Eastern European Mission

A Non-Profit Group Supplies Bibles to Former Communist Countries

Nov 11, 2008 Ronald G Falconberry

Government leaders in the former Soviet Union are requesting Bibles for use in their public schools and youth camps to teach moral integrity and character building.

From 1918 through 1989, the communist government of the Soviet Union promoted state atheism, banning God and the Bible in all of the countries they controlled or influenced. For the last 10 years, however, the countries of the former Soviet Union have been requesting that a non-profit group, Eastern European Mission (EEM) place Bibles and biblical literature in their public schools.

How EEM Began

In 1961, six couples from Abilene Christian University in Texas moved to Vienna, Austria with the goal of setting up a base of operations for smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union. This group of Christians printed Bibles in different languages and utilized a variety of methods to send the materials behind the Iron Curtain. In 1974, the group purchased a four story building in Vienna which was used to house two large presses on the ground floor and was utilized as a church, offices and an apartment for the missionaries.

By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, millions of Bibles had been smuggled into the Soviet Union. At that time, EEM expanded their printing operations to include local print shops inside the disbanded Soviet Union; by 2007, they were using 16 different locations. This not only gave the organization more flexibility and saved money but helped the local economies, too.

Bibles for Russia

In the early 1990s, a group of Christian teachers went to the Siberian state of Altai where they taught the Bible in university libraries using Russian translators. Some time later, Dr. Vladimir Skovorodnikov, the Minister of Education for the Altai region, approached EEM asking them to create a morals and character curriculum that could be used by 436,000 public school children from kindergarten to the twelfth grade. He stated that the “Bible should be the foundation to bring up the next generation of Russian children.”

EEM developed a program consisting of 10 Bible stories translated into Russian which was placed, at no cost, in all of Altai’s public schools followed by Bibles, a Beginner’s Bible and a Newcomer’s Bible, which was designed to teach the teachers. Since 1998, Dr. Skovorodnikov has worked with EEM to place similar materials at no charge into public schools in the states of Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Omsk, with a combined student population of approximately one million.

Bibles for Ukraine

In 2004, Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko announced his Ethics of Faith Initiative and charged the Ministry of Education to develop a special course to teach biblical ethics. The initiative has not been officially acted on by the country’s Parliament but several Ukrainian school regions have begun implementing the plan to provide character training on their own.

EEM offered to place Bibles and biblical literature, free of costs, into the public schools of the state of Donbass and the Ministry of Education accepted the offer. The materials, to be placed in the school's libraries, will be used by 366,000 children in the state’s 1,188 public schools.

Additional Requests

In addition to supplying biblical materials to public schools, EEM has been invited to bring Bibles to over 800 youth summer camps which can accommodate over one million children. EEM developed a pre-teen Bible designed for use by the youth attending the camps. The organization also conducts seminars to teach teachers how to use the Bible to teach ethics and morality in the classroom.

During 47 years of existence, EEM has:

• Translated and printed Bibles in over 20 languages.
• Printed and distributed over 8 million Bibles and related materials throughout eastern Europe and Russia for use in churches, public schools, orphanages, correspondence Bible school courses and by missionaries.
• Supplied Bibles and character building material for use by over 1.4 million children in 6,950 Russian schools.

EEM Funding

EEM is a ministry of the non-denominational churches of Christ and does not charge for placing Bibles or related literature. To fund the publishing and delivery costs for such wide-ranging needs, EEM relies on the generous donations of the churches of Christ by visiting congregations, conducting mail campaigns and hosting fund-raising dinners throughout the United States.

For specific, large scale projects, such as supplying moral-based literature for entire school systems, EEM also promotes Million Dollar Sunday events (MDS) where they attempt to raise at least one million dollars on a specific Sunday. Four separate MDS events were held from 1998 through 2006 to supply materials to the Russian schools raising over $5.3 million. Another MDS was held in September, 2008, to help supply Bibles for the Donbass schools, but the results of that event will not be known until the end of the year.

Eastern European Mission stands ready to provide the Bible and biblical literature to everyone living in eastern Europe who seeks to learn what the Bible has to reveal about God and how to incorporate moral values in one’s life.

The copyright of the article Eastern European Mission in Protestantism is owned by Ronald G Falconberry. Permission to republish Eastern European Mission in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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