In late 2016 and early 2017, we found ourselves facing a marked increase in demand for copies of Good and Evil in Ukrainian. At one point we were mailing out as many as 50 books per month to individual Ukrainians who were requesting them via our web site. At this rate, it wasn't long before our supplies were depleted and we were forced to disable the request form on our site.
Over the years, this book has become a central part of our ministry, and we decided that we should make our best effort to do a second printing. We'd learned some things from our first printing, and with these in mind we set three major goals for the project:
- Do a completely new Ukrainian translation based on the latest edition of Good and Evil from No Greater Joy.
- Print in full color instead of the original black and white.
- Have printed books on the shelves in time for CMO 2018.
Today we're excited to announce that goal #1 is complete! Our resident Ukrainian language expert, Anatoliy Zhylavy, has worked very diligently on the translation itself, and Nathan and I have come along behind to edit and proof. We are confident that we have a high-quality, accurate translation, and we're looking forward to putting it into the hands of Ukrainians as soon as possible.
Joshua and Nathan spent hours on Skype, reading through every word of Good and Evil in both English and Ukrainian.
Tolik did an outstanding job with the Ukrainian translation. We couldn't be happier with the finished product!
What's left to do?
Although the translation itself is finished, the project is not yet complete. Here's what still remains:
Graphics and page layout. God has blessed us with a Christian printer who also does professional graphics work. He has undertaken to do all of the graphics work on Good and Evil free of charge. Now that the translation is complete, he is placing the Ukrainian text into the speech bubbles on each page. He's also doing the Ukrainian cover design and other tasks necessary to get the book ready for the presses.
Second read-through. We've been through the whole book once and have addressed all the issues we found. Now, as the layout and design work is completed for each chapter, we will go through everything a second time. This will help to uncover errors we may have missed during the first read, as well as possible regressions introduced during the layout process.
Print! This is the biggie. We plan to place an order for 5,000 books and we need at least some of them here in our office by the time CMO begins in July. Our goal is to start printing in May.
Delivery to L'viv. The books will be printed in Kyiv, which is over 300 miles away. They will then need to be transported to our office in L'viv. This should be straightforward, but it's a time consideration as we gear up for CMO 2018.
And speaking of CMO…
If you or someone you know is interested in joining our team for CMO this summer, we need to hear from you as soon as possible! The application deadline is April 1st, but the sooner we know you're interested, the better. We do have limited space, and we need time to arrange housing and other logistics.
So even if you're not quite finished filling out your application, drop us a line to let us know you're working on it.
Ready to start the application process for CMO 2018?
There's a button for that too!
The CMO team ascends Mt. Parashka in 2015.
Wrap Up
We'd like to extend a big thank-you to everyone who has been praying for and supporting this project. Please keep it up! The finish line is in sight, and we are determined to see this all the way through. God hears His saints when they pray, and here on the foreign field we need that support. Let's get this done so more Ukrainians can hear the Gospel!
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
2 Peter 3:9