One of the projects that we have been supporting for a number of years is the “Bibles for China’s Millions” project. There is a huge demand for Bibles in China and the China partnership (the Bible Society in China) have seen this need and are working to provide as many bibles as they can to the Chinese population.
Many poor Christians cannot afford a Bible, yet there is a culture of sharing Scripture to evangelise. This can result in Christians giving portions of their Bible away, and often portions of Scripture are copied by hand to be distributed to friends and family as a way of sharing the Gospel.
One of those Christians who could not afford a Bible was Elder Ye, whose testimony the China Partnership recently told us. Ye became a Christian after being taught about God by his mother. He grew in his faith and became more and more involved in church, eventually becoming the elder. Yet he still only had a small portion of the Bible to study.
“When I first became a Christian, I had only one Gospel portion, that was the Gospel of Matthew. Later I received the Old Testament. It was not until later that a preacher gave me a full Bible. I regarded it as a treasure and read through the Bible. It took me only two months to finish reading the whole Bible,” Elder Ye recalled.
Ye’s story is not unique. There are Christians all over China who are desperate to have a full copy of God’s word for themselves. This project helps to bring bibles to those who would otherwise not have access to one.