BSU and IBS help ‘meet the spiritual needs of people together’

KAMPALA, Uganda — The Bible Society of Uganda (BSU) and the International Bible Society (IBS) enjoy a fruitful and active collaboration, readily supplying their publications to each other and working together to try to change their audience’s perceptions about the way Bibles should be designed and distributed today.

Ezra S Ndagije (left), Marketing and Program Manager for the Bible Society of Uganda, discusses co-operative work with Christopher Yikii, Acting International Bible Society National Coordinator, in the IBS bookshop. Kampala, Uganda. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (UGA02DJ-43.JPG)

“We are using the vernacular translations from the Bible Society,” explains Christopher Yikii, Acting National Coordinator for IBS-Uganda, “and the Bible Society is receiving Bibles in the New International Version from us.

“We are grateful for the Luganda and other vernacular translations from the Bible Society, because there are missionaries and other people who come to us needing them. We keep them in stock to meet that need. We don’t have these languages in our [IBS] translations, so this is a great help.”

But there is more to the co-operation than just stocking each other’s Scriptures.

“We distribute these Bible Society products,” says Mr Yikii, “and Ezra [Ezra Ndagije, BSU Marketing/Program Manager] distributes our IBS products. But the point of this is that all these Scriptures are meeting the spiritual needs of people.”

The two ‘Bible men’ also encourage each other in dealing with similar challenges, among them the idea that Bibles should be free.“

Some people in Uganda still have the perception that the Bible is supposed to be free,” says Mr Yikii as Mr Ndagije nods in agreement. “This concept goes back to the days when the missionaries would get someone else to pay for the Bibles, then distribute them to the people free. The people didn’t consider that someone, somewhere had paid for those Bibles. To them, the fact that they were given out free meant that they were supposed to be free. The persistence of this perception makes Bible distribution difficult, especially in rural areas.”

Mr Yikii explains that IBS is trying to target the rural villages, and so a new culture needs to be developed among that audience.

“We stopped giving free Bibles,” he says, echoing UBS philosophy. “But if I am selling this Bible at 10,000 shillings (US$5.00), I would rather have someone pay even 500 shillings (US$0.25) than give it free. The idea is to develop the concept of buying your own Bible with some little money, even at a highly subsidised price.”

Dilemma

Mr Ndagije points out that both ministries face this dilemma, as well as the difficulty of getting people to accept changes in how the Scriptures are presented.

“People take a long time to adjust to a new situation, a new cover, or a new product,” he says, and his IBS counterpart agrees.

“When the NIV went to a soft cover, the movement was very slow, because people were used to the hard cover,” Mr Yikii says. “Once any new product comes, they take a long time to adjust to it. They assume there is nothing good about the new: ‘the old is what we are used to and we must stick with it.’ But over time we’ve discovered that, once encouraged to take on the new, they will normally accept it.”

“This is the same experience we have had in the Bible Society of Uganda,” Mr Ndagije reports, “even with something as minor as a change in the colour of the cover.”

The men agree that customers eventually accept change – and sometimes that brings its own challenges.

“You may think you have a slow-moving product, but all of a sudden, the demand shoots up and you become unable to meet it,” notes Mr Yikii. “A green Bible was difficult for many Ugandans to accept, for instance, because they were used to black. But we encouraged them, they accepted it, and now we are awaiting a new printing that will be both in green and another colour.”

Sometimes, it seems that the two ministries develop similar programs or emphases, but call them by different names.

“IBS-Uganda is involved in training programs,” Mr Yikii explains. “In one of our outreach programs we trained over 40 people in children’s ministry, for instance.

“We have a burden to equip people to use the Bible, because we have discovered that in Uganda, a person may buy a Bible but not know how to use it. But if I spend time teaching somebody how to use the Scriptures, I will be able to distribute even more Bibles.”

Scripture engagement

“In the UBS fellowship, we call that ‘Scripture engagement’!” Mr Ndagije explains to his IBS friend. But both men share a common goal.