Latest News #196
April 26, 2002
THE POPE — The Pope has commended Bible Societies for undertaking a task which is urgent and which draws members of different churches and ecclesiastical communities together.
EGYPT — Staff at the Bible Society of Egypt have been surprised and delighted by the sales figures which emerged at the end of the 2002 Cairo International Book Fair recently.
SDR 2001 — Scripture Distribution Report 2001 revised.
Pope commends Bible Societies for ‘urgent’ work which ‘brings churches together’
READING, England — The Pope has commended Bible Societies for undertaking a task which is urgent and which draws members of different churches and ecclesiastical communities together.
Speaking in the Vatican to representatives from the UBS and the Bible Societies of Europe and the Middle East who met in Rome last week, Pope John Paul II said, “Whatever differences remain between [the churches], the promotion of the Bible is one point where Christians can work closely together for the glory of God and the good of the human family.”
At the special audience granted to the 70-strong gathering, he said, “For many years your Societies have been engaged in translating and distributing the text of Scripture, an essential part of proclaiming Christ to the world. For it is not just words which we must speak: it is the Word of God himself! It is Jesus Christ, promised in the Old Testament, proclaimed in the New, whom we must present to a world which hungers for him, often without knowing it.”
He said the urgency of the task demanded that Christians commit themselves to the cause of unity.
“Division among the disciples of Christ has certainly impaired our mission. Your meeting, therefore, draws together members of different churches and ecclesiastical communities united in the love of the Bible and in the desire that listening to the Word of God should become a life-giving encounter which draws from the biblical text the living Word which questions, directs and shapes our lives.”
Commenting on the occasion, David Bedford, the UBS Head of Global Development, said that the audience – and the Pope’s affirmation of the Bible Societies’ mission – had touched him deeply.
“The very fact that the Pope could give priority to meeting representatives from the Bibles Societies at a time when his health is not good reflected his commitment to the importance of the Bible and his support for the work of the Bible throughout the world,” he said.
Members of the Bible Society in Italy and of UBS also met the Pope in two ceremonies (see Latest News #172) marking the 25th anniversary of the interconfessional Common Language Translation of the New Testament in Rome last November. (355 words-POPE 26.4.02)
To order the photograph accompanying the Egypt story, please contact the UBS Photo Editor. All photographs are charged at US$5.00 each.Bible Society ‘amazed’ by bookfair sales
 |
| The crowded stall of the Bible Society of Egypt at the Cairo International Bookfair. Cairo, Egypt. Photo: Bible Society of Egypt (EGY02DJ_1.jpg) |
CAIRO, Egypt — Staff at the Bible Society of Egypt have been surprised and delighted by the sales figures which emerged at the end of the 2002 Cairo International Book Fair recently. With Egypt currently in the throes of an economic crisis and secular publishers reporting sales between 40 and 60 per cent down on the previous year, they were expecting the worst.
“When we calculated all the income from the four stalls at the Bookfair, and all our outlets across the country during the whole period during which we had our Bookfair sale, we found to our amazement that sales this year were more than 40 per cent higher than last!” said Ramez Attallah, the Society’s General Secretary.
The period of the bookfair saw sales of more than 250,000 cassette tapes, 36,000 video tapes, 19,000 CDs, 78,000 New Testaments and 24,000 Bibles.
Mr Atallah attributed the encouraging sales in part to the Society’s having developed “a variety of creative distribution channels”. Its eight bookshops include a stall in a sports club and another at the busiest rest stop along the highway linking the capital, Cairo, to Alexandria, the second-largest city (see World Report 363/28).
Recently the Society’s publicity has included press advertisements, television commercials and large billboards on the Cairo-Alexandria road. Another service the Society offers is the home delivery of orders.
“In spite of working 18 hours a day, the motorcycle rider was not able to keep up with all the orders that came in whenever we had an advertisement in the newspaper or on TV,” said Mr Atallah. “Eventually we had to hire a courier service to help meet the backlog of orders!”
He described how during last year’s bookfair one of the Society’s accountants gave his pastor the New Testament on cassette tape as a gift. The pastor, who already owned a copy, passed it on to his barber, a nominal Christian, who spent the whole year listening to the tapes and found his life being transformed by them.
“Even though the barber is illiterate,” said Mr Atallah, “he has not only become a committed Christian but is also very knowledgeable about the Scriptures and shows a great ability [with] different passages in the Scriptures. Haircuts now take a very long time while the barber discusses the Bible with his pastor!” (382 words-EGYPT 26.4.02)