Bible Marathon Creates Giant Holy Book
A historic Bible marathon to produce the largest handwritten Bible in Ecuador has completed about 60 chapters of the Bible after one month.
The giant project, co-sponsored by International Bible Society/Send The Light (IBS-STL) and HCJB Global, will involve more than 30,000 Ecuadorians of all ages each writing one verse at a time to complete the Bible in a year's time.
"The blessing is that people are coming to us to say, 'God had something that He wanted to say to me with the verse that I copied,'" Pablo del Salto, Ecuador director of International Bible Society, said Thursday.
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The Bible is divided into four blocks – Genesis to Esther, Job to Malachi, Matthew to Acts, and Romans to Revelations – which are simultaneously circulated in Christian bookstores and local churches within the same city.
There are 24 provinces in Ecuador and the books will be taken to each of the provincial capitals staying four weeks if the city is large and only two weeks if it is a smaller city. Currently, the books are being circulated in the capital Quito.
About 15 chapters of each of the four sections have been completed, according to Ralph Kurtenbach, the HCJB communications liaison in Ecuador. He noted that on average about 100-120 verses are completed each day since the project launched on Sept. 27.
Under the motto "For the evangelization of Ecuador, More Bibles, More Good News," participants of all ages, gender, social status, and religious beliefs are being invited to write a verse in the largest hand-copied Bible in Ecuador.
According to the CIA World Factbook, over 95 percent of the population in Ecuador is Christian.
The event aims to unite the church in Ecuador, receive voluntary donation for furthering the Gospel through distribution of Bibles and on-air Gospel programs, and to provide the Ecuadorian Congress and president with facsimile copies of the completed Bible.
Tatiana De La Torre, director of local radio at the HCJB radio station, said the marathon hopes for "evangelization in our society and to reveal the relevance of the Word of God for personal change as well as social change in our country."
In mid-December, the books will be taken to Tulcan, Ecuador – the provincial capital in the extreme northern Ecuadorian province of Carchi.
The original handwritten copy will be displayed at HCJB Global's Latin American Ministry Center in Quito next fall.
