Sex offenders among us....

I know there alot of neighbors and friends from the townhomes that I live in who check out my blog....so this post is for all of you in that category. I don't know how many of you are aware of this, I sure wasn't until my mom called me and told me today. But there is a sex offender who lives just down the road from me on 5037 FLINTRIDGE. His name is James R Smith, and he was convicted of attempted indecent liberties with a minor. There are also 3 right across the street from the townhomes who have some serious charges. One of them was charged with 1st degree rape, another one was charged 5 times with sexual assault on a child, and the 3rd was charged with attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Kinda scary, huh?

I feel that sometimes as members of the church, and especially when we are in a situation that we are in where there are so many members of the church in our townhomes, that we kinda get too comfortable in our surroundings and think that nothing would happen to any of us or to our children. When in all reality, we are not always as safe as we may feel. Even though we live in an awesome little community, there are no gates keeping the "bad people" out. I, personally, am especially cautious of leaving my children outside alone. We live right smack up against the woods, and in 1 second someone could jump that fence and take one of my children and be gone before I know it. It freaks me out sometimes! I'm one of those who stays up in the middle of the night and worries about that kind of stuff (can you tell?). And as my mom and I were talking today I was telling her how i'm afraid to leave my kids alone outside for even a second (unless one of my friends was out there with their children, and they were aware that I was going into the house for a minute). And my mom said something that I strongly believe as well.....why not do EVERYTHING that you can to do protect your children? If it means that we are out there alone, and I have to go in the house to grab something...then that means that I drag them all in with me despite the screaming and kicking and crying. That is just one example, but you get my point.

Anyways, that was it. I kinda went on and on and on, sorry. lol. I just wasn't sure if anyone else was aware of this guy or not. If you want to check it out for yourself, go to www.familywatchdog.us and type in your address. It will give you a map of all of the sex offenders in our area (I was shocked to see how many are in the kansas city area) and it will show you their picture and details about what they are convicted of.