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 From the Author, Joyce Schafers
 This series first started with a poem I wrote for
my newborn son that later became the story in Bellwether's Message about
God. When I wrote the poem, I imagined God was giving my son a very
important message that was meant to help him his entire life. A simple message, yet if fully embraced would make all problems trivial by comparison. The message, summed up in a few words...God is, and all is well.
I've been invited to read my books at many schools over the past 10 years and at almost every visit, kids ask me who Bellwether is. For me, Bellwether is like a really great friend who reminds me that I am special, unique and important. Bellwether helps me remember that God made me exactly as I am for a reason and that it is really important to love myself like God loves me. With the help of the illustrations created by the very talented artist Lewis Lavoie, I have imagined Bellwether's first days to be something like this...
One day, on a particularly difficult day, a young boy who yearned to no longer feel afraid and alone, looked to the sky and made a wish. I suppose you could say he wished for many things; he wished to be braver like his dad, tougher like the kid next door, funny like the boy on his favorite TV show, liked as much as the popular kids and he wished to never be afraid again. Mostly, he wished to be someone else. On this very special and magical day, he got far more than he bargained for. God, instead of granting him his wish to be different, sent him a trusted and loving friend. This friend was Bellwether and Bellwether was about to teach him that being different wasn't really what he wanted; what he really wanted was to love himself. And so began the Bellwether's Message Series where kids come to know that they are perfect just as they are and with God by their side, anything is possible.
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