It is always amazing to prayerfully watch as God continues to bless the work of Together Chicago and Chicagoland United in Prayer! Late summer and early fall of 2021, Christy Davis, Senior Regional Director of Biblica for the USA, and I talked about how to facilitate bringing the Word of God in a strategic, yet novel way to Chicago. As we talked about the city and all the challenges; high murder rates, police injustices and how Chicago’s Youth were faring through its school system in the age-of-Covid. We talked about the role that Reach-for-Life might play but then in a Divine moment of inspiration, we wondered what would happen if, through Chicagoland United in Prayer’s winter prayer gathering, Chicago edition Bibles in both English and Spanish could be placed in the hands of those who had planned to attend. The 2022 Winter Prayer event would have been our first live and in-person prayer event in two years, hosted at New Life Covenant Church Southeast.
The hustle began to choose a translation, a cover, write a forward, and translate it to Spanish. Time estimations with South African and European Biblica partners began on the size of the print (we finally settled for—30,000 copies) and we were off! To our blessed surprise, the Bibles were completed in time to distribute for January 30th’s prayer gathering but we unfortunately had to pivot to virtual with the event that we hoped would be a blessing to our city and around the country. Getting them to Chicago was a feat that only the Spirit of God could help accomplish but it happened, and already pallets of Bibles are in the hands of many of the seventy-seven communities in Chicago and will continue to be distributed at all our upcoming seasonal rhythms and events. Thank you to Christy, Biblica, and the donors who love our great city for giving. May God bless your stewardship as you have aided in lives being transformed by God’s Word.
Dr. Felecia Thompson
Together Chicago Board Member
Biblica Board Member
