Bibles for the London Olympics

Here are three interesting facts about London:

1) It is the city with the most international visitors of any city in the world.
2) London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers.
3) Next year, it will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.

Needless to say, London will be bursting at its seems when the Olympic Games are held there from 27 July to 12 August 2012. It is expected that over 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries will be coming to London in those weeks, not to mention all the spectators and regular tourists!

London has been preparing for the Olympics not only by building stadiums and other sports venues, but also by building new hotels. And the Gideons International in the British Isles have been preparing for the Olympics by seeking to provide Bibles for all hotels and guest houses in and around London.

Last month, I had the opportunity to join around 180 other Gideons from the British Isles to visit these hotels and guest houses and offer them free Bibles for every room.

I went along with a Gideon couple to visit hotels and guesthouses at Heathrow airport and the surrounding area. We enquired whether all their rooms were equipped with Gideon Bibles or whether they had Bibles that needed replacing. Many hotels were already equipped with Gideon Bibles. Of course, there were also those that did not want Bibles. In those cases and in cases where they already had Bibles, we were able to offer a New Testament to the manager or the staff which was well received in most cases, even where the manager/staff may well have been from another religious background. The greatest joy was to come to hotels/guesthouses that did not have any Bibles but whose managers were eager to receive them. In the space of the four days that the Gideons were in London, more than 50,000 Bibles were given away free of charge.

For more than a century, God has blessed the ministry of the Gideons International with its unique business model - giving away its main product free of charge! In the last year, more than 78 million copies of God's Word were distributed worldwide by the Gideons.

God still uses His Word today to change lives. Take a look at this video with a testimony from a man who intended to commit suicide in a motel room but instead had an encounter with God's Word and was given a new life: