Ukrainian Bibles - God's Perfect Timing

About 4 years ago we commissioned a translation of the Bible into modern Ukrainian. This has been a massive undertaking. We asked Patriarch Filaret the champion of the independent Church of Ukraine to perform this translation. He wrote the translation by hand and we then had it typed out and formatted into the Ukrainian alphabet. This base version was then proof read by several linguist to make sure there were no spelling or grammatical errors. Once that was done the text was ported into a computer based Bible formatting program to allow for the set work into a Biblical format. This version was then sent to the preeminent Bible society's to vet that the translation was an accurate translation from a theological perspective. After the completion of this process this typed and translated version was sent back to the original translator to read and confirm that it was in fact what he translated originally.

 

All of this took 4 years and finally 2 weeks ago - a week before the invasion of Ukraine started, these Bibles started rolling of the printing presses. We are using Christian Media Publishers to coordinate the publishing and printing and expect the first batch of 15,000 Bibles to be done printing in the last week of March 2022. The ability to have these Bibles ready for distribution to refugees in their shelters in the neighboring countries around Ukraine at this time is nothing short of a modern day miracle. God's perfect timing.

 

Right now we are coordinating with our partners and relief organizations in Ukraine, Poland and Romania to get them ready to help with the distribution of these Bibles to women and children in the refugee centers and also to get them to Ukrainian soldiers in the front line. Over and above the printing being done in the region we have have started printing 40,000 more Bibles in South Africa with a printing partner that has made his printing presses available to print these Bibles free of charge. Paper companies from all over South Africa has started donating paper to the printers in an act of goodwill like we have never seen before. We have now decided that we will print another 45,000 as soon as our batch of 40,000 is done to bring the total number of Bibles for distribution to 100,000.

 

The last step is going to be to get the Bibles shipped by the middle to end of March to these staging points that our partners are making available in and around Ukraine. We estimate that the cost of getting these Bibles shipped and then distributed to the point where they are in the hands of a Soldier or refugee to be approximately $10. We ask that you consider donating whatever you can to help in completing this miracle and getting God's word to our brothers and sisters in this time of their deepest need.

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Click here to watch Kola talk more about this initiative. Click here to download a series of extracts from this Bible that has 32 messages of hope in English and Ukrainian formatted specifically for viewing on mobile phones. Please feel free to download this and forward to anybody you know that speaks Ukrainian that might be caught up in this unthinkable disaster.