Preparations are well underway for next year’s London Olympics when hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world will stay in London for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Gideons International are well known for placing Bibles in hotel rooms and with more than 100,000 hotel rooms and an additional 30,000 beds in halls of residence for visitors to the Games to choose from, Gideons have begun the mammoth task to ensure that every visitor has access to a copy.

Bob and Jane Cooper from Bournemouth joined around 200 Gideon members in London for four days with the aim of visiting as many hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses and halls of residence as possible within the area of the M25.

Establishments ranged from five star hotels in central London to two-bed B&Bs.

“In many cases it was just a case of replacing damaged and missing bibles but a number willingly accepted Bibles for the first time,” Bob Cooper told me.

“This included those run by those of other faiths as well as one with 1600 bedrooms and many hotel staff also accepted a personal copy of the New Testament.”

“Although the efforts majored on the hotels, there were also opportunities to give personal copies to the emergency services, railway workers and hospital staff.

“Among the fire service staff who received testaments were crews who had attended a fatal fire the previous day.

“One hospital had a midnight visit to offer Testaments to all the night staff and they all accepted.”

Around 50000 scriptures have been distributed so far and Bob explains that there will be more in coming months.

“London is now better prepared to meet the spiritual needs of its visitors,” Bob says.

Meanwhile the Gideon work continues locally and earlier this year the Bournemouth Branch visited all the local hotels and guesthouses.

Bob Cooper added: “Even in this day and age many people have found comfort and help in reading God’s word in their time of need.

“Suicides have been prevented and relationships restored.

“God really is at work.”