Singaporeans Lead UBS's Partnership with China

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 Posted: 4:16:31AM HKT

United Bible Societies Coordinator for China Partnership Mr Kua Wee Seng holding up a Bible in the Miao language, one of the two recent translations efforts by the UBS and the answer to Kua's prayer of 16 years. He is pictured here standing before a display cabinet containing Bibles printed by Amity Press in Nanjing and other China Christian publications at the UBS office in Singapore. (Photo: CP)

Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of partnership between the Church in China and the United Bible Societies in Bible ministry.

The fact that the UBS has stayed so long on China's list of partners is an achievement in itself, considering that many Christian organisations that have worked within the country have not lasted so long.

Now, the Chinese Church publicly acknowledges the UBS as one of her most valued partners, because of the timely and unconditional support the fellowship has always rendered her in the Bible ministry, such as in raising funds to support Bible printing.

Singapore has played an increasingly crucial role in all of this.

Since the early years of the UBS cooperation with the Chinese Church, the Singapore contribution came in the form of donations from the Bible Society of Singapore, along with Bible Societies elsewhere in the world, which subsidised the cost of purchasing paper for the printing of Bibles.

Donations from the UBS and BSS went toward subsidising nearly one-third of the cost of a Bible in China where it is sold for three dollars.

In 1987, the UBS helped the Chinese Church build Amity Press. This was a turning point in the history of Bible production in China. Until then, Bibles were printed at state-owned presses, where Bible printing was not a priority. This meant that Chinese churches had to wait for a long time, sometimes up to a year, to receive new Bibles.

With the establishment of the Amity Press, which gives priority to the printing of Bibles, Bible production increased dramatically. Recent figures show that since its launch, the Press has rolled out some 68 million copies of Scripture with the capacity to print up to twelve million Bibles per year, making it the world’s largest Bible printing facility.

In the early years of the Amity Press, it needed help in management accounting and in printing expertise.

This was where Singapore stepped in in a critical way, with the BSS seconding two staff, a deputy general manager who took care of management, accounting and finance and a printing supervisor, to the Press under the UBS.

The former, a Singaporean by the name of Kua Wee Seng, was to become the key person of the UBS partnership with China.

Kua went to help out at the Press in Nanjing from 1993 to 1995. Then, for four years he became a fulltime lecturer at the Discipleship Training Centre in Singapore. Even then, he continued serving part-time as the Deputy Coordinator of the UBS China Partnership Programme.

In 1999, he took up a fulltime role in the UBS as the Coordinator of its China Partnership, a role he fills to the present time. As a coordinator, Kua’s role is to liaise with the Chinese Church to find out her needs – be it helping them develop Scripture programmes, new Bible editions and translations, funding for Bible printing, projects and publications for all sections in society, coordinating annual Bible distribution trips – and to seek funding and support from the UBS to meet these needs. This he does with the help of his team in Singapore.

Pages: 1 | 2 |

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com