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“At
one of the schools where we gave out class sets of Bibles last
year, a teacher told us that this was the best gift we could have
given to the school and the children.”
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PANAMA CITY, Panama — “We would very much like to distribute more Bibles in our prisons and schools, but we need money to pay for what we hand out,” says Marilyn Muñoz, who is in charge of fundraising at the Bible Society of Panama. “Our goal this year is to give out 5,000 Bibles to inmates and the same number to schools as class sets. Every Bible costs US$5. We are always looking for new ways of reaching donors. For example, this week we are sending out coupons to some of our contacts. Every coupon is made out for US$5. It will be interesting to see how many coupons we will be able to ‘sell’. For every coupon we sell, we have one more Bible to hand out.
“We have about 300 names on our donor register, but we are constantly working on getting more. We visit both congregations and companies, challenging them to support the Bible Society. As well as asking them to support distribution, we also ask for help to finance our costs for translating the Bible into the various indigenous languages spoken here in Panama. Right now we have five people translating the Old Testament into Cuna [More...]. This costs US$45,000 a year, and we need to cover some of these expenses. This translation project is being run in co-operation with Wycliffe Bible Translators, which covers much of these costs, but we have to collect some money as well.
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| Marilyn Muñoz, who is in charge of fundraising at the Bible Society of Panama. Panama City, Panama. Photo: UBS/Dag Smemo (PAN03DJ-136) |
“When we visit congregations we explain how the Bible Society works without any commercial support. Then we ask if they would like to become members of the Bible Society and be active supporters so that more people in Panama can hear the Word of God.
Best gift
“At one of the schools where we gave out class sets of Bibles last year, a teacher told us that this was the best gift we could have given to the school and the children. But we have to find people who are willing to pay for what we hand out. We get some financial support from Bible friends in other countries as well, and we are very grateful for this. Without this support we would never be able to run such a large distribution program.” (WR 384/11 - 3.04)