Street children and orphans benefit from Ukraine’s first Bible Day

Based on a report by Stein Mydske, UBS Fundraising Consultant

KIEV, Ukraine — Bringing Christmas cheer to some of the most vulnerable members of society was one of the priorities of the Ukrainian Bible Society as it prepared to celebrate the first ever nationally recognised Bible Day on October 26 last year. And while the Society hoped for some success as it launched its first fundraising campaign as part of the celebrations, it never dreamed that it would receive such a rapid and positive response from churches and donors.

Andrei Klipenstein, the Society’s Finance Manager, was a little sceptical as the Bible Society sat down to plan a campaign around Bible Day. “Frankly, I did not expect much out of fundraising,” he admits. Living in a country that is still struggling to recover from decades of communist rule, and where the average salary is only about US$40 a month, his scepticism was understandable.

To his surprise and delight, however, donors responded generously, and within a week had given US$19,047 – US$1,000 more than budgeted for – towards a project to provide free Children’s Bibles for thousands of street children and orphans during the Christmas season. There are an estimated 800,000 street children in Ukraine’s major cities, and well over 100,000 children living in orphanages.

Encouraging

Much of the money was collected during Bible Day church services across the country, during which special collection envelopes, printed by the Bible Society with funds from Opportunity 21, were handed out. As well as giving money, people also wrote their names and addresses on the envelopes, which the Bible Society has added to its donor database. Equally encouraging were the personal letters that people included in the envelopes, congratulating the Society for its work.

Television viewers, too, were given the opportunity to donate money to the project through an advert, which included the Bible Society’s bank details. In fact, the publicity generated by Bible Day was quite extensive, with coverage of the celebrations and programmes about the Bible and the work of the Society broadcast on radio and television in several regions. In Lviv, Scripture sales soared by 30 per cent in the week following Bible Day.

The rapid and positive response from donors was partly due to the enthusiasm of the churches for the Society’s plans for Bible Day. In fact, the Society had to print many more copies than planned of the Bible Day posters, brochures and collection envelopes due to the high demand for them by the churches. One denomination was so keen to have enough brochures to hand out that it covered all the costs for the printing of 50,000 extra copies.

The Bible Day church services were followed by afternoon and evening Bible meetings, which attracted many thousands of people who gathered to listen to choirs and hear church leaders from a variety of denominations speak about the importance of the Bible. In some places, local authorities and government representatives also spoke about the Bible and its power in their lives.

In some regions, Bible Day celebrations will continue into January, when Christmas is traditionally celebrated in Ukraine. In Kharkov, for instance, orphans and street children will receive their new Bibles during a Bible celebration at the Sports Centre in early January. Along with their Bibles, they will also receive sweets and special gifts prepared for them by prisoners, who took part in a special Bible celebration held for them in November. A distribution of Bibles to people in public service was held in October.

In Odessa, more than 4,000 people attended an outdoor Bible meeting in October, which was part of a week-long Bible celebration program. The week’s highlights included a public reading of the Bible by 300 people over a three-day period. One Mennonite woman was so moved by what she saw that she returned home to her village and walked from house to house to collect money for the Bible Society.

In Lviv, local businessmen responded positively to Bible Day, with one printer offering to print 4,000 Bible Society calendars for 2004 free of charge. Bible Day posters were displayed in most public places, generating a lot of interest. In one local hospital a doctor commented to Bible Society staff, “It’s good to see the Bible on the wall instead of an advert for Marlboro!”