Kirill, a Ukrainian developer working at the British and Foreign Bible Society (now known as the Bible Society), was attending a Christian hackathon. As each team was busy working on the perfect product for their project, Kirill was quietly drafting several ideas, unsure of the best direction to take. With so many possibilities and challenges in the world, he wanted to be sure the right path was picked to maximize the most impact with his minimal resources and time.

After discussing possible directions with the Director of Digital Technology at the Bible Society, he landed on a simple idea: what if pastors and Bible communicators could easily insert Scripture and citations directly into their Google and Word docs, just by typing a verse reference? Moved by the clarity of this need, Kirill got to work, and out of his efforts, BibleBolt was born.

What is BibleBolt?

Via a custom extension accessible from Google Docs or Microsoft Word, BibleBolt lets you insert scripture and its appropriate citation directly into your doc, without having to switch between tabs or research intellectual property ownership rights.

Kirill's Story

Kirill's journey as a developer started in Eastern Ukraine. He learned how to code, and began building a life for his family as a professional developer. When the war started, however, he made the hard decision to relocate his family to the United Kingdom, which he felt was the best choice due to his family's familiarity with English and for the U.K's proximity to Ukraine, should they be able to return one day. Early into getting established, however, he faced a setback when his newly acquired job made him redundant. With nowhere else to turn, he asked God for support and direction in finding a new job.

After searching for a bit, an opportunity opened up at the Bible Society. This was deeply exciting, since Kirill could now use his gift of programming in the service of the global Christian community. He accepted the position, and has been contributing to their digital resources ever since.

Kirill's API.Bible Experience

After a bit of research, Kirill landed on API.Bible to service BibleBolt. Initially he considered creating his own Bible API, but opted against this direction as the requirements involved (creating and maintaining the database, licensing agreements, and language support) quickly became too burdensome. API.Bible also offered built-in citation tools, further convincing him that this tool was the right choice.

Being an early adopter, Kirill has seen the platform grow in stability and feature sets over the years, and is excited to continue using the service to expand upon BibleBolt's functionality.

What's Next for BibleBolt?

Looking ahead, Kirill would like to enable more customization options for how verses are inserted into documents, via toggles to remove verse headings and numbers. Further support for more languages - possible via API.Bible's large catalog of global translations - is also on the horizon. He has additionally begun work on a few new projects that utilize API.Bible, so stay tuned with the Bible Society as those begin rolling out.