The Gideons are perhaps most well-known for Bibles in hotels,  guest houses and bed and breakfast establishments, but many will fondly remember receiving a little red New Testament and Psalms from a Gideon in their school days.  For over 70 years Gideons in the UK have been placing Bibles in the highways and byways of daily life, prisons, care homes, hospitals, cruise ships, anywhere where men and women boys and girls may find a copy of God’s Word. Countless testimonies of the power of the Word to change lives have been received by the Gideons national office over the years. 

“A Gideon from Mid Northumberland branch made one of his regular visits to HMP Northumberland better known as Acklington Prison. He  had the opportunity to chat to a prisoner named Stuart and gave him a Gideon Bible. As they left the prison that day they had no idea of what that brief meeting would produce. Stuart took his Bible back to his sell and began to read. The words reminded him of his teenage years and his family’s Christian faith, it also made him realise his sin and he desperately wanted to make his life right with God. Before him lay the words of salvation and  there  in his cell he asked for, and received, forgiveness.”

Gideons will often work together on special projects, Bible Blitzes, where teams will join together over a few days to concentrate on providing Bibles in a particular area.  Some of the most unusual have included the dressing rooms of London’s West End Theatres, the numerous lodgings dotted along the Pennine Way and Coast to Coast Walks,

“A Gideon from, Durham Branch, says the highlight of their distribution was Brian’s visit to the Youth Hostel in Brompton-on-Swale. There he not only placed Bibles, he led the proprietor to Christ.”

The great concentration of hotels and B&B’s in the UK’s popular coastal resorts: