Distributing Bibles since 1924 – and still going

The Bible Society of Malawi team delivers a new bicycle purchased with donated funds to the bicycle-riding Bible salesman who is known as `the Book Man.` Malawi. Photo: UBS/ Haldor Noss. (MAI01C-5/29A)

LILONGWE, Malawi — The tiny Malawian village is so remote and the roads so poor that the journey has tested the new Bible Society’s new pick-up truck to the limit. But along the village’s single street, behind a poorly-stocked ‘general store’, in a small mud-brick, tin-roofed house, lives a local celebrity: a Bible distributor they call simply ‘the Book Man’.

Staff at the Bible Society of Malawi told me about him before we left Lilongwe, and the last thing we did before setting off to visit him was to buy him a new bicycle, the means of transport he uses for his work.

Astonishment

When we arrive in the village, a young man is sent to let him know we are there, and a few minutes later he appears. Wearing a suit for the occasion, he is delighted to see us and greets us warmly. He watches silently as the Bible Society team unloads the new bicycle and the last pieces of protective plastic wrapping are removed, and then, with repeated heartfelt thanks, expresses his gratitude.

As we sit in his small living room and he chats in Chichewa with Kamwana Muyaya, the Bible Society Marketing Manager, and Clapperton Mayuni, its Business Manager, I consider him with astonishment. In Europe or the United States he would pass for a healthy 55-year-old. In fact, he is famous in these parts because he has been travelling around by bicycle to sell Bibles for almost 80 years! And he is still going strong. What is known of his life story makes him well over 90 years old.

“He began as a tobacco farmer,” Mr Muyaya, acting as my translator, explains. “But then he began selling Scriptures for a European missionary from South Africa and has been supporting himself the same way ever since. He does not know his exact age, but he remembers that when he started selling Holy Scriptures he was an energetic young man and that was in 1924.”

Not long ago the Bible Society published a brief article about the Book Man in its supporters’ newsletter, which mentioned, in passing, that his bicycle was old.

“The next thing we knew,” says Mr Muyaya, “people had started collecting money to buy him a new one! Because the road is so bad it has been so long now since we have come out to the village, but at least this time we have an extra something for him.

“It’s not the money that he gets from this business that motivates him, but the knowledge that he is making the Word of God available. He is ministering, serving God, because he knows that the Bible contains the message that can change people’s lives.”

'The Book Man', standing with his old and new bicycles used to deliver Bibles to remote villages, does not know how old he is exactly, but he remembers that when he started selling the Bible he was "a young energetic man". Malawi. Photo: UBS/Haldor Noss (MAI01C-6/2)

The Book Man continues speaking, energetically extending his arms to illustrate his words in Chichewa and using his hands to help describe the finer points of his story.

Satisfied

“God has spoken to me through dreams to encourage me in what I am doing,” he says, “and I feel satisfied that I am serving God. One time I had a vision in which I saw a tall man and the man hugged me.

“Somebody else came to tell me, ‘I had a dream that you were among people dressed in white’. When I heard about that I knew God was using the dreams to affirm my work.”

Asked what he tells his prospective customers about the Bible, the Book Man replies unhesitatingly and emphatically, “The Bible is the only way; the truth, and the light. It contains God’s Words and in them you will be able to find the truth that can lead you.”

The new bicycle is not the only item the Bible Society is delivering to the Book Man today. He has ordered – and has now received and paid for – 240 Bibles and 160 other Bible Society publications.

“He says he is not good with numbers,” says Mr Muyaya, “so he doesn’t know how many Bibles he might be able to sell in one month, or in one year, but he does sell a lot.

Soon gone

“For example, the consignment that we have brought him now will soon be gone. People have missed the Bible here for so long that the moment they hear that Bibles have arrived it does not take long to sell them. He says how many he sells depends on how often we can supply him! When he runs out he just keeps the money and waits for us. But he does not like to hold this money for very long.

“He says he is very happy because nowadays even the Roman Catholic people want to have a Bible. Initially they didn’t have a chance to look at the Bible, but now more and more Roman Catholics are coming to him to buy Bibles so that they can read for themselves.”