The next Million Dollar Sunday is coming on April 29, 2012! Keep this website bookmarked for more details coming up!

Meanwhile, you can browse the previous Million Dollar Sundays by clicking the dots on the map above, or by clicking on the bars below.

October 31, 2010, was the official date for Eastern European Mission's (EEM) recent $1,000,000 Sunday. Churches of Christ and interested individuals were asked to provide $1,000,000 to place Bibles in the 1,063 public schools of the states of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, and Krasnoyarsk, Russia. As of the third week of December, ninety-five percent of the schools in the Ivano-Frankivsk state had received their Bibles. The children in these schools were reading their Bibles before Christmas!

When EEM representatives met with Ministry of Education officials in Ivano-Frankivsk to notify them that EEM was ready to begin delivery, the officials replied, "Are you really going to do this?" EEM stated that, of course, we are going to do what we said we would do. The Ministry of Education officials said, "We have had so many groups promise us things, but almost no one actually does what they promised. Are you really going to do this?" EEM assured them the Bible and materials were ready to be delivered.

Click the images above to see larger versions.

When the Ministry of Education officials realized that EEM was ready to deliver, they were very excited and sprang into action. They said, "If you can have the Bibles here in two days we can use our trucks, buses, drivers and teachers to handle the delivery." In two days the Bibles were in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk and trucks and school buses descended on the city from across the state to pick up the Bibles and take them back to the schools. Many schools sent their own school buses with teachers to load the Bibles and take them back to their schools. The officials and teachers were very excited to get the Bibles. We have been told that the schools in Ivano-Frankivsk have made study of the Bible part of their regular school curriculum.

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The Bible. In Public Schools. Now, in Ukraine.

It's official. It's a whole new country. EEM has been asked to place Bibles and Biblical literature in all 1,188 Public Schools in the state of Donetsk (Donbass), Ukraine. Students will be able to study the Bible in schools that taught Communism not long ago, while we can't even pray in American schools.

In 2008, EEM was able to extend it's work in Ukraine by placing the Bible in Public Schools. Previously, four states in Russia had asked and received Bibles for all of their Public Schools. Now, another country was open and asking. It's No Accident. The fact is, EEM is in Russian and now Ukrainian schools. God keeps doing it.

God blessed our collective efforts once again and made this Million Dollar Sunday a success. Over 1.6 million dollars was raised through churches and individuals nationwide for this effort and put to immediate use in printing Bibles and Biblical literature in both Russian and Ukrainian languages for the schools.

With the completion of this fifth school region, we have reached 1.8 million Russian and Ukrainian children in 8,138 Public Schools.

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In 2006, EEM responded to the invitation to put Bibles and Biblical literature in all of the 1,600 public schools in the state of Omsk, Russia which is one of the large states in western Siberia. Working again, with Dr. Vladimir Skovorodnikov, the Minister of Education gave approval for EEM to place Bibles and Biblical literature in all of the Omsk schools in which there are 380,000 students. Since this is the fourth state in which EEM has placed Bibles and Biblical literature in all of their schools that means we have provided Bibles and Biblical literature to 6,950 Public Schools in which there are a minimum 1,400,000 students.

Once again, congregations of the church nationwide were generous. Almost 500 congregations from 42 states and many individual donors gave over $1,900,000 toward the project. Funds were raised in 2006 and the Bibles and Biblical literature were delivered in 2007.

The Bibles and Biblical literature are in the schools and all students and teachers can study the Bible on a regular basis.

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Having been blessed by God in the first two Million Dollar Sundays, EEM decided not to "fight" it. Let God work and get out of his way! With this Million Dollar Sunday, EEM decided to take another huge leap of faith. With all other Million Dollar Sundays, EEM raised the money and then delivered the promised results. This time God had other plans. The faith came when it was discovered that the Governor of the region was up for reelection. If he lost his bid for re-election, this would necessitate a lengthy process for reapproval of the project. Because of the concern about his reelection, EEM borrowed money. EEM began printing the material before we even began raising the money. If we did not raise enough, the financial consequences would be dire, but God once again delivered beyond our wildest dreams. God blessed us with $1,501,273 exceeding the $1,160,000 we needed to provide Bibles for 1600 schools in Novosibirsk, Russia. They were printed and delivered to the schools in November of 2004, adding 386,000 students studying the Bible in Russian Public schools.

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With the success of the first Million Dollar Sunday, EEM was unsure how to proceed. It was obvious God had a hand in the success of the first Million Dollar Sunday. Did God want this to be a one time project or did he intend for us to do this again? Would the brotherhood support another effort? After much prayer it was decided that we should leap out on faith once again and try another Million Dollar Sunday.

Since the middle of 1990, EEM had been making efforts to partner with other organizations and groups to help make sure we are as cost efficient as possible with donated funds. This led us to our second Million Dollar Sunday. We had begun working with Russian Bible School (RBS) trying to provide Bibles and other materials they needed to fulfill requests they had from Russians for these materials. It soon became obvious that there were many more requests than we had money to fulfill. We worked out a project with them to secure money for 33,000 Bible "Bundles". These bundles would be provided to all of those who had requested Bibles. RBS would also start doing follow up seminars in the areas where these were sent to make sure everyone was touched with the Word and a personal contact.

Once again, God did more than we could imagine. Our brotherhood donated $1,232,000! With the money we were able to provide approximately 41,000 Bible Bundles, far exceeding our original goals. Once again God blessed us and while we were printing the new materials we did some creative "overruns". These "overruns" allowed us to provide Bibles for a second school region in Russia, the Tomsk region. This region has 1,300 schools and over 225,000 students. One of the librarians commented to an EEM representative "schools and libraries have not been able to keep the books on the shelf! As soon as they are returned they are given to the next person on the waiting list!"

Like all of the projects we have done, God seems to have had bigger plans than we could envision at the time.

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The first Million Dollar Sunday was a huge leap of faith. Nothing like this had ever been done in our brotherhood. Of course, God is bigger than our imagination. Who would ever guess that EEM would have the opportunity to place Bibles in the Russian school system? It took 4 months but finally, by the end of December, 1998, EEM had raised $1,051,000. With the successful completion of the fund raising all efforts were turned to producing the materials for the schools. Over the next year EEM, placed Bibles in 2,500 schools that serve 430,000 children in the Altai school region in Siberia, Russia. Because of the generosity in exceeding the goal and some timely cost savings EEM stretched the money to include 1,183 public libraries in the same region. The Russian system is quite different in that most people do not own their own books but use the ones provided by libraries and schools.

Since this first Million Dollar Sunday, we have begun follow up seminars in this region to help teach the teachers how to give instruction in the Bible for their classes. We have received numerous comments about their appreciation for having the opportunity to have access to the Bible. Teachers have reported that their biggest concern at this time is that the original materials are used so much they are beginning to wear out!

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