God's Smuggler

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This is a classic missionary biography. I just re-read it. I had forgotten that Brother Andrew includes his own personal testimony in the earlier chapters of the book. It's really a great story from angry, drunk, suicidal and anti-God to Christian. God placed people in Andrew's life at key points and I'm sure these people were faithfully praying for him.

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 also has broken through Christian religious barriers by being invited to speak in Catholic and Coptic Orthodox churches. The more devoted a Christian, the more likely he was to stay put." Brother Andrew said this about the people he met behind the Iron Curtain who could have escaped Communism, but chose to stay in their communities because they placed their service for God over their lives of danger for holding prayer and church services. This challenged me in my own life. God is in control. (Romans 8:28) In September 1953, Brother Andrew started his studies at the WEC Glasgow bible college. Over the entrance of the wooden archway of the college were the words ‘have faith in God’. During the following two years whilst studying, Andrew learnt about having faith in God and put his faith into practice in numerous ways. The Kings Way

Van der Bijl's tenth book, Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ, was released in 2007. [13] 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. Brother Andrew; Sherrill, John; Sherrill, Elizabeth; featuring Jars of Clay (2001). The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together. Baker. ISBN 0-8007-5793-9. 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.

Bruins, Gerald (27 September 2022). "Open Doors-oprichter Anne van der Bijl overleden: hij gaf de vervolgde kerk een gezicht"[Open Doors founder Anne van der Bijl passed away: he gave the persecuted church a face]. www.nd.nl (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 27 September 2022 . Retrieved 27 September 2022. 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? 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.” More visits behind the Iron Curtain followed, with religious tracts hidden in secret compartments and under blankets. Meanwhile, volunteers who heard about his work signed up to undertake their own missions. On one occasion he was arrested in Yugoslavia and deported. That led to the establishment of the charity Open Doors, which put his work on a formal footing, and today the charity has a presence in several countries. In God’s Smuggler, van der Bijl related a prayer that he uttered, which he would later call “the Prayer of God’s Smuggler.”Besides God’s Smuggler Brother Andrew wrote 15 other books, including The Calling, which reveals his secrets for ministry. On Andy van der Bijl’s 69th birthday, he was honored by being awarded ‘The Religious Liberty Award’ which was presented by the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF). The chairman of WEF’s Religious Liberty Commission stated: The world first became aware of Brother Andrew’s ministry when his biography, God’s Smuggler, written with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, was published in 1967. It was translated into 35 languages and sold 10 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling Christian books of all time. A comic-book adaptation was published in 1972. His last major release, co-authored with Al Janssen and published by Revell and Hodder and Stoughton, was Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ.