Developing Bible Work in West

Balkan Area
Background and vision of the “West Balkan Partnership” – a joint
venture of the Bible Societies in Albania, Croatia, Macedonia,
Slovenia and Serbia

Overview
The West Balkans Partnership is a joint venture, which has come about as a
result of genuine Christian fellowship among the above five Bible Societies
during the last decade. All of us share similar political, social and religious
challenges and opportunities in our work and have co-operated in practical ways
in the past. As a result we believe that by collaborating together in joint projects
we will thrive and be more effective. In doing so we will be better witnesses to
the Christian message of reconciliation and fellowship to the Balkan society
which has been characterized by ethnic and religious hatred.
This document contains some background information about the circumstances
in which we work and a vision of our common work in the future.

Background: Our Current Situation

Our BSs have discovered many similarities in our general circumstances:
• Historically, we have been under Ottoman or Austrian empire, and mostly
influenced by both.
• These are small countries with small donor and sales market, which means
existence of our BSs is under question.
• The majority Church (Catholic or Orthodox) is without a tradition of donating
for the Bible cause; most of its adherents are nominal Christians, without
interest in the Bible.
• Small protestant/evangelical presence, which would normally be the base of
support for the BSs.
• A communist past, which left a strong secular influence on the society as a
whole.
• A mixture of ethnic and religious minorities.
• A lot of separation because of the recent war (the breakup of Yugoslavia).
• Mostly similar languages.

And also more specifically, there are commonalities related to the BS work:
• We have a shared burden for the region.
• We act in a fraternal spirit, we want to seek solutions together.
• We all have ongoing Bible translation or revision projects.
• We all have a lack of common language translation.
• We face severe problems with competition.
• We have unresolved property issues.

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What follows are some basic figures about our Bible Societies (for year 2010).

Albania
Population: 3.5 mio
Religion: 60% Muslim, 20% Orthodox, 10% Catholic, 0.5% Evangelical; the rest
unaffiliated
BS yearly distribution: 10,000 NTs (BS doesn't have the full Bible yet)
BS staff: 1 full time + 2 part time students
BS offices: owned, loan under repayment
BS is on the “Core Presence Fund”

Croatia
Population: 4.5 mio
Religion: 90% Catholic, 4.5% Orthodox, 1.5% Muslim, 0.4%
Protestant/Evangelical
BS yearly Bible distribution: 6,000
BS staff: 1 full time + 1 half time
BS offices: rented

Macedonia
Population: 2.1 mio
Religion: 64% Orthodox, 33.3% Muslim, 0.44 Catholic, 0.25%
Protestant/Evangelical
BS yearly Bible distribution: 1,800
BS staff: 2 half time
BS offices: rented
BS is on the “Core Presence Fund”

Serbia
Population: 8 mio
Religion: 86% Orthodox, 3% Muslim, 1% Catholic, 1% Protestant/Evangelical; the
rest unaffiliated
BS yearly Bible distribution: 10,000
BS staff: 2 full time
BS offices: rented

Slovenia
Population: 1.9 mio
Religion: 59% Catholic, 2% Orthodox, 2% Muslim, 1% Protestant/Evangelical; the
rest unaffiliated
BS yearly Bible distribution: 9,000
BS staff: 4 full time
BS offices: rented

Bible Societies of Croatia and Serbia are also responsible for the Bible work in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bible Society of Serbia is responsible for the work in
Montenegro, and, together with Bible Society of Albania, for Kosovo.

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Vision: Our Future Orientation

We are in the process of rethinking our work, grounding our identity more firmly
in the Bible mission. On our meetings we have agreed to the following mission
statement:

Developing Bible work in our area, aiming to bring transformation and

reconciliation through the biblical message.

Because of the many things we have in common and because of our willingness
to work together, we have realized that we can present the totality of our work
as one common story, under one broad program or paradigm, which embraces
all that we do as national Bible Societies, including the specifics where we may
differ. We therefore made a unanimous decision: we commit ourselves to
consolidate our work and efforts in all the areas of our activity where this is
reasonable and profitable.

We have currently considered the following areas of joint work:

1. Bible Production
We have been consolidating our orders for printing and reprinting of our Bibles
since 2006.
Because of financial difficulties, many of us have problems with producing
adequate amounts of Scriptures. We see two possible solutions to this:
1. A BS with Bible printing capabilities could partner with us to produce cca.
60,000 Bibles in a year at a reduced price or free of charge as a grant to
develop the Bible mission in our area.
2. We could seek a donation (or, possibly, long-term loan) towards our
Production Fund in the value of $200,000. In order to achieve maximum
transparency, we would like it to be administered by UBS SO and/or the
donating BS. The Fund would operate with 2-yearly repayment.
Alternately, we could present our work as a mission to meaningfully distribute
300,000 Bibles in 5 years and ask for appropriate support.

