Libraries offer key to distribution in region polluted by ChernobylThe following article concerns long-term programs of the Bible Society of the Republic of Belarus among people who are still experiencing the effects of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl. By Anatoly Greben, BSRB Charity Projects Officer
MINSK, Belarus — The Bible Society of the Republic of Belarus (BSRB) is continuing to find libraries the most effective way of distributing Christian literature to people in the areas of the country affected by the Chernobyl disaster. The Society’s ministry to people affected by the events following April 26, 1986, is a long-running one. On that day an explosion at the nuclear reactor in northern Ukraine expelled eight tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Ukraine has since estimated that some 8,000 people died as a result. People living in the surrounding areas of Ukraine and Belarus have shown a greatly increased incidence of thyroid cancer, and genetic mutations have been discovered in children subsequently born to parents who were exposed to the radioactivity. AnxietyThrough reading the Holy Scriptures the victims of the disaster, who are still struggling with tremendous psychological burdens, illnesses and anxiety about their own lives and those of their children, are helped to find peace of mind. We in the Bible Society have decided
that local libraries offer the best means of getting local people acquainted
with God’s Word. Our strategy helps the Scriptures to reach people who
are really interested in them and the books do not stay in one place,
but circulate, making it possible for each book to be read many times
by different people. A third factor is that the people are generally
too poor to buy books: official statistics say that people spend 70
per cent of their salaries on food.
Sixteen years after Chernobyl, the contamination lives on. The areas of Belarus most seriously affected are those of Gomel and Mogilev, and parts of Brest oblasts. Assuming that in every oblast (for administrative purposes, Belarus is divided into six oblasts) there are about a thousand libraries, including those in remote rural villages, we reckon that our distribution strategy will make a considerable number of Belarusians familiar with the Bible. New materialIn the first part of a recent distribution, a party of BSRB staff, together with Philip Poole, Business Development Director of the British and Foreign Bible Society, presented all 20 libraries of Gomel with sets of Christian literature. Each set consisted of about 50 to 60 books, including some 20 Bibles of various kinds – for both adults and children, New Testaments, stories from the life of Jesus, Bible encyclopaedias, atlases and other reference books. We also presented the Gomel Central Library with a special bookstand to allow the new material to be better displayed. Letter of thanksIn Mogilev, we gave literature to 19 libraries, and in Mogilev oblast to 22 more. On our visit to Brest, staff from all 12 libraries in the region came to meet the Bible Society workers. Whilst there we watched the first readers come in and borrow the new acquisitions. Not long afterwards, the Society received a letter of thanks from A V Romanjuk, the Director of Libraries for Brest. It read: “Brest Centralised Library System, comprising 12 public libraries, offers heartfelt gratitude, on behalf of 47,000 readers, to the Bible Society of the Republic of Belarus for having added to its library resources literature which will contribute in so many ways to the spiritual education of the users of the city’s libraries. Among our readers there are many people who are suffering from exposure to radiation because they were involved in the ‘clean-up’ operation at or near the Chernobyl reactor in the wake of the catastrophe. This literature will help them to find spiritual peace.” (An earlier account of the BSRB’s Chernobyl project can be found in World Report 357/16.) (WR 368/4 - 6.02) [PHOTOS] |
