God's Smuggler

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Giving up smoking, Andrew was able to start saving to buy books. Andrew bought dictionaries and commentaries and so began studying in his spare time. One day Andrew learnt about the bible college in Glasgow run by the WEC mission. At Glasgow bible college Christians could be trained up for mission in 2 years. During Easter 2018, the then-Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt wrote to Brother Andrew, saying, “I would like to express my personal thanks for the extraordinary and courageous support you have provided to the persecuted Church throughout the years. Brother Andrew; Conn, Charles Paul (1977). Battle for Africa. Fleming H. Revell. ISBN 978-0-80070876-4.

He made his first trip to Cuba in the late 1960s and went on to visit several other Latin American countries. In 2001 he met leaders of the Colombian rebel group AUC (Autodefensas de Colombia) and urged them to lay down their weapons. Within a year 15,000 members of AUC surrendered their guns – in exchange for Bibles. Andrew spent the first few months in England painting the WEC headquarters building (Bulstrode). While living at Bulstrode, Andrew began spending time with God at the beginning of everyday – a Quiet Time. This was something that Andrew found helpful and endeavored to do every day of his life. Once Andrew had finished painting Bulstrode, he then moved in with Mr and Mrs Hopkins. Living with Mr and Mrs Hopkins, they developed a wonderful relationship. Andy learned so much from the couple because they were utterly without self-consciousness and opened up their home to drunks and beggars. Today, of course, Europe has changed. The main threat to Christians today comes not from Communism, but from radical Islam. Brother Andrew has travelled extensively in the Islamic world, talking to the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. He is among the few Western leaders to regularly travel to the Middle East as an ambassador for Christ to these groups. He has also broken Christian religious barriers by preaching in Catholic and Coptic Orthodox churches. Leaving bible college in 1955, God guided Andy to attend a Communist trip to Warsaw. This would be the first of many trips into Communist countries.I promised God that as often as I could lay my hands on a Bible, I would bring it to these children of his behind the wall that men built to every … country where God opened the door long enough for me to slip through,” van der Bijl recalled. Brother Andrew’s story is extraordinary. But he himself is always at pains to stress that it was simply because he followed God. Anne van der Bijl, the Dutch missionary known for smuggling Bibles into communist nations and founding the Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors, has died at age 94.

Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to Your children. When You were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.” Meeting the need My heart was racing. Not with the excitement of the crossing, but with the excitement of having caught such a spectacular glimpse of God at work.” The trip was to change his life. Behind the Iron Curtain, he discovered churches desperately in need of Bibles, support and prayer. Above all, he found a group of Christians who felt isolated and alone and who thought the rest of the world had forgotten them. In 1958, he married his wife Corry and they had five children together. Corry often accompanied him on his trips, especially in the early years. As time went on, Andrew began to grow a small team around him that helped him distribute Bibles and literature more efficiently.One example of God providing miraculously was when Andrew needed to pay his visa. When Andrew received a visitor the day before he needed to send off his application for a visa, he was confident that the visitor would have come to give him money to pay for the visa. But the visitor was Richard, a man who Andrew had met in the slums in Glasgow. Richard had not come to give, but to ask. Andy explained that he had no money himself to give to Richard, but as he spoke, Andy saw a Shilling on the floor. This shilling was how much Andy needed to pay for his visa which would mean he could stay at the bible school. Rather than keeping the Shilling for himself, Andrew gave the Shilling to Richard. Andy had done what he knew was right, but how would God provide? Minutes later, Andy received a letter and in it was 30 Shillings! God had provided in His way, a Kingly Manner of provision. God calls Andrew behind the Iron curtain God's Smuggler is one of those books which, like The Hiding Place and The Small Woman show the awesome power of God as He works through the lives of very ordinary people who simply trust in Him to provide. If, as Brother Andrew says, God can use a man with no education (he didn't even graduate high school), no money and a war wound to do His work in such wonderful ways, how much more could He use the rest of us? Brother Andrew has received many honours and awards. He was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and, in 1997, he received of the World Evangelical Fellowship’s Religious Liberty Award, in recognition of his lifetime service to the persecuted church.