26th August, 2004

DAVID ADAMS

"Bussau comes across as someone whose focus is to get the job done regardless of the plaudits along the way. Yet his is a work which should be celebrated: it is said that Opportunity International creates or sustains one job every 35 seconds..."

Philippa Tyndale, Don’t Look Back: The David Bussau Story. Allen & Unwin.

His is not a household name nor is his face a familiar one. Many may not have even heard of Opportunity International, the organisation he founded. Yet David Bussau’s story is a remarkable one. Brought up as an orphan in New Zealand, Bussau was able to harness his uncanny business nous (evidenced from as young as 15 when he set up a hot dog stand at the local football) to such an extent that by the age of 35 he was a multi-millionaire living in Sydney and managing a series of construction companies. But he had started to question what life was all about and, with God leading him, after responding to the disaster wrought by Cyclone Tracey in Darwin in 1975, embarked on his life’s call which would lead him to help thousands of people from across the world through the principles of “micro-enterprise development” and eventually establish the global aid organisation Opportunity International. Bussau’s life story makes for an interesting and inspiring read but there is a sense throughout the book that it is one reluctantly told. Bussau comes across as someone whose focus is to get the job done regardless of the plaudits along the way. Yet his is a work which should be celebrated: it is said that Opportunity International creates or sustains one job every 35 seconds with loans and assistance so far provided to more than 2.4 million entrepreneurs since the Seventies - particularly incredible statistics given than as many as 86 per cent of those who have received the loans are women. Don’t look back is the sort of book that demands the reader take stock of their own lives and look to see whether they in some greater way respond to Jesus’ call to help the poor. It’s also a reminder that despite the setbacks life throws in along the way - and for Bussau there were many - when God is involved the impossible does become possible.