Bruce Smith
Jan and I grew up in suburban Chicago, in committed Christian families. My international ministry experience started when I skipped my high school graduation to help build a church in rural northwest Guatemala with Teen Missions International. That experience convinced me to pursue academic preparation for a career in missions. At LeTourneau College, I majored in missions and aviation. After graduation, Jan and I volunteered with Mission Aviation Fellowship for a summer to learn more about their work. During the next six years as I built experience in aviation, Jan built experience as a mom to our two daughters—Abby and Lindsey.
The month after Lindsey was born we applied to join Mission Aviation Fellowship. Our first overseas assignment in Suriname, South America was abbreviated due to the outbreak of a civil war. We were transferred from Suriname to Haiti where I served as pilot, mechanic, and program manager for the MAF flight operation for four years. After our first term I was asked by MAF to provide executive leadership for a subsidiary organization in California. After completing that assignment, I served as MAF’s Chief Operating Officer for six years. At that time MAF had about 250 families serving in 22 countries.
In February 2000, I was invited to be the President/CEO of Wycliffe Associates, a service organization supporting Bible translation globally. During 20 years of service we expanded our financial, personnel, technical, and translation training support to 108 countries. We directly trained and equipped churches in more than 1,200 languages to translate and steward God’s Word for themselves, with around 400 of these languages completing their New Testament translations during a six-year period.
My continuing ministry vision is to serve and support churches in their translation, stewardship, and sowing God’s Word in the languages of their communities. My five-year goal is to creatively reduce the cost of Bible translation to the point where churches in every language can translate and steward God’s Word sustainably without dependence on external subsidies.
Specialty Areas
- Bible Translation
- Biblical Training/Teaching
- Board Governance
- Business as Missions
- Executive Leadership
- Fund Development
- General Management
- Leadership training
- Mission Aviation
- Nonprofit management
- Organizational Development
- Organizational Policy Formation
- Strategic Planning
- Team-building
- Vision Development
Share