Perryan
goes fishing for Bible verses
02/09/06
By Charlotte Perkins of the HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL in Perry, GA
For anyone who’s seen her light up a room with her smile or knows how active
she’s been in the community, it’s hard to imagine Le Ann Tuggle sitting home,
feeling down in the dumps, and not even wanting to leave her house. But that’s
how it was for a while.
A former educator who had left her job to be a stay-at-home wife and mom, she
cherished her work at Perry Methodist Church as a Sunday School teacher and
loved to be with people, but an unexpected problem had taken the joy out of her
life. She was adapting to a sudden hearing loss in her right ear that had also
led to severe headaches whenever she ventured into the ordinary noisiness of the
outside world. “I was afraid I’d never be able to teach again,” she says, “and I
was too young to sit on the sofa and waste away. I prayed that God would give me
a solution to my problem.”
The solution turned out to be a major project that put her creativity and her
faith in herself to the test. She even gave up on it entirely at one point.
You wouldn’t know any of that to look at “Let’s Go Fishing,” though. It’s a
beautifully designed children’s book, filled with fish and geometric shapes in
bright, bold colors that seem to jump off the pages.
What are the fish all about?
Well, you’ve probably seen those little fish on the backs of cars – the ones
that let others know the driver is a Christian. You may even know that the fish
was a secret symbol for early Christians, with letters of the Greek word for
fish, "ichthus" used as an anagram for “Jesus Christ, of God, the Son, the
Savior.”
Or, if you went to Sunday School as a child, you probably learned – as little Le
Ann Spillers did – that Jesus called his disciples away from their fishing boats
to be “fishers of men.”
“Let’s Go Fishing” is a children’s fishing expedition for Bible verses that can
help guide them through life.
“Be kind to one another...”
“Rejoice in the Lord always...”
“Let not your heart be troubled...”
Tuggle doesn’t claim to be the author of it.
“As far as I’m concerned,” she says, “God has the copyright to those words.”
Instead she describes her project as “putting together a book of Bible verses
and other Bible essentials.”
She was on familiar ground with the Bible verses, writing to friends to ask for
their favorite verses and gathering up those that had mattered most to her
personally from childhood on.
However, the design and illustration of the book was a major challenge.
“I CANNOT draw,” she says. “I never have been able to draw.” She tried stick
figures first. Then, she took the suggestion of her husband, Rob, that she use
Christian symbols. She settled on a fish, and after successfully drawing one,
she was inspired to cut them out from paper in different colors, and to make
collage-style designs of them, using shapes of bubbles, waves, hearts and simple
squares and circles.
Working at her dining room table in her spare time, she cut out more and more
fish and other shapes, and tried her hand with page designs to go with the
different verses she had chosen.
Then she got discouraged and put all the bits and pieces away, giving up until
Kim Cassell, the teacher of her adult Sunday School class just happened to hand
her a card with “Let’s Go Fishing” and a few Bible verses on it.
“That’s when a light bulb came on,” she remembers, “and that afternoon I started
again on my little product.”
Once it was done, she took it to Henchard Press in Macon, and the rollercoaster
ride of seeing it through to publication was under way.
As modest as she is about the whole project, she admits to having been very
particular about making sure that the colors were bold and bright in the final
printing, and now she’s hoping to see her collection of verses find its way into
the hands of children.
In addition to 52 lovingly-chosen Bible verses, “Let’s Go Fishing” includes
lists of the books of the Old and New Testaments, the text of the Apostle’s
Creed, a short explanation of who the 12 disciples were and an explanation of
the fish symbol in Christianity.
Le Ann Spillers Tuggle grew up in Fort Valley, the daughter of Beth Spillers and
the late Wilbur Spillers. She attended Georgia College where she earned her
teaching degree. She has been a leader in Perry beautification efforts,
and was appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue to serve on the Georgia Board of
Examiners of Licensed Practical Nurses. She and her husband, Rob, are active
members of Perry United Methodist Church, and have two children.