Mission Update from Athens! (And last week for TTW stickers!)

Hello from Athens!

United Bible Societies Summit!

Pastor Kris here with an update on our travels and adventures at the United Bible Societies' DBL Summit* here in Athens. It has been... awesome. Seriously, so much amazing stuff, I don't even know where to start. First off, I should tell you what this is all about. The United Bible Societies is an alliance of national Bible Societies from countries all over the world. The representatives gathered here in one room are from every corner of the planet, speaking more languages than you can probably think of. Men and women from a wide variety of denominational and cultural backgrounds, all gathered in our shared faith in God's Word, and shared mission to bring it to the world. I have to say - I'm a little bit floored and a lot humbled to even be included in this bunch.

St. Chapelle! The stained glass on this 800 year old church in Paris
has Bible stories on every panel - every column is a Bible book!
It's old school TTW! (and that's a TTW sticker on the bottle)

Last Week for TTW Stickers! Before I tell you more about the Athens summit, just want to remind you there's still a week left to get your TTW sticker. Every donor in the month of June will get an awesome die-cut TTW sticker in the mail. If you can't donate, just send us an email at info@throughtheword.org with your mailing address with the subject "Sticker Please!" (or anything like that). Ends July 1st! Head to mogiv.com/ttw to donate. Okay, back to Athens...

UBS Summit Stories: The gathering has a number of purposes. Many of the people here are working in Bible translation, bringing the Word into languages that don't have it. That work - is phenomenal. Seriously - a revolution has taken place over the last decade in the advancement and acceleration of Bible translation for the more than 1 billion people who have no Bible in their native language. I am truly amazed, and it has happened largely as a result of alliance and partnership that has arisen between ministry groups that previously worked separately. It's amazing what we can get done when we work together.

Have you been Van-Gogh'in through the Word?

So where does TTW come in? We're not translating the Bible into new languages, but we are getting a vision to translate our TTW Audio Guides into more languages. God opened up some connections for us through the American Bible Society, and we were invited to join in for this conference - to see what connections God might bring together. And He's been doing it! We shared the vision of TTW with the whole group, and all about what God is doing through our crazy little idea in our own language. Then we told them, If you think this would work in your language and your culture, let's work together. We'll give you all our content and all our resources free of charge. The response was awesome, and we're already moving forward to work with Bible Societies from Norway and Mongolia, and talking more with additional society and mission leaders from Slovenia, the Netherlands, Romanian, and Brazil. We'll move forward one step at a time, but we believe this is a huge door opening for TTW around the world. So please keep us in prayer! Meetings continue through Wednesday (then we're headed to Israel!), so your prayers are super appreciated.

We'll be posting pictures on facebook.com/throughtheword - so please follow us there. You can also go back and check out the crazy adventures of the TTW water bottle on our way here. (Can you believe it was cheaper to stop in Paris and Rome than it was to go straight to Athens! We saved money on airfare and saw amazing places - how cool is that!).  Anyhoo - check us out there, and we'll see you back in the Word!

Always in Christ,
Pastor Kris  = )

This is a replica of the Michaelangelo's David.
(Note: TTW bottle does not want to be a prude, nor an
art critic. He just feels awkward about posting 
naked statue parts. Just trying to help.)

*If you're wondering, DBL stands for Digital Bible Library. Basically, they connect Bible copyright holders in various languages with Bible apps and websites like ours to help us work out the licensing agreements necessary to deliver the Bible online.