The name conjures up images of Disney World, but Jonathan and Hannah Victor’s Bible World park in Madurai, India, will not be just an enjoyable place for families to visit. Bible World will be a training center for believers, Bible translators, and youth and a place for nonbelievers to discover the historical reality of God’s story, the Bible.
As Indian nationals, the Victors are among the small minority of born-again Christians in their country. More than 80 percent of India’s population are Hindu and 13.4 percent are Muslim. A burden to reach their own people led them to join Baptist Mid-Missions in 1994.
Several years ago, while serving as a Bible translation consultant in Calcutta, Jonathan worked with two national pastors, helping them plant two churches in Hindi and Bengali languages. Hannah had a fruitful ministry with children, conducting the first VBS for 35 kids in an area with fewer than one percent of the population being Christians. This kids’ club later grew into the Hindi church. The experience gave them a passion to teach more people for ministry, and they set out to find property for a training center.
Unable to buy land in Calcutta, the Victors and their children, Keziah and Stephen, relocated to their hometown in south India. The plan was to locate a few acres, but the Lord had something bigger in mind when he gave them an 18-acre property in Madurai. With the larger property came a larger vision: a training center expanding to include outreach to children and nonbelievers. Bible World was born.
Bible World will take many years to complete, but three buildings are already in progress. The Victors hope to have day programs for adults and children and dormitories to house them. The training section of Bible World will function as a Bible institute but will also contain Bible translation resources such as Bible artifacts and models of the Temple and ancient synagogues. A children’s camp, perhaps the only one of its kind in India, will give children a place to play and study the Bible. Encircling the property will be a walk-through-the-Bible trail with dioramas to illustrate Bible stories. The location of this campus is in Madurai, a temple city for the Hindu people. The Bible World park will be a testimony to the great name of the living God among this spiritually lost populace.
Jonathan and Hannah’s hope is for people of any faith to visit the park and understand that the Bible is actual history and that its truths hold the only hope for eternal life. Backed by this hope, the Victors will continue to evangelize and disciple people through the resources God gives at Bible World.