An interfaith group including Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, Roman Catholics, the Salvation Army, and the Orthodox Church has launched a project called Restore their Hope, which aims to distribute children's Bibles throughout Russia.
An interfaith group including Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, Roman Catholics, the Salvation Army, and the Orthodox Church has launched a project called Restore their Hope, which aims to distribute children’s Bibles throughout Russia. The project was initiated by the Institute for Bible Translation, which raises funds and oversees printing. Last summer volunteers distributed 154,000 Bibles to hospitals, correctional schools, orphanages, and juvenile prisons in Siberia.
The children’s Bible project has been selected as one of the official activities of the Russian president’s Committee to Meet the Third Millenium. The committee has requested more than 1 million Bibles. “They already have addresses for half a million children who need Bibles,” says Valery Ivanov, communication director for Adventists in the Euro-Asia region.
Lydia Neikurs, who directs children’s ministries for Adventists in the region, coordinated the distribution plans and reporting system for the summer initiative. Adventist volunteers delivered 15,000 Bibles in 38 Siberian cities. “An orphanage in Shushinskoye, where Vladimir Lenin spent part of his exile, received 125 Bibles,” reports Ivanov. “Four hundred and fifty went to deaf children in the industrial city of Novosibirsk. Four hundred went to Irkutsk, near the shores of Lake Baikal. Our wide geographical presence in Siberia allowed us to take Bibles to the remote corners of the country.”
The interfaith committee presented some of the first Bibles to children in Murmansk and Moscow who lost their fathers in last year’s Kursk submarine accident.
In a letter to Adventist participants, the Moscow office of the Institute for Bible Translation expressed hope that the Bibles would become a determining influence in children’s lives. “We hope that this unique cooperation of churches of different denominations and charitable and civil organizations . . . will bear more fruit, and we hope that the message of hope that is in the Bible will reach those who need to hear it.”
The Institute for Bible Translation is an international organization that distributes Bibles to former Soviet countries. Usually they focus on providing materials in non-Slavic languages. They report that 8 million copies of their children’s Bible have been distributed in 28 languages.
