Our newest English Bibles have arrived, and we are delighted!
This order of Bibles was placed in September 2021, and due to a backlog of orders at the printer, it took extra-long to ship. We also complicated the process by an additional order of Chichewa Bibles (for Malawi) in November and requested they ship along with the English.
In all, we ordered 30,000 English Bibles and 12,000 Chichewa Bibles. Only 1,000 of the English Bibles were shipped to our offices in Harrisonville, PA. The rest were shipped to Africa, 15,000 to Ghana, 18,000 to Malawi, 6,000 to Kenya, and 2,000 to Ethiopia.
We have several reasons for ordering large quantities of Bibles like this. First, we can get a significant price reduction. For this order, we paid an average of $4.53 each for printing and shipping. If you do the math, that comes out to $190,204.00. Yes, this was certainly a significant purchase, and we have God to praise for providing the means to purchase the Bibles. By comparison, we paid $11.31 per Bible in our last purchase of Chichewa Bibles in Malawi.
The second reason we have for having our Bibles printed is that we can add a few extra pages explaining the Gospel and encouraging the believer. We also added our logo to the front and spine. Then we included a phrase on the back “This Bible is free.” Our hope is that this will discourage recipients from selling them. There are occasional reports of our Bibles being sold.
Lastly, working with Worldwide Printing to print Bibles allows our distribution partners to stock up and not request new purchases quite as often.
In previous orders, we struggled to find a readable layout and font. Many recipients are poor and unable to acquire good reading glasses, so it is important to have the largest possible print; however, this is hardly economical, so we strive for a compromise of price and size.
In this printing, we used the 1995 version of the New American Standard Bible. We chose the NASB over the King James Version since many recipients speak and read English as their second language, and we felt it may be easier to read. Some versions have expensive royalties; thankfully, the NASB does not.
In Isaiah 55:10-11, God promises that His Word will never return empty.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it produce and sprout,
And providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
So will My word be which goes out of My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it.” (NASB)
Here at Heralds of Hope, we are trusting that these Bibles will be used to produce wonderful fruit in the lives of many believers.
-Tony High
Donate towards the distribution of Bibles.