When Bethany’s three year old asked, “Mom- where are the girls?” as she was reading her cartoon scripture book of prophets, warriors and heroes, Bethany got motivated. She looked everywhere- there wasn’t a single suitable children’s book focused on women in the scriptures. For many people that would have been the end of the road- but Bethany is a force of nature.

She was living in Mumbai, India at the time. Knowing I was on my annual brain-scrubbing India trip, she dropped me an email asking me to come on by.

Over dosa and idlis, we chatted, schemed, and finally looked at each other—could we do this?

Yes.

But it took four years.

In between Bethany moving back to the states, me leaving my business, Bethany giving birth, me moving to India—we Skyped our way through the Bible. (I am not sure we were on the same continent for more than just a few months of the project. Obviously one or the other of us was always slightly braindead in the windows of time we could overlap to meet.)

We debated everything. (Knowing us, this is not really a surprise.) Which women we wanted, what those stories meant to each of us, how that meaning was different, what we thought were the core teachings, were those lessons ones we wanted to highlight for our girls, which words had the truest meaning for the ideas we wanted to convey. Everything. (See above mention of four years.)

We picked the boldest stories we could cull out. We were careful to be true to text but we also intentionally chose those with spunk. Shocker.

We chose to highlight eleven women who span the length of the Bible. They are mothers, wives, sisters, friends, daughters, queens, servants and generals. However, the one thing they have in common is that they have all used their agency to further the work of God. Their stories powerfully model how an individual choice can have great impact.

Today, our daughters and sons have an array of decisions in front of them; they need to know they are capable of making wise choices. The examples of these courageous women can inspire our children to be forces for good.

Not only did we want this book to be a force for good for the readers but we to also have this book lift those who may never even have a chance to read it. Stories of ancient strong women being a catalyst to create today’s strong women is deeply satisfying to us. Giving women more opportunities for education and employment are two avenues we feel passionate about. All author’s proceeds will be donated to Interweave Solutions to further their efforts with women around the world.