Still Leaving Footprints

By: Dave & Lois Haas with Jeanette Windle

“I sure wish someone would write a series of lessons that would go through the Bible,” Field Representative Bernice Jordan announced, walking into the office of Bessie Traber, founder and director of the Bible Club Movement.

Miss Traber looked up from the letter she was writing. “Well, why don’t you write it?”

Bernice paused to consider. Then a thrill of adventure and the calming peace of sensing God’s approval flooded her heart. “With God’s enabling, I’ll do it!”

That life-changing decision in 1945 would not only revolutionize Bernice’s own ministry. It would allow BCM to forge ahead in its global operation and contribute significantly to the cause of missions in succeeding years. The first phase of producing Footsteps of Faith, an 8-volume flannelgraph curriculum covering Genesis to Revelation, took place between 1945 and 1947. The original editions were simple. “Black and white textbooks containing lessons with a memory verse, Scripture to study, introduction, body of the lesson, and conclusion,” shares early missionary Brena Price.

From the beginning Miss Jordan put emphasis on consistent review and attractive visual aids to maximize teaching effectiveness. Flannelgraph figures were colored, but had to be backed and cut out. Many a worn-out set of pajamas were put into the Lord’s service in the early days. Using India ink with wide pens for printing Bible verses and Sketcho crayons or poster paints for coloring backgrounds were ‘cutting edge technology’ in the 40s and 50s. People were so thrilled to be teaching children they didn’t seem to mind the inconvenience of these ‘primitive tools.’

A revision of the 50s and early 60s greatly strengthened the materials and improved the printing quality of the textbooks. When in 1962 Miss Jordan finished the revision of Volume 2 of the Old Testament, she announced, “I’m laying down my pen.” God had truly enabled her to finish the task of providing BCM, its missionaries and volunteers, and the church around the world with Christ-centered, Bible-based, doctrinally sound, chronologically-arranged, widely-grade, undated teaching materials with practical life application for children.

Jeanette Windle, wife of BCM president Martin Windle and daughter of TEAM missionaries Bob and Dawn Archer, recalls using Footsteps growing up on the mission field in Colombia and Venezuela and later as a missionary in Bolivia. “We found Footsteps of Faith the most practical curriculum available because a single set could be used to teach the whole Bible over and over, whether in a church classroom or under a grove of trees—which we did!”

In the 1960s, the companion curriculum, Tiny Footsteps of Faith, was developed for preschoolers, as BCM missionary Lois Haas, mother of three preschool sons herself and trained in biblical studies and education, became convinced that preschool children were also capable of learning about God and coming to know Him personally. The three volumes of lessons were a ten-year pilgrimage of faith. Her husband Dave Haas shares, “More than once I was wakened in the night to see Lois jotting something down on a pad of paper. The next morning I would look at what she had written, and it just looked like a bunch of dots going up and down. Lois explained that the dots were notes of a melody for one of the songs for the course. Other times it would be a few lines of poetry for a song or a finger play.”

But when it came to what kind of visuals to use with the Bible lesson, Lois was stumped. Flannelgraph was too fragile for preschoolers. But what else was available? At that time the Haas family participated in a church missions conference in New York. Their youngest son David stayed with their hostess. After the meeting, Lois noticed David happily engaged with putting bright plastic figures called Color Forms on a board. Lois had her answer: teaching plastics! They were indestructible and colorful.

The twenty-first century has seen a new revision, preserving the core curriculum, but with a new, colorful look outside and a teacher-friendly format inside containing Bible lessons with teacher helps and applications that deal with issues facing today’s children. An accompanying CD offers supplementary materials and a PowerPoint alternative to flannelgraph to make use of computer technology to teach God’s Word. In 2004 BCM’s new In Step With the Master Teacher was also released, offering 28 hours of training sessions on a single DVD.

Why bother with the abundance of Christian curriculum available on today’s market? BCM publications were recently showcased at LittWorld in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a global conference of Christian publishers, editors, and writers from five continents. Publishing houses from many countries expressed their excitement over what Footsteps and In Step could offer their culture.

• The 8-volume chronological study of Scripture allows churches with limited resources a single investment instead of quarterly curriculum purchases.
• Unlike typical highly-colored—and expensive—curriculums, BCM’s monochromatic volumes and CD and DVD format allow entire bookshelves of material to be reproduced by local publishers for their countries at very low cost.
• Activities, games, crafts, and object lessons are designed around what is available at hand rather than purchased materials.

“If I’d only had this in my country these last 30 years of teaching children,” expressed one publisher interested in translating for her country.

To date, BCM publications have been translated into more than 20 languages with half a dozen more currently in process. 60 years after Miss Bernice Jordan accepted Bessie Traber’s challenge to “why don’t you write it?”, BCM publications are still leaving footprints around the world, changing hearts and laying a foundation for biblical truth.