Brother Andrew
Son of a blacksmith, Brother Andrew didnât even finish high school. But God used this ordinary dutch man, with his bad back, limited education, without sponsorship and no funds to do things that many said were impossible. From Yugoslavia to North Korea, Brother Andrew penetrated countries hostile to the gospel to bring bibles and encouragement to believers.
Andy van der Bijl, who became known as Brother Andrew, was born in 1928 the son of a deaf father and a semi-invalid mother. Andrew was the third of six children and they lived in the smallest house in the village of Witte in the Netherlands.
In the book Godâs smuggler, Andrew describes the impact that the death of his oldest brother âBasâ had upon him. Bas, who was severely handicapped died when Andrew was just 11 years old. Andrew had wanted to die with Bas, but God hadnât let him.
THIRST FOR ADVENTURE
As a child, brother Andrew was mischievous and dreamt of adventure. When Germany invaded, Andrew amused himself (and the rest of the village) by playing pranks on the occupying troops.
NOTORIOUS COMMANDO WHO NEEDED GOD
His thirst for adventure led him into the Dutch army at the age of 18 where he became a notorious commando. Andrew and his comrades became famous for wearing yellow straw hats in battle, their motto was: âget smart â lose your mindâ.
The atrocities that Andrew committed as a commando haunted him and he became wrapped in a sense of guilt. Nothing he did â drinking, fighting, writing or reading letters helped him escape the strangle that guilt had upon him.
Shot in the ankle in combat, at the age of 20, his time in the army came to an abrupt end.
In hospital, bed ridden, the witness of Franciscan sisters who served the sick joyfully and the conviction of his own sin, drove him to read the Bible. Andy studied the bible while asking many questions to a friend (Thile), who had written to him throughout his time in the army. Andrew sent questions to Thile who searched for answers from her pastor and the library. His searching within the bible did not however lead him to give his life to God whilst he was still in hospital.
ANDREW RETURNS HOME A CRIPPLE AND SEEKS GOD
Returning home a cripple to his old town, Andrewâs life was empty. He had not found the adventure he had been looking for.
Somehow however, when he return home, he developed a thirst for God. Every evening Andrew attended a meeting and during the day he would read the bible and lookup up bible verses mentioned in the sermons he had heard. At last, one evening he gave up his ego and prayed: âLord if You will show me the way, I will follow You. Amenâ.
GOD CALLS BROTHER ANDREW TO MISSION
Soon after becoming a Christian, Brother Andrew attended a an evangelistic meeting taken by a Dutch evangelist Arne Donker. At this meeting Andrew responded to the call to become a missionary. This call to share the good news of salvation started at home, with Andrew and his friend Kees holding an evangelistic event with Pastor Donker in their home town of Witte.
Before going away on mission, Andrew started work at the Ringers chocolate factory. Working in a female dominated environment which was smitten with filthy jokes, God used Andrew and another Christian, and future wife Corrie, to reach their lost co-workers. Through personal witness and inviting them to evangelistic events, many became Christians, including the ring leader of the women. The atmosphere at work changed dramatically and prayer groups were held.
Andrew excelled in his work despite being lame and Mr Ringers, the owner of the factory applauded his work and evangelistic efforts. Because of his high IQ, Andrew was trained up as a job analyst within the factory. But Andrew knew that God was calling him to mission. The big obstacle however was his lack of education.
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.
Unsure of Gods will for his life, Andrew spent a Sunday afternoon alone with God, speaking aloud with God. Through this time, Andrew realised that he needed to say âyesâ to God who was calling him to mission. Before this, Andrew had been saying âYes BUT I am lame.â âYes BUT I have no educationâ. Andrew said yes. In an amazing instant, Andrew made this step of yes, and in Godâs grace he healed Andrews lame leg.
ANDREW GOES TO ENGLAND
Andrew applied for the Bible college in Glasgow and was accepted. Sponsored by no church, no organisation and lacking education, Andrew obeyed God and went despite being told by the love of his life at the time (Thile) that in going he would lose her.
Andrewâs place at the bible college was delayed by a year. Despite receiving a telegram from WEC telling him not to come, Andrew believed God was instructing him to go. In faith he obeyed God and left for England in 1952.
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 â a Quiet Time. This was something that Andrew found helpful and endeavoured 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 learnt so much from the couple because they were utterly without self-consciousness and opened up their home to drunks and beggars.
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 wordsâhave faith in Godâ. 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
Throughout his time at Glasgow bible college, Andy learnt of âThe Kings Wayâ in providing. Andrew saw God provide every essential need he had and always provide on time. In the book Godâs Smuggler, Andrew describes how it was exciting waiting to see how God would provide at his time of need. God always provided, but did so, not according to mans logic but in a kingly matter, not in a grovelling way.
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
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.
During his first trip to Warsaw, brother Andrew visited local churches, a bible shop and spoke with Christians in the country. Coming back to Holland, Andrew had lots of opportunities to share about his trip and how Christians lived behind the iron curtain.
Weeks later, the communist party arranged for him to attend a trip to Czechoslovakia. Andrew managed to break away from the organised trip to learn that the church was suffering and that bibles were very scarce. Officials were angry he had broken away from the official tour and had contact with Christians so he was prohibited from entering the country again. But his trip had opened his eyes to the needs of the church behind the iron curtain and this became his mission field.
In the following years, Andy dedicated his life to the needs of the church in the Communist countries. God provided Andrew with a new Volkswagen Beetle and with it Brother Andrew smuggled bibles and literature into the countries in need. Working alone for the first few years, Andrew worked tirelessly in serving the churches behind the iron curtain. When Andrew had finished one trip he would go back to Holland where he would share his experience and then go back to one of the countries. Each trip was full of stories of how God had miraculously provided and led Andrew to meet Godly believers.
ANDREW MARRIES AND HAS A FAMILY
Although serving God in this way was exciting, Andrew felt alone and wanted a wife. In the book Godâs Smuggler, Andrew describes how he prayed about a wife three times. The first two times that Brother Andrew asked for a wife God spoke to him clearly through Isaiah 54:1 âThe children of the desolate are more than the children of the marriedâ. But Andrew prayed a third time about it, and this time God answered his prayer, reminding him of a lady he worked with at the Ringers chocolate factor, Corrie van Dam. Andrew hadnât had contact with Corrie for a long time so went to visit her. By Godâs grace, Corrie was still single and over a period of several years Andrew and Corrie became great friends. Corrie and Andrew married on June 27th 1958 in Alkmaar, Netherlands.
Corrie was married to a missionary and Andrew very much continued to live like a missionary, smuggling bibles into countries closed countries. Over the years, God blessed Corrie and Andrew with five children, three boys and two girls.
ANDREW STARTS WORKING WITH OTHERS
Andrew kept serving God behind the iron curtain but the work had become difficult to do alone. Andrew thought about how helpful it would be to have a co-worker. This began with a man called Hans and slowly grew until a number of them were smuggling bibles into the communist countries.
SERVING THE WORLD WIDE CHURCH
When the doors to communist Europe were opened in the 1960âs, Brother Andrew began to serve and strengthen the churches in the Middle East and Islamic world.
BROTHER ANDREW RECEIVES RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AWARD IN 2007
On Andy van der Bijlâs 69th birthday, he was honoured by being awarded âThe Religious Liberty Awardâ which was presented by the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF). The chairman of WEFâs Religious Liberty Commission stated:
âBrother Andrew has been the preeminent example of those from the outside who have excelled in the ministry of encouragement â the many years he has devoted himself to serving the oppressed. His exploits have become legendary as he has crossed borders carrying Bibles, which were liable to confiscation. Time after time God has blinded the eyes of the border guards, and the Bibles got through.
BROTHER ANDREW RESOURCES
Godâs Smuggler â Book about Brother Andrew smuggling Bibles.
take time to be unproductive - how busyness can waste a life
Søren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish theologian and social critic, once wrote in his journal, âThe result of busyness is that an individual is very seldom permitted to form a heart.â We sense in our souls he is right. Unrelenting busyness â running here and there, late and in haste, always with more to do than we have time for â stifles the life of the heart. Yet I fear that many in the church, especially those of us in various forms of leadership, often pursue that very busyness. We occasionally warn others about burnout and stress, but we are constantly in motion, endlessly feeling harassed by all that clamors to be done and feeling guilty for projects we havenât completed. And we frequently pass that stress on to others, in subtle but destructive ways â we are busy, so we can act like everyone else should be busy. If they are not, we can treat them as lazy or negligent. But is our problem primarily that we are not more productive, or is it that we have allowed unrealistic expectations to distort our vision of faithfulness? While itâs very likely that we could become better organized and more efficient, pursuing those efforts may feed and hide the true problem rather than helping it. What if the heart of our trouble is not time management, but something else? What if the goal of Christian life isnât merely to get more done? And if thatâs true, why do many of us feel a need to fill every moment either with items we can check off a to-do list or with mindless distraction? Binge-watching television and hours spent on social media may be more symptoms than causes of our problems, signs of a deeper malady. What if God doesnât expect us to be productive every moment? What if growing comfortable with slowness, with quiet, with not filling every moment can help reconnect us to God, others, and even with our own humanity? Thatâs at least worth thinking about. Unexamined Expectations While it was Ben Franklin, and not the apostle Paul, who observed that âtime is money,â we Americans have baptized that sentiment â not to derive financial benefit from every moment, but because somehow we have the idea that every minute should yield positive measurable results. Donât just sit around; do something! Of course, diligence, a good work ethic, and innovation typically do make life better for ourselves and others. Sometimes, however, a genuine good can become a horrible master, and when productivity and efficiency become our highest goals, our world and our lives suffer. Thatâs because Godâs highest value is not productivity and efficiency, but love (Matthew 22:37â39; 1 Corinthians 16:14). This sounds too abstract, so letâs turn to more direct questions about our own lives. What do you think God  expects of you in any given day? If you are like me, this question can reveal some painful disconnects in our perception of God and the faithful life. I recently spoke with a pastor in the Midwest who told me that, when he was in college, he got so excited about the idea that he should âmake every minute countâ and âredeem the timeâ that he and his friends mapped out how they could live on four hours of sleep a night; this way, they could âdo so much more for Christ.â Twenty years later, this once strong and zealous servant of Christ was physically, emotionally, psychologically, and relationally broken. His faith, his family, and his ministry were all on the brink of collapse. He certainly wouldnât trace all of his problems to his early zeal and oversized projects, but he does see how that pattern distorted his life, increasing his expectations not just for how much he should do in a day, but for how much he should accomplish in his life. We may easily dismiss his crazy idea of four hours of sleep per night, but my guess is many of us are living with similar assumptions, and it is hurting us. One sign that unhealthy expectations are running our lives is a constant background frustration in our souls, hiding behind our smiling faces. We are exhausted by the kids, by the church, by the spouse, by the endless demands. We have no margin in life, so when someone says the wrong thing, or a child doesnât move fast enough, or a neighbor needs help, this anger tries to burst through our kindness. People are keeping us from doing what we need to do! Efficiency and productivity have replaced love as our highest value. Gift of Slow Maybe in order not to waste our lives, you and I need to learn the benefit of âwastingâ some time. Let me explain. What we think of as boredom or unproductive time can be a great gift. In the spaces opened by moments of slowness, if we donât immediately fill them with more tasks or distractions, surprising things often happen: our bodies breathe and relax a bit, our imaginations open up, and our hearts can consider all manner of ideas. We have space to evaluate how we spoke to a colleague that morning or notice a young parent struggling with a child. Only by slowing down, and not immediately filling the space, do we start to sense Godâs presence and the complexities of the world â including both its beauties and problems, our wonder and fears. We miss the world when we are constantly busy. Thus Kierkegaardâs insight: the result of busyness is that we are seldom able to form a heart. Compassion, thoughtfulness, repentance, hope, and love all grow in the soil of reflection. And healthy reflection rarely occurs when we donât slow down. âCompassion, thoughtfulness, repentance, hope, and love all grow in the soil of reflection.â Busyness also stunts our growth. Creativity and wisdom require our internal freedom to reflect, wrestle, and sit with challenges. There is a reason that walks and showers are often places of great insight: the distractions are minimal, so the mind and heart can wonder. Such periods of slowness also enrich our communion with God if we take time for mental, emotional, and even physical engagement that the overly busy life excludes. Life improves if we carve out extended times for solitude and silence. These practices have historically been used and recommended by Christians who saw that busyness made it harder to be present with God and with others. These times of silence and solitude can be difficult, especially at first. But until we grow in our ability to be alone with God â and alone with ourselves â we will have difficulty recognizing the Spiritâs presence in our day. Forming Our Hearts Another reason we like to be busy is that we often donât like ourselves. Slowing down and creating space for quiet often faces us with matters we prefer to ignore, whether painful memories from our past, undesirable traits in our personality, or actions we wish we hadnât taken. Busyness can be a way to avoid confronting our sin. It can also be our way of avoiding the wish that we were someone else, or had a different set of abilities or background or temperament. Busyness that enables avoidance can stunt our growth. Busyness makes self-knowledge very difficult. âWe miss the world when we are constantly busy.â Rather than being honest with God and ourselves about our hurts, sins, motivations, and disappointments, we dull our sensitivity with busyness. It takes courage to let moments remain unoccupied, but when we are willing to enter open spaces with an open heart, God can bring serious healing and growth. We also gain more courage to enter such spaces when we live in a community of faith that is safe and loving, where others donât panic or shut down in the face of our pain and shortcomings. When others are comfortable with quiet, mystery, and unfinished work, secure enough