Dear Pastor:
The Lord often demonstrates His favor by gracing a team of His servants with additional, devoted, and qualified workers. Bibles International is receiving such a favor from the Lord in Miss Barb Perrine.
When Barb completed her master’s degree in mathematics, she could have chosen to teach at a reputable Christian college or educate children in the US. But she chose gladly to devote herself, nearly in anonymity, to serving in Peru, using the various skills and talents with which the Lord has endowed her to advance numerous ministries alongside the Baptist Mid-Missions team of missionaries. This year, 2011, would have found her doing the same had it not been for her commitment to her aging mother.
Mrs. Phyllis Perrine, now a widow, is no longer able to live alone. Barb was torn between the demands of her beloved ministries in Peru and the needs of her mother. After 23 years of missionary work in Peru, she decided rightly to come home to care for her mother. But Baptist Mid-Missions was reluctant to lose such an accomplished missionary. In God’s providence, BI, a division of BMM, was in need of someone with Barb’s wide range of abilities.
Her joining BI is not a matter of missionary convenience. She is needed at BI. Indeed, during the past 45 years, an avalanche of user-friendly Bible translations has spread around the world. Those translations tend to undermine the accuracy and intent of Scripture. Yet, missionary-sending churches have been oblivious to the havoc that such translations have caused to the churches that their missionaries have planted. Consequently, BI was born 30 years ago and has been since then at the forefront of conservative Bible translation around the world, working on all five continents to produce accurate and legible translations as a result of, or in association with, conservative church planting. And Barb feels called to be part of it.
Though she will be stationed at the BI office in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the influence of her work will stretch over all the continents in which BI is conducting conservative Bible translation, including the country of Peru. With her skills in teaching, her devotion to missions, her passion for the Word of God, her abilities in management, her commitment to further studies in a variety of subjects (accounting, nonprofit management, Bible translation philosophy and methodology, etc.), and her call to assist her mother and serve around the world, she will be a positive asset in the worldwide, administrative team of BI.
As a long-serving translator and translation consultant myself and as the director of BI, I am confident in Barb’s skills, her character, and her potential of becoming an excellent administrative team member. Please give Barb an opportunity to share her burden with you. I am certain that you will be blessed and that, as the Lord leads, you will realize that keeping her on or adding her to your missions family will be strategically beneficial to the ministry of your church. Providing the Word of God to ethnic groups around the world in their heart language is essential to effective missions. The investment of missionary lives is secure when people groups have access to God’s Word for themselves. Thank you for considering a possible partnership with Barb in helping make that Biblical mandate a reality.
For a conservative Bible translation in every language,
P. Hantz Bernard
Director