2. Development of New Products

We have agreed that whenever one of us considers a new product, he/she will
inform all others about the intention, before proceeding with production. This will
allow others to join in the choice and production, if there is a need for a similar
product in their country.
We have already identified 2 concrete new products that could be produced
together:
1. A popular study Bible (or New Testament). Many in the group expressed a
need for it, since nothing of this sort is available in our countries and people
lack tools to approach the biblical text. ABS’s Learning Bible (NT or NT with
Psalms would be produced) was considered.
=> Please see project 70302 “NT for Everyone”.
2. My First Bible – Albania, Macedonia and Slovenia are considering
(re)producing it; it can be done as a coedition, which will reduce the costs, or
even as a partnership with Biblica (former IBS).

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The same procedure would be followed for consolidating the reprints of existing
products.

3. Bible Engagement/Advocacy
We are already cooperating in some areas:
• Some of us produce Lectio Divina material for Bible engagement in the
Catholic Church.
• A similar product for the Orthodox Church is being developed in Slovenia,
with the possibility of Serbia and others to join in.
We are discovering that in this area it is essential to develop partnerships with
interested individuals and groups within the two majority Churches, which are
already committed to the Bible work and which usually need the help and
support of BS. A good example of this is the Bible Marathon in Slovenia, which is
successfully engaging ever greater numbers of Catholics, especially the youth.
Another encouraging example is the cooperation between the Orthodox Church
and BS of Serbia in preparation for the celebration of 1700 years of Milan’s edict.
It is instructive that in both cases the partnering Churches contribute financially
as well, which is otherwise almost unimaginable in our contexts.
Therefore there is a great need for common projects for Bible advocacy in our
area, with specific concrete details for each of our countries. They need to be
directed against “Bible illiteracy” in our secularized society and can be linked
with production of popular Bible material, which is accessible to non academic
audience (see 2.1 above). Again, partnerships with interested groups and
individuals within the majority Churches will play the key role in these projects,
since they would be the ones to promote and undertake the activity.
=> Please see project 70300 “Calling the Harvesters”.

4. Fundraising
In our circumstances, fundraising can only be developed together with Bible
advocacy, as the examples above show. Although in our area there is no
tradition whatsoever of donating for the Bible cause (neither in majority
Churches nor in the protestant/evangelical minorities) or even for other charity
work (this is one of the consequences of communism), we have seen – even with
the limited resources that we currently have – some positive trends which show
that growth in this area is possible. With steady investment and development of
this area, we could slowly change the prevailing culture of non-giving among
local Christians.
We have considered a common fundraising project where we would locally
gather funds for free distribution of Scriptures to socially marginalized and
endangered groups (prisoners, refugees, unemployed, drug-addicts, etc.). A
continuous project of this kind is already taking place in Slovenia. This project
would build upon successful Bible advocacy events (see 3 above).
=> Please see project 70301 “Awakening God’s Word”.

5. Church Relations
In our countries, the Bible Society is effectively the only place where different
Churches meet and cooperate. The General Secretaries of our BSs represent all
the majority Churches and most of the minorities as well. We feel this is our

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strength both internally (we can help each other) and externally (we embody the
unity around the Bible cause).
Good Church relations are crucial for developing Bible advocacy and Fundraising,
and vice versa: good Bible advocacy programs can strengthen the Church
relations, especially if we do them together, across several countries.

6. Offices
Because we are all relatively new BSs, which operate in small countries, we have
unresolved issues with our premises. Because we don’t own our offices, we need
to move frequently and pay high rents, or (in the case of the one BS that already
owns the premises) struggle to repay the loans. This has a debilitating effect on
our mission, since it consumes a lot of time and energy of our already small staff.
Any help in this area would be an important support for our mission, since it
would allow us to use our resources for our main activity, and give us a basic
security and assurance of our presence in the countries where we serve.

***

Our Bible Societies are committed to develop the program for this consolidated
work on our regular formal and informal meetings, with the help of our
colleagues and partners in the UBS Fellowship. Our aim is to develop this vision
further and to seek practical steps of finding new ways of supporting and
growing our work in the future.

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