The Power of Images

In the spring of 2022, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) World Missionary Terry Schultz contacted Bethany professors Jason Jaspersen and Andrew Overn and proposed a unique and interesting new project. Over his many years in missions around the world, Schultz had noticed the power of images in spreading the Gospel, particularly in low-literacy communities. With little training as an artist, Schultz had created a number of posters illustrating important Biblical concepts and was amazed by the energetic response they generated.

And so, when national church leaders in Zambia requested a year’s worth of Sunday School curricula, all in pictures, Schultz realized that additional help was needed. He approached Jaspersen and Overn, wondering if a group of Lutheran artists might be found who could create the necessary 112 pages of unique, comic book style illustrations. A small but determined and enthusiastic group of young artists was assembled. All but two of the fifteen artists involved are current Bethany students or alumni of the College.

Each Bible story was illustrated both as a larger, two-page set of posters, and as a smaller, coloring-book style pair of pages. The images were either drawn digitally or using traditional media and then scanned into digital form. As a result, the files may now be sent electronically anywhere in the world and printed locally at minimal cost. Though it took nearly a year for the group to complete the entire set of images for the Zambian request, the stories have been very well received and churches in Uganda have already made use of the posters and coloring pages as well.

By the grace of God, the WELS World Missions Sunday School Poster Project for Zambia has now received inquiries from other WELS foreign mission fields that have seen the posters. Hmong Lutheran churches in Vietnam have requested two sets of fifty-two Sunday School posters/coloring pages—one set for younger children (early grades) and a second set for ages twelve and older. WELS World Missions expects to print six hundred sets of Sunday School posters for the Hmong church in Vietnam, which numbers over one hundred forty thousand members. Two additional years of visual curricula will also be produced by this growing group of talented young artists. When completed, the final set of images produced by the group will total more than 700 pages of original artwork.

A few of the artists (Maida Jaspersen, Lydia Kratz, Leah Kurth (’14), Abby Skorenkyi, Izzy Strackbein, and Professor Andrew Overn) took part in an exhibit of some of the posters and presented about their work at the national annual meeting of the WELS Lutheran Women’s Missionary Society in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in October 2023.