'Bible Across America' Extends Cross-Country Tour
After traveling more than 15,600 miles for nearly 5 months, the "Bible Across America" tour will continue for at least another 3,500 miles after extending its run one month longer than originally planned.
Since its launch on Sept. 30, 2008, the cross-country tour has been gathering handwritten verses from people from all ages and walks of life to create the first NIV Bible penned by 31,173 people across the nation.
The "Bible Across America" tour was originally scheduled to conclude Feb. 12 in San Diego at the National Pastors Convention, which, like the tour, is an effort of publishing giant Zondervan. As of Sunday afternoon, however, the schedule posted on the tour's site has listed 17 additional cities across the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
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The new final destination, Dallas, will be reached on Mar. 17 and is scheduled to mark the tour's end on Mar. 22. The tour's landing in Dallas takes place during the Christian Book Expo, a first-of-its-kind event for the Christian publishing industry.
"We extended the tour because Zondervan is exhibiting at the Christian Book Expo in Dallas," Bible Across America spokeswoman Tara Powers told The Christian Post, "so we want to give everyone there an opportunity to contribute to the Bible Across America project."
"At the same time, we aren't collecting verses as quickly as originally planned due to a few different reasons – weather, cancellation of some events due to mechanical problems and smaller turnouts in some cities," she added.
Since September, the "Bible Across America" team has been traveling across the country in a 42-foot RV donated by Michigan-based Spartan Motors, looking to find 31,173 individuals to contribute a verse from the Bible on actual thin-stock Bible paper as a way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the bestselling NIV Bible, the most-used English language translation.
To date, however, only 15,000 verses have been collected, according to Powers.
Despite the change in plans, the tour's conclusion looks to remain the same. Upon completion, the collection of the handwritten verses will be published as a complete America's NIV Bible and sold in stores nationwide as soon as this year.
Zondervan also plans to create two original editions, one of which will be offered to the Smithsonian Institution. The other edition will be auctioned off to benefit the International Bible Society, which owns the copyright to the NIV.
On Monday, the "Bible Across America" tour was scheduled to stop by Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., before making its way up north. Other stops in California this month include Santa Barbara, Fresno, San Jose and San Francisco.
