Bringing God's Word to former Soviet countries

It’s the former Soviet eastern bloc and it covers a vast region stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Bering Sea, from the Arctic Circle to Central Asia. It has a population of over 400 million people who speak around 200 different languages.

Nicknamed the “God Pod”, MegaVoice is a small, hand held audio Scripture encoded on a microchip. Bible Society is using the solar-powered MegaVoice unit to bring God’s Word to the Nenets people or the “Shepherds” who live within Siberia’s Arctic Circle.

Home to more than 25 million people and 36 indigenous languages, it’s the size of Canada and comprises two thirds of the area of Russia. Stalin sent millions of prisoners here, into exile, many of whom never returned from its frozen wastelands.

A Bible Society worker (right) delivering Scriptures to a church Pastor, in Tuva Republic, southern Siberia.

Challenge is a word that seems to equate with being a Christian in Uzbekistan.  Lately the government has been fining Christians around $700, that’s about two month’s wages, if they’re found to possess a Bible.

The Aral Sea, once the scene of a thriving fishing industry, is now in its death throes.

Poverty, rather than riches, has been the outcome of freedom for many in Ukraine. Into the vacuum left by the demise of communism has come not joy but crime and immorality. The Chernobyl disaster still affects huge swaths of the country and the AIDS virus is beginning to take its toll.

Anna: “I’ve been a believer since 1996, but I could never read the Bible because of my poor eyesight. Having this New Testament means so much to me. I pray that I will be able to continue reading it every day for the rest of my life.”

A sad, grey and corrupt land, Kyrgyzstan has become known in recent months for the violence that has flared up against its second largest ethnic group, the Uzbeks.

An elderly woman walking home through the sludge takes time to show the Bible she received from Bible Society.

The global recession has hit hard in Latvia.

“For some years a consumerist way of thinking has prevailed in Latvia,” says a Bible Society worker, “but the economic crisis is forcing people to re-think their priorities. Many people have lost their employment and there is a lot of hardship, despair and even those contemplating suicide.”

Loading boxes of New Testaments to bring hope into the gloom of the economic crisis, in Latvia.

Deep within the remote, mountainous regions of Armenia are its border villages.
Many of these communities are surviving under great duress. They live under an uneasy ceasefire with neighbouring Azerbaijan.

Men from the village of Berekamavan.

Bible Society supporters in New Zealand have provided Scriptures for villagers living in remote South Pacific islands through the Dayspring Ministries team on their yacht Seahawk.

Immediately news came through of the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January, Bible Societies, including New Zealand, began to plan their response.

Bible House in Haiti, in ruins after the earthquake.

Mrs Edith Hamilton of Whitianga has been a Bible Society supporter for nearly 40 years. Visiting her recently, Bible Society’s Terry Hore showed her the very popular E100 book.

Edith, 104 years old!

Bible Society worldwide distributed more than 29 million Bibles during 2009. This is three percent more than the previous year.

There’s no mistaking this is a Bible distribution van. It's leaving Bible House in Lusaka, Zambia.

Sometimes one Bible has to be shared among four people in rural China.
In a village in Henan Province, live two sisters-in-law, Cao and Du. Both in their late forties, they are subsistence farmers growing mainly maize. Both are Christians but could not afford a Bible.

A Bible costs the equivalent of 40 eggs in China.

Belarus is a country caught up in a mire of backward looking leadership, economic decline and environmental catastrophe in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. Bible Society is finding that there is a great hunger for the Word, amongst young and the old.

Yelena, a young medical student reads from a Bible provided by Bible Society

The smile on this woman’s face says it all as she listens to the New Testament on a "Proclaimer" audio Scripture unit in Azerbaijan.