Mission News: It's In the Drawer!

By Norm Burkey

Having seen Gideon Bibles in hotel and hospital rooms, are you curious as to how they got there?

Gideons International is an organization of business and professional Christian men, including medical and police, who, along with their wives, have a mission to bring men, women, boys and girls to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. There are two primary focuses - placing scriptures and personal witnessing.

Bibles are placed in hotels, schools, nursing homes, hospitals, medical offices and prisons. Locally, we distribute Bibles annually at Towson and Morgan State Universities. Bibles are also provided to the Chaplain (a Jewish Rabbi) at the Baltimore City Detention Center. Each May we travel to Ocean City to replenish the scriptures in hotels and motels.

There are 160,000 members in 179 countries, who annually distribute more than 60,000,000 scriptures in 82 languages. While 80% of the funds raised come from the United States, we view each member in the non-supporting countries as local missionaries. Many of them carry out their Bible distributions under extremely difficult circumstances.

Gideons see themselves as an arm of the local church. Members' dues cover all the administrative costs of our organization and therefore, all donated funds are used to purchase Bibles. Fund raising activities include special offerings during Sunday morning services, inclusion in missions budgets, encouraging church members to donate scriptures through the use of "In Memory," "In Honor," and "Thinking of You" cards and Faith Fund donations by Gideon members.

Currently, I serve as Chaplain of our local camp and my main responsibility is to conduct our Saturday morning prayer time. Gideons all over the world gather each Saturday morning at 7:00 am to pray for the ministry and other concerns.

I help call on churches to obtain appointments for church services and regularly present the "Gideon story" to local churches during their "Moments for Mission." I have also participated in a distribution at Towson University and the replacement of Bibles at a local motel.

Why am I a Gideon? Despite the fact that the Gideons have distributed over 1 billon Bibles since our founding in 1901 and distribute more than 60,00,000 Bibles each year, we cannot meet the demand. We heard a recent report that 200,000,000 believers in Africa do not have a Bible and that 35-40% of the earth's population has not heard the gospel message. As it says in John 4:35, "I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." It gives me great joy to partner with Christians all over the world to distribute God's Word, but it is sobering to realize how many brothers and sisters do not have a Bible of their very own.