Dave & Lois Haas: Shaping Lives Through God’s Word
“The ills of society imprint themselves upon children so easily,” says Dr. Dave Haas of BCM International.
He knows of what he speaks. From camps to copyrights, Dave and Lois Haas have faithfully served the Author and Perfecter of our faith as full-time BCM missionaries for fifty-one years, imprinting Christ’s love on lives through children’s ministry as well as sending God’s Word around the globe via Bible curriculum.
Both saved at age 9 in Christian camps, Dave and Lois met as children while learning to use their musical talents to serve the Lord in a weekly radio ministry called Children’s Church of the Air. Both felt God’s call to missionary service as young teens. They were married after college in 1956. While Lois taught school, Dave attended Faith Theological Seminary, graduating in 1958.
After a short-term ministry trip to Jamaica, the Haases responded to an invitation from Bessie Traber, founder of Bible Club Movement, to open BCM ministry in Jamaica. But by the time they’d raised their support, Jamaica gained independence from Great Britain, closing its doors to any new mission board. Instead, they began ministry in the U.S., teaching Bible Clubs in Philadelphia and directing summer programs in BCM’s two Pennsylvania camps, Sankanac and Streamside, for more than thirty years. There they fought to undo damage that poverty, discrimination, abuse, broken homes, and addictions had imprinted on campers, offering instead the love and complete acceptance found in Jesus Christ.
“You never knew what to expect at camp,” Dave expresses.
"We never felt we were equal to the challenges,” Lois adds. “I got a knot in my stomach every time thinking what will happen this time? Why are we here?”
God knew why they were there. Campers were often sent by mission organizations who wanted kids from inner-city Philadelphia to learn that a life lived with Jesus could become their new hope for the future. Camp Sankanac’s motto comes from Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.” Dave and Lois learned to rely on God being in their midst and mighty to get through to kids more accustomed to the law of the street than the forest of the Pocono Mountains. Dave remembers one camper in particular.
“One boy named Peter at Sankanac was a chronic problem camper. He resisted authority and acted like a spoiled child. I don’t know why it had to be him, but we had him for the five weeks of boys’ camp for several summers. We dreaded to see him come. We hated to see him go.”
But Peter eventually accepted Christ as Savior. The Haases and other BCM workers have such a short time during camp to show children the difference Jesus Christ can make in their lives. Nor can they know the impact of their outreach unless they hear back from campers.
“One day, out of the blue, I get this call,” Dave shares. “It’s Peter. He’s a lawyer in New Jersey now. He called to thank us and tell us what he’s done with his life.”
Then there’s a boy we’ll call Jamal who met the Haases at Camp Streamside, founded in 1942 in the heart of the Pocono Mountains to reach inner-city youth. Dave received an invitation a couple of years ago to meet Jamal for breakfast. When Jamal walked into the restaurant, Dave didn’t recognize the big, muscular African-American man who approached the table. But Jamal recognized Dave.
“You led me to Christ at Camp Streamside,” Jamal said. “And my brother.”
Jamal is now a pastor in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with over a thousand in his congregation.
“Jamal escaped our follow-up,” Dave says. “But the Lord followed him up.”
Dave has also served BCM International as Director of Philadelphia Area Ministries, teaching Bible Clubs, and training and supervising volunteer teachers. Later as Director of Training Services, he developed trainers, programs, and training materials to strengthen BCM missionaries and ministries in the USA and other countries. Tenures as Dean of Manna Bible Institute and BCM’s Northeast Regional Director prepared him to serve as BCM’s Vice President of USA Ministries, responsible for 190 other missionaries.
Dave also served as Director of BCM International Publications and is presently Director of Curriculum Development with Lois as his assistant. They are part of a team revising BCM materials, and facilitating their translations into numerous languages of countries where BCM missionaries work. A priority is the eight-volume, Genesis-to-Revelation Bible curriculum, Footsteps of Faith, and multimedia resources for use with it. Lois also wrote Tiny Steps of Faith, a preschool Bible curriculum now translated into many languages around the world.
Together Dave and Lois have raised three sons, requiring the couple to balance on a tightrope between a growing family and a growing ministry.
“God brought us together as a team,” Lois explains. “Our goals are the same.”
“We’re a complete unit,” Dave adds. “She has gifts, insights, and sensitivities that I don’t have. Rather than competing with each other, we use our gifts together to get the job done.”
The Haases have gotten the job done by learning to love, appreciate, and value each other while faithfully relying on God to do the rest. Music is one of God’s tools through which they work together in harmony. Dave plays piano and violin. Lois sings. As a duet, they have used their musical talents to reach souls, enrich lives, and praise God.
The Haases are strong believers in the importance of faith. When they needed fifty dollars to register their sons in a private Christian school, they didn’t just pray for the money, but asked that if God wanted them to continue at this school, He would provide the fifty dollars. Going to the mailbox, Lois opened a note thanking the Haases for a music tape they’d recorded free of charge some months previously. Included was a fifty dollar check.
Dave and Lois are delighted to be humble characters in God’s story of redemption and reconciliation. “God took us to different places in the world and used us in many ways we never dreamed of."
The Haases have ministered short term in Jamaica, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Peru, and Dave in India. These days they stay a little closer to their Lancaster, PA home, but still travel to give seminars and represent BCM International.
Nonetheless, some people have wondered if Dave’s seminary training was wasted when he went into children’s ministry.
Was it?
What is the value of one soul won for Christ?
Throughout nineteen thousand days of ministry, the Haases used Dave’s seminary training and Lois’ teaching degree to share Christ with children and to train others to do so, not just in Pennsylvania, but around the world through the reach of Bible curriculum and teaching materials in other languages. They’ve learned that God’s Word, whether sung, spoken, or written, can shape lives through the transforming power of the Author and Perfecter of their faith.
