“We have a simple mission: the Bible for everyone. Our vision is for people to have the Bible in their chosen language and in their chosen medium and their chosen time. Digital plays a part of that. That’s kind of the simple, common mandate that binds us together."
Successful global business founder Micheal Perreau, (62), gave it all up for the Bible because it made a difference in peoples’ lives. After making his fortune and leaving the financial world behind, he and wife Deborah turned their lives over to giving it all back, 90 per cent of it, to helping the poor.
But despite creating jobs for the struggling, about 60,000 jobs in 10 years, Mike said there was a missing component in creating turn-around positions for these people. “As people who are committed to the Bible, we found that the fullness of transformation can best be ascribed to rooting in some of the values that the Bible had to offer,” said Mike.
It was this conviction that led Mike to partner with Bible Society. He has now been Director General of the United Bible Societies for six years.
Bible heroes
During this time he describes many highlights – particularly meeting Bible beneficiaries. “That is my joy, to see individuals’ lives that are being touched as God is narrating his story into their lives.
“Only a few months ago I met an 82-year-old grandmother who was receiving her first Bible. When she heard that the Bible was being made available for the first time in her language, she walked through the bush for six hours just to receive her Bible.”
Mike also talked about his ‘Bible heroes’, people laying down their lives for God’s Word. “I have a Bible hero whose whole family was poisoned for just reading the Bible (after becoming Christians) and he managed to survive and committed his life to make the Bible available to others.
“I have a Bible hero whose father was executed and as a consequence he fled his country on that same day, not know whether the rest of his family was alive, only to find when he ended up as a refugee in France that (some members of his family had made it to Canada),” described Mike.
The Bible is relevant today
Mike says the Bible is still relevant today. “If we take just some factual evidence, then what we are seeing is that we are now distributing more Bibles than at any time in our history. There is evidence of a hungry spirituality. The question is, how do we make the Bible accessible to a hungry spiritual nation or individual?”
The Bible is Mike’s personal compass
“The Bible is my due north, it’s my daily encounter with the God of grace, it’s the blessing I receive, it’s sustenance when I go through hard times, it’s my operations manual. The Bible is my companion in life – it would be my wife on one side and my Bible on the other side.”
Original story written by David Adams, Editor of Sight magazine (edited with permission). View the full story here.
