Michael Perreau, United Bible Societies

On Sunday and Monday I had the privilege of meeting the Director General of the United Bible Societies (UBS), Michael Perreau. He was visiting the Swedish Bible Society. This is a person that I will cooperate with in the future.

Michael was born in Malaysia. He lives in England. Formerly a successful business owner he has now dedicated his life to make the Bible available to as many persons as possible.

On Monday he gave a speech at the Swedish Bible Society's Annual General Meeting held in the Old City of Stockholm.

General Director Michael Perreau of the United Bible
Societies and Bishop Åke Bonnier, chairperson
of the Swedish Bible Society

Michael showed two short videos from China and Indonesia where minority groups received their Bibles. Yes, those people are Bible Beneficiaries of the work of the UBS but most of all, according to Michael, they are Bible Heroes. Many people around the world literally give their lives for the spread of the Bible. To be a Bible translator can be dangerous. We learnt about an entire family in Indonesia that was engaged in Bible translation. Almost the entire family had been poisoned to death, except one person. He then continued to work with Bible translation.

Michael Perreau is a seasoned speaker. He has a number of interesting stories and structured remunerations. For instance he spoke about the challenges that the UBS has:

Affordability – offer Bibles for free

Availability – finish translations

Accessibility – digitalize

Credibility – be confident and competent in the public space

When he spoke to the last point he mentioned the Bible Adventure (which is Sweden’s contribution to the plethora of methods.) He also mentioned an encouraging example from London where the Bible Society had applied to the authorities to place a large Jonah (with the whale) on Trafalgar Square. This was not approved. Which in turn resulted in protests in media and as a result thereof free publicity. Too cut a long story short the Bible Society then applied to perform Passion Plays on Trafalgar Square, which they also have done. Follow this link to read more.

The overall vision, as far as I understood, is to translate the Bible into all 7 000 known languages on the globe. 1 000 of them are oral, which means new challenges. 2 000 already have Bible translations. This means that 4 000 languages are left. The UBS has a goal to make 1 200 translations in the next 20 years. Michael Perreau invited the Swedish Bible Society to be part of this vision and maybe take responsibility for 10 of these projects. One translation costs approximately USD 40 000/year.

He finished by applauding the faithfulness of the Swedish Bible Society. But he also describes it as a sleeping giant. Meaning that the Swedish Bible Society can do more.