12 February 2014 | Belgrade, Serbia [Ivan Milanov & Judy Plaatjes, tedNEWS] 25-27 October 2013 saw the Belgrade Central Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church organise a creative outreach project (COP) at the famous International Belgrade Book Fair. This book expo is one of the most attended annual cultural events in Serbia with more than 100,000 people visiting annually. Every year ‘Preporod’, the SDA publishing house, hires a place at the Fair, but last year they decided to rent a larger space so the COP event could run alongside.
Following thorough preparation and planning, each day of the event saw members of the public greeted at the main exhibition entrance by team members in costume as a Babylonian Woman, a Roman Soldier and Caesar, all of which represented symbols of power and the nations mentioned in the Book of Daniel, chapter 2. The team handed out leaflets with a map of the location for the stand and an advert for the book The Secrets of Daniel: the Wisdom and Dreams of a Jewish Prince in Exile by Jacques Doukhan. This book had previously been translated in Serbian, but for the needs of this particular project a new edition, with a new cover design, was ordered.
At the stand the book was sold and a TV documentary on the topic of the Book of Daniel, chapter 2 was given as a gift. A trailer of this ran during the day to which the team could refer. People were also offered the opportunity to take part in the Bible Prophecies course through the correspondent school and invites were extended to further events organised by the Belgrade church. A large number of people were attracted to the stand and many wanted to take pictures of themselves with the team members in the Babylonian and Roman robes or beside the 7-foot statue from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
As a result of the church’s presence at the Book Fair in those three days, 339 copies of Secrets of Daniel sold, 346 TV documentary DVDs were given as gifts, 341 Bible Prophecies correspondent cards were handed over, more than 700 invitations for the forthcoming evangelistic meetings were extended and over 1,400 people were informed about the book of Daniel.
Not only were members of the pubic reached through this project, but others who themselves were participating in the Book Fair. One such owner of the largest bookshop in Novi Sad contacted the director of ‘Preporod’, Pastor Dragan Pejovski, and shared with him his impression. He commented that ‘Preporod’ had had the largest commotion and crowd by far in comparison to the dozens of other publishing houses located on the gallery. His conclusion was that ‘Preporod’ must have attractive titles that could be sold in his bookshop and, since he didn’t have any of these yet, he asked for at least 25 titles, just to begin with. [tedNEWS]
tedNEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
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