I was used to, I wondered where I was.  Who were these people?  Why did they act the way they acted?  How was it that everyone was related?  How could people live in a town with only a handful of restaurants?  Where was the bowling alley?  You get the idea…this place was foreign to me but I quickly learned to adjust and make it “home”.  It became the place where we raised two daughters and later a son.  It became the only place our children ever knew as “home”.  It became the place where they made their first friends, got their first library card, had their first ballet recitals, started school and the list goes on.

This place quickly became the community where my husband and I put our hands to work and established a non-profit teen mentoring organization which would become a major pillar in the community.  It filled a void in a small rural town with few positive role models and opportunities to be exposed to positive life changing experiences.  We quickly found our place—planting a church, developing teens and raising our family.  Yes, we missed things that bigger cities offer, but Kosciusko became a “safe haven” and developing ground for our mission, work and family.

In a couple weeks, seven teenagers who were a part of our teen mentoring program—The Exodus Project—will graduate from high school and join the other nearly thirty teens who have graduated from high school since we started the program.  These students will go on to do great things like attend college, graduate from college with honors, attend graduate or law school, travel the world, become upstanding citizens, and achieve success in a number of ways.  I like to think that our family played a small role in helping them reach their potential.  The many sacrifices we made to adjust to “small town” life and the many luxuries we went without to help others was worth it.  It was all a part of God’s big plan to use us in some small way to make a lasting change in a community.

It doesn’t stop there. Our children received a great educational and social foundation that has afforded them many opportunities to learn and grow.  Small towns offer opportunities for notoriety that is more difficult to achieve in larger cities.  Frequent recognition in the local newspaper, opportunities to perform at churches and community centers, and conversations with the mayor are a part of “normal” life.  All of this was part of our children’s grooming for the next steps in life.

I can certainly say with a resounding “YES” that something good can come out of Kosciusko!  Teenagers, and more specifically black teenage males, DO graduate from high school.  There are teens who can succeed in high school without getting pregnant.  There are children who want to learn and achieve success and who are doing it.  There are adults who want to break the cycle of poverty and are taking steps to end the cycle.  There are hardworking individuals who give back to their community and make a difference.

It reminds me to be thankful for every situation we go through, because something good is coming out of it.  It reminds me to never count the good out of a situation.  Every place and everything has potential to be good.  It just needs developing.  So next time, you’re ready to give up on a situation, or go back to what’s familiar, or feel like nothing is happening, give it some time.  Time allows the seeds you planted to grow and produce fruit.  Keep nurturing that seed and watch it become something beautiful!

~Coletta Jones Patterson

*For more information about The Exodus Project, visit http://www.exodusprojectms.com.