With churches closed due to the Covid lockdown and large events prohibited, Bible work in Egypt fell significantly in 2020. But the digital world came to the rescue, with remarkable results.
In January 2020, before the pandemic struck, The Bible Society developed a new app guiding people to read though the whole Bible in a year. By December, 5.7 million chapters had been requested by 121,392 different users.
One user, Miriam, said she was delighted at the impact it had on her and her friends. ‘God opened a door for me to spread His word. I send the daily readings to 100 people and they are all happy receiving it’.
Thousands of young people and children have enjoyed taking part in Bible Society’s online Bible competitions, and Bible study WhatsApp groups have flourished. The Story audiobook, a Bible that reads like a novel in a single grand narrative, is now being recorded to help people engage more fully with God’s word. And Bible Society hopes to double its social media outreach in Egypt in 2021.
Ramez Attalaz, head of Bible Society in Egypt, commented: ‘These various digital media projects are in line with our historic objective of achieving the widest possible distribution of the Scriptures and helping people to interact with the word of God. And our next phase is more exciting still, as we look to build a Digital Media Hub with a huge indexed online library. So users may find not just the Bible text, but also audio readings, dramatised children’s stories, colouring pages, quizzes, study notes, educational videos, maps, and so on’.
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