Window on the world:
Damascus Book Fair gives insight
into Bible Society work

Story and photos by Dag Smemo, UBS photojournalist

SYRIA — The annual Damascus International Book Fair is always a highlight for Bible Society work in Syria (see Latest News #260 and earlier reports). The 19th such event, at the Assad Library over August 25 – September 4, was no exception.

The ten-day Fair attracts half a million visitors – an amazing 50,000 a day walking in line, from stand to stand, through the small exhibition area. This year there were 360 exhibitors, including publishers from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Europe and the US.

George Andrea, who heads Bible work in Syria, at the Damascus International Book Fair in August 2005. Photo: UBS/Dag Smemo (SYR05DJ-104.JPG)

Popular

The Bible Society stand is popular with visiting ministers, the public and the authorities alike. George Andrea, head of Bible work in Syria, has built up a very good relationship between the authorities and the Bible Society. This is especially important, as all books imported to, or produced in Syria, have to get their approval.

“We have built up a confidence for many years, we don’t cause trouble,” he says. “We are here to make peace. We believe the Bible creates peace.”

The Book Fair is a window on the world of Bible work in Syria, where one can see the impact that it has made on those who visit and work the stand – the public, church leaders and members of their congregations, and the Bible Society staff and volunteers who give their time and energy to help bring a friendly, peaceful presence to this busy and significant event.

The volunteer

“I feel that it was God who called me to do this voluntary work for the Bible cause. Now
I can share the most important thing with my fellow countrymen…”

There is a compelling passion in the words of 29-year-old Fadi Doulatly as he explains why he is a regular volunteer for Bible work in Syria. An engineer in the Syrian oil company SPC, Fadi comes from an old Christian family belonging to the Syrian Catholic Church. He is helping the Bible Society at the Book Fair, giving up more than a week of his holiday to do so. This dedication is the fruit of a relationship that began 20 years ago:

“I have been in touch with the Bible Society since I was nine years old. I received a New Testament then, with a nice picture of a shepherd on the front. At the back of the book was the address for the Bible Society in Lebanon, and you were invited to write a letter if there was anything you were curious about. I had lots of questions, so I wrote to that address on several occasions. Every time I wrote I got a nice answer, once with a Bible in it, other times with different booklets or books.

“When I was 18, I started at the University in Damascus. One day . . . I passed the Bible shop. My only contact had been with the Bible Society in Lebanon . . . I was surprised and pleased to find a Bible shop close to the University where I was studying.”

Potential

Fadi had been coming to the Bible shop regularly for ten months when George Andrea spotted his potential and challenged him to think about volunteering.

“There are two reasons why I find it so good and right to be a volunteer at the Bible Society. One is to take the Word of God seriously when it says in the Gospel of Matthew: ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few’. We feel this is especially true concerning Syria. There is a great spiritual longing in the people, but we are only very few Christians left here. We who are here should share our faith with others. As Christians, we have to take responsibility for sharing our faith with people who are looking for a goal and a purpose for their lives. I want to make an effort.

“The other reason is that since I am going to talk to people about the Bible I need more knowledge of the Bible. My work for the Bible cause gives me more insight and experience, and makes it easier for me to help others. During these ten years of working as a volunteer I have grown as a Christian.”

Sacred ground

The personal dedication of volunteers like Fadi makes an enormous, unsung contribution to the Bible cause.

“… We feel a responsibility to carry on our heritage, to animate the Word for new generations. We live at the place where it all started, almost on sacred ground. I myself live only a few kilometres from where Paul had his vision. Now we are the ones Jesus has shown himself for. He has called us to be living witnesses in a world that is more and more marked by secularisation. We who are Christians are a clear minority, but we have been here ever since Paul first came here. It is a responsibility, but a privilege as well, to carry on the heritage.”

The church leader

“All denominations and Christians thank God for the Bible Society,” says Pastor Edward Awabdeh, a pastor in an Alliance church in Damascus. “The Bible Society helps us to get Bibles and other Christian literature. They do a service that is impossible for us as churches or individuals to do.”

Pastor Edward is one of many church leaders who come to the Bible Society stand at the Book Fair. He has come to buy books for his church: there are 150 members, but more than 200 people often attend the services.

A man lighting a candle at a Greek Orthodox church within St George's Monastery in Damascus, Syria. Photo: UBS/Dag Smemo (SYR05DJ-41.JPG)

Students sponsor Bibles

The Pastor’s church co-operates with the Bible Society to organise small book fairs at the University, run by Christian students. Sometimes, the price for Bibles or New Testaments is too high for poor students. Christian students have often made personal donations to subsidise the price for their fellow students. Even when the church has offered to pay for the difference, they have refused – preferring the money to be spent on enabling their fellow students to encounter the Word of God.

Meeting the many church leaders and members who come to the stand is an encouraging reminder that the work of the Bible Society reaches across the denominations and helps churches to engage their community with the Bible’s message.

The Bible Society leader

“I feel a calling to work in the Bible Society, a calling that is often confirmed when I meet Christian brothers and sisters all over Syria. There are many long days on the road . . . But in every denomination I am greeted as part of the family. It gives me strength to carry on doing this job.”

George Andrea is a modern Bible messenger in an old biblical country. The director of the Bible work in Syria, he spends 150 days a year travelling all over the country to meet congregations, booksellers, schools and others, to fill the need for Bibles and Christian literature. Like Fadi Doulatly, he started his Bible Society work as a volunteer. . .
“I had been working as a chemistry and physics teacher, and thought that would be my future. I considered taking a few years in the Gulf to make money to establish a family, but God wanted differently. The Bible Society challenged me to help out for about a month around Christmas. The engagement lasted a year, and I have now been permanently appointed for close to 20 years . . . I feel I am in the place God wants me to be.”

Side by side

Mr Andrea’s vast experience means that he can offer great insight into the challenges that face Christians in the region and how they can relate to their friends and neighbours.
“Christians and Muslims have lived happily side by side at all times here in Syria, maybe better than in any other country. We respect each other, and we have avoided such . . . actions that we find in some other countries. We sell a lot of Bibles to other Middle Eastern countries.

“Most of my friends are Muslims . . . If they are going to get to know Christianity, we have to spend time with them and make them get to know us and the teaching we believe in. I want to challenge Christian believers . . . to befriend neighbours and colleagues with a different religion than your own. It may be the only way for them to learn more about Christianity and the stories of the Bible.”