Bible Marathon

Hi all,

This week HCJB, The Voice of the Andes, and The International Bible Society in Ecuador launched a special joint project..... a Bible Marathon. What is a Bible Marathon? We are asking people from all over Ecuador to help us write the Bible in Spanish by hand. The catch is, each person can only write 1 verse. That means that over 30,000 people will have to help us write this Bible.

The Bible started at the HCJB studios in Quito and is there through today, saturday. Then it will begin to make its way around the city of Quito until the end of October visiting churches and Christian book stores where people can come to add their verse. After October, it will begin to circulate around the country. We will use the radio station to inform people of the location of the Bible. We expect this project to take a full year to complete.

Why do a Bible Marathon? One reason is to unify the church in Ecuador. We will need the participation of many people from many different churches to complete the Bible. Last year the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association did a "Festival of Hope" here in Quito and this year they did one in Guayaquil. These two events brought the church together in a way that has not been seen in recent history. We are hoping the Bible Marathon will be the next great unifying event.

The second main reason for the project to promote the reading of God's Word. We are asking each participant to give a free will donation to the project. The Bible Society will use their half of the proceeds to buy Bibles which they will give to HCJB to distribute throughout the country. HCJB will use our half of the proceeds to cover our air-time expenses as we follow the Bible around the country, letting people know when the Bible is in a location near them.

Many people have already come by our studios to write their verse. I stopped by today and the studio was completely packed with people. There was standing room only. Word is getting out about this project and people are coming from all over to add their verse. We started the project at 4 different books in the Bible; Gensis, Job, Mathew, and Romans. I started off the book of Job and Ruth followed me with Job 1:2. We have had over 1000 people participate in just these first 3 days.

Please pray that this project will fulfill its goals of unifying the church in Ecuador and promoting the reading of God's Word.