Friday, May 3, 2024
Lesslie Reagan, a member of Gideons International, recently spoke to the Gatesville Exchange Club. (Jeff Osborne photo)
Although they are often known as the group that leaves Bibles in hotel rooms, Gideons International is a Christian faith-based outreach group that does much more than that.
During a recent meeting of the Gatesville Exchange Club, Lesslie Reagan of Gatesville talked about Gideons and outreach they are involved in. The group focuses on distributing Bibles and talking to people about God's love. Gideons have Bibles with a variety of colors which they hand out to different groups. These include: orange, for sidewalk distribution; green, for college students; red, for students of high school age and younger; camouflage, for military; dark blue, for Bibles in languages other than English; white, for medical professionals; light blue, for distribution by auxiliary; brown, for jails and prisons; burgundy, for personal worker's testaments (individual witnessing by Gideons); and periwinkle, for personal worker's testaments (individual witnessing by auxiliary). Auxiliary are spouses of Gideons who work in support roles.
Reagan said he has been with the Gideons for 13 years. The organization was founded in 1899 in Wisconsin as a Christian support to help traveling businessmen avoid temptations they encountered, Regan said.
"They began putting Bibles in hotel rooms, but that is only one of the means used to help bring people to Christ," he said. "The Gideons hand out a million Bibles every week."
He said the smaller Bibles, which include the New Testament and often Psalms and Proverbs from the Old Testament, cost $1.25 each.
Gideons commit to share the gospel message with people who live both near them and far away. Reagan said when Gideons travel to share the gospel – including overseas – they pay their own way.
"More and more young people, there's just an emptiness in their heart and they try to fill it with with drugs, sex or other things," Reagan said. "Only Jesus can fill it."
Reagan said members of the Gideons go to different places asking people if they want a free Bible. Sometimes, those they ask respond in a hostile manner.
He showed the video testimony of a man named Leroy Cannady who had been involved in drugs and prostitution and had rejected the gospel. Cannady was witnessed to by a Gideon and responded negatively, even throwing the Bible down. But the way it landed opened to a specific scripture that spoke to him. Cannady eventually talked to the Gideon and became a Christian.
The Gideons' Bibles which are given to hotels contain an introduction that leads people to specific scriptures based on what crisis or concerns they might have.
Reagan said in late 1941, Gideons visited Hawaii and distributed Bibles to people there, including U.S. Navy sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor.
"It was before the Japanese attacked (on Dec. 7, 1941), and many of the bodies that floated up had Gideons' Bibles with them," Reagan said.
He added that there have been hundreds of testimonies of people who had gone to a hotel or motel with the plan to commit suicide, but found hope after reading a Bible the Gideons had placed there.
Some hotels and motels do not allow the Gideons to place Bibles there, for various reasons. Reagan said one hotel manager told him he did not allow Bibles to be placed in his establishment because the books were sometimes torn up or desecrated in other ways.
The man was told that although that might happen, it was still important for people to have access to the Bibles because of the positive impact they could have.
"A Bible (in a hotel) has the potential to reach 2,600 people in a three-year period," Reagan said.
