Selling Christian Books in Belarus

I write from Minsk in Belarus, where I have been for the the last couple of days helping out with an Evangelical Press book promotion conference. A small conference was arranged at a very nice centre for about 40 pastors and others from Belarus and beyond. Myself and Roger Fay spoke as well as some of the Russian pastors. Roger spoke on David Brainerd whose biography by John Thornbury is now out in Russian and I spoke on the Solomonic books of Song of Songs, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. I have commentaries on two of these books. It would be nice to add a third and it would be good too to see the ones that exist translated.

It was a great privilege to be in a country I had never visited before and to get to meet some of the Russian brothers (as well as our EP friends). Speaking through a translator is not easy but Aleksander who helped both Roger and I was very good.  I also took part in the discussion session they had on ministerial training one night.

I tried to brush up on the Cyrillic alphabet before I came but I am rather poor at it. Singing the hymns was not really possible for this reason and the hymn sining was so good. At least it gave me a little insight into how it must be for dyslexics.

They have a fair number of books in Russian and sales were pretty good apparently. There are plans for more. They can be powerful tools. It's been a great trip.