DAVID ADAMS reports on a new Bible Society Australia exhibition timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings during World War I…
It was 2009. Chaplain Charles Vesely, who was on a six month deployment to Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, was holding an evening prayer time with soldiers who would the next day pass through the Baluchi Valley, known to them as ‘IED alley’ in a reference to the numerous improvised explosive devices which had been found there.
“We were all in fear, and we all needed to hear the assurance from the Lord who loves us and gave His life for us,” Chaplain Vesely recalls in his published account of the moment. Admitting that he hadn’t spent a lot of time finding a Bible verse, he instead took his reading from a lectionary which pointed him to Psalm 31.
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OFFERING HOPE IN HARD TIMES: Two of the Bibles in the exhibition – Top: Elvas Jenkin’s French New Testament complete with shrapnel bullet; Bottom – : The Bible of Alan Broadribb, who served as a horse handler and driver in World War I. PICTURES: Courtesy Bible Society Australia “(The Bible is) a comfort, it’s a hope. Soldiers are taught to be resourceful and taught to be self-sufficient and those things are very important qualities for a soldier, particularly in a combat zone, but…when resources are exhausted, they look for ‘Where else can I turn to.’”– Chaplain Charles Vesely |
Under a dim green LED light, he started reading the passage in his Bible Society-issued camouflaged Bible and stopped when he came to verse four: “Free me from the trap that is set for me and keep me safe.”
“I stopped at those words,” he recalls. “I felt the words stir me in my soul. I looked up at the faces of the soldiers who were with me. The dim green light cast a strange glow on them. Their faces were like mine, stunned. God had spoken to us, strongly and plainly. Even in the midst of a strange and hostile land, God was with us, assuring us, protecting us and speaking to us.”
The group got through the valley the next day safely – speaking to Sight this week, Chaplain Vesely recalls some of the soldiers joked that his “prayers had worked”. “(But) all jokes aside, I think really deep down inside all our hearts we knew that no matter what happened, God was still in control…”
Chaplain Vesely, who had earlier served in East Timor with the battalion and is now serving in Albury-Wodonga, says that such moments are not uncommon during his work as a chaplain and, just as it was that night, can see soldiers have their first real encounter with the Word of God.
“(The Bible is) a comfort, it’s a hope. Soldiers are taught to be resourceful and taught to be self-sufficient and those things are very important qualities for a soldier, particularly in a combat zone, but…when resources are exhausted, they look for ‘Where else can I turn to?’”
Chaplain Vesely’s story is among a number told in a new interactive Bible Society exhibition, Their Sacrifice, which centres on a series of Bibles that have “seen action” in wars spanning the period from the Boer War to the recent conflict in Afghanistan. Having opened in Sydney this week, it will soon head off around the country.
Among the other stories featured in the exhibition – believed to be the largest and most expensive ever put on by the society in Australia – is that of Gallipoli soldier Lance Corporal Elvas Jenkins who was saved from death when, during an intense bombardment, a shrapnel bullet struck over his heart which happened to be where he carried his Bible in his shirt pocket.
The bullet penetrated the pages of the French New Testament, which he had bought in Egypt, and saved him from certain death (sadly, while Jenkins survived Gallipoli – landing on the first day and leaving on the last, in July, 1916, he become the first Gallipoli veteran to die on the Western Front in France.)
With the bullet still lodged in it, Jenkins’ Bible – which was returned to his fiancée Jeanie in Australia after his death – is now housed in a timber box constructed from a branch of the Lone Pine tree at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. While it will return to be part of the exhibition, it’s currently on its way to the Lone Pine Memorial at Gallipoli where it will be part of the centenary commemorations.
Bible Society historian Dr John Harris says that like the other selected Bibles on display, Jenkins’ Bible was chosen for the exhibition thanks to the story behind it. “(W)e chose ones that had really important stories; significant stories of courage and of self-sacrifice,” he says of the Bibles – some of which came from the Bible Society’s collection, others of which are on loan.
Dr Harris, who is also editor of the accompanying book – Their Sacrifice: The Brave and Their Bibles, says his hope is that the exhibition shows people how, “in times when the issues are so stark, when it’s a matter of life and death, that so many people turn to and use the Bible as a source of encouragement and certainty in uncertain times”. “And how, as Christians, the promises of life beyond this life – of eternal life – were extremely important to them.”
The Bible Society’s Allan Dowthwaite, who has directed a 60 minute documentary, The Bullet in the Bible, on the story of Lance Corporal Jenkins, agrees.
He says the purpose of the exhibition and the DVD – which was filmed at locations including Gallipoli and France – is to help people engage with stories of those who went to war and “sacrificed themselves on our behalf” and the “comfort and hope and refuge they found in the Bible”.
“The Bible was very central to Australian society (during World War I),” he says, “which is a bit hard for us to understand nowadays when the Bible and the church is very marginalised. Twenty-five per cent of people went to church regularly back in the First World War days which is quite remarkable.”
“The Bible has really shaped our culture in a lot of ways that we don’t understand today so I think (the exhibition is about) getting people to interact with that and just have a bit of an understanding of the spiritual heritage and the way people going to war drew strength from the spiritual side as much as natural courage and physical abilities and things.”
“The Bible was very central to Australian society (during World War I),” he says, “which is a bit hard for us to understand nowadays when the Bible and the church is very marginalised. Twenty-five per cent of people went to church regularly back in the First World War days which is quite remarkable.”– Allan Dowthwaite
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Dr Harris points out that more than a million Bibles were given out to Australians by the Bible Society – which still provides Bibles to military personnel – in World War I and World War II. “That’s why we feel that we played an important part in Gallipoli and other places,” he says. “And we know that in the First World War, 99.9 per cent of soldiers accepted the Bible.”
The free exhibition is showing in the Westfield shopping mall in Pitt Street in Sydney until 3rd May after which it will embark upon a national tour.
For the exhibition tour dates and locations, see www.theirsacrifice.com.
To order the book, Their Sacrifice: The Brave and Their Bibles, or the DVD – The Bullet in the Bible, see www.theirsacrifice.com/resource, call 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537) or head to the Bible Society online bookshop.
Those who’d like to screen the documentary in their church or community organisation, can receive a free copy courtesy of Bible Society Australia by contacting [email protected].
