Kevin Fuller is the first non-American to be elected president of the global Bible distributing organisation, Gideons. PICTURES (above and below): Tony Kerrigan.

19th January, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

Kevin Fuller's schedule reads like that of a diplomat, movie star or global corporate high-flyer. During September and October alone the 65-year-old president of Bible distributing organisation The Gideons International travelled to four continents, meeting with people in such countries as China, South Africa and France.

Back home in Point Lonsdale, however, he's more likely to be recognised as the bloke who serves coffee at the local gourmet food shop he owns with his wife Anne than the honorary head of a global organisation that works in 179 countries and boasts more than 250,000 members.

"I'm the barista," Fuller admits, laughing at the apparent incongruity of his two roles. "I've just come from Nashville where we had a world leaders' conference where we had all the leadership from all the Gideons all over the world . . . that was like a week ago. And here I am here - it is just an unbelievable change, but I like it."

Fuller, who held a variety of senior management roles and consultancy with major Australian retail firms before opting out to devote more time to the Gideons, was elected president of the organisation in July at its annual worldwide convention in Dallas, Texas. It's a role he feels both humbled and privileged to hold, yet Fuller is acutely aware that he is the first non-American to be appointed to the post in the Gideons' 105-year history.

Fuller's involvement with the Gideons dates back to 1976 when a friend invited him to a members' meeting in Geelong where they listened to a guest speaker tell of how, after being committed to the prison for the criminally insane in Ararat, his life was turned around when a visiting member of the Gideons handed him a Bible.

"The Gideons have a sole objective, which is to bring people to Christ and we do that through the distribution of the scriptures - what they call personal witnessing - which is just taking the opportunity to talk to people personally and trying to live a godly life, which is not the easiest thing in the world." - Kevin Fuller

"Here was this guy standing up in front of this whole group and telling this story about how his life was transformed through the reading of the scriptures and I thought if this is what it's all about, I'm in. Just like that."

While his initial involvement was minimal, Fuller says he was inspired to do more when he accompanied some other members to a Geelong secondary school.

"They had no hesitation in presenting the scriptures to the students, openly talking about the Christian faith and believing that they were having an influence on a young person's life by doing what they were doing. I found that really inspirational."

His involvement gradually grew until, in the mid-'80s, he was appointed regional president of the Gideons in south-west Victoria. Since then, he's held numerous positions on the national and international boards balancing his work for the Gideons with his own work demands until, in 2003, he stepped out of working for himself altogether.

"I mean corporate life was very enjoyable, very hectic, very challenging, but I really needed to do something more with my life," he says.

"I was in a very privileged position but it really wasn't the sort of fulfilment in itself that I was looking for in my life."

While the origins of the Gideons are relatively humble - it was founded in July 1899 by two travelling businessmen who met when sharing a hotel room in Wisconsin in the US - these days the group spans the globe, placing Bibles in hotels, hospitals, prisons, and schools all over the world.

It's estimated that the Gideons distributes more than a million Bibles every seven days, or about 112 every minute. "At one stage we were shipping into Russia alone 500,000 scriptures a month in the Russian language," says Fuller.

The requirements for becoming a member of the Gideons are fairly simple - members must believe the Bible is the word of God, have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal saviour and be a business or professional who is in "good standing" in their local church.

"It's not a sect, it's not a religion in itself, it is an association which brings together all sorts of professional and business men - Christians - to do this work as a practical outworking of their Christian witness," Fuller says.

"The Gideons have a sole objective, which is to bring people to Christ and we do that through the distribution of the scriptures - what they call personal witnessing - which is just taking the opportunity to talk to people personally and trying to live a godly life, which is not the easiest thing in the world."

While he can't put a figure on the number of countries he's visited with the Gideons, Fuller can say that he's been to every continent, including countries where it can be dangerous to be a practising Christian.

"I went to one country where I had to meet with the leaders in secret," he says. "They had come from right across the country . . . and they just fear for their lives.

"Their churches get burnt down, they suffer persecution. If they talk about their religion to another person without being invited, they're risking their lives."

While highlights of his time with the Gideons include being in a group presenting US President George W. Bush with the Gideons one billionth Bible in October 2002, they also include such things as giving a Bible to a woman he saw bathing her children on a traffic island in the middle of a crossroads in India.

"This was their home," he says. "I looked at her and I thought, what is the destiny of that mother and those three children? I had in my pocket one of these (a New Testament) and I thought, I have the answer here: if I can give her the opportunity to read this book and she can come to know Jesus Christ as her personal saviour, she can have richness and meaning and fulfilment in her life and so can her children.

"That is what this is all about . . . I honestly believe the Gideon ministry can change the world - not the Gideon organisation itself, but because of the work it does."

This article first appeared in The Age newspaper.