A genesis in teaching

Helping young children understand Bible lessons and Scripture isn't an easy task for any Sunday school teacher or parent but storytelling can bring those lessons alive through colorful images and characters.

While most children learn Bible stories about creation, Noah and the ark, Moses and the Ten Commandments, Joseph and his coat of many colors, David and Goliath and even Samson, few get lessons about Exodus or Leviticus. Some lessons in the Old Testament are overlooked.

But Mary Meyer didn't want to oversimplify Scripture when she taught her children faith lessons. Instead she created characters to help teach the lessons she wanted them to learn. Lessons about new beginnings and accepting yourself for the person God created were part of her story collection.

And it wasn't until last year that those stories and some of her characters began to take shape in a book.

While St. Andrew Lutheran Church was beginning to introduce multimedia presentations into its worship services, Meyer and her daughter, Beth, talked about the stories Mary had told.

Beth had encouraged her to write them down. And the mother-daughter pair soon began to write a story that was read during the childrens sermon last year for Mother's Day. It was followed by another on Father's Day.

As Mary read "Genesis Gives A Gift," on Mother's Day, children of the church were invited to gather around her.

Beth learned to use multimedia equipment so that the animated version of the book showed overhead. In the story, Genesis the giraffe learns lessons from the "instruction manual," or Bible, while trying to make a present.

A second story teaches the lessons of the Old Testament book Exodus in "Out! Out! Exodus."

Teaching tools

The stories are variations of what Meyer told her children, but both she and Beth think they are important teaching tools.

The two were involved in the church's Sonday Kids Club, which is like a Sunday school and activities group for the children, and wanted to find a way to carry that work into the worship service.

The women were helping build props for the children's lessons and were having such a good time with their creativity that the book project seemed like a natural next step.

Hicks invited them to give the multimedia presentation a try.

But this work is really a family affair. While Mary's voice is the one you hear narrating the stories on accompanying CDs, her husband Richard's handwriting was used as the font for the type.

Beth took a scanned image of her father's handwriting and used it as a font for all the books.

Mary does all the illustrations as line drawings. Beth scans those into the computer and colors them in using a painting program. She also develops the multimedia CDs that come with each book.

But this is really a lesson in God's providence.

"The Lord gets the credit," Beth said.

Her mother adds, "He provides for his children."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126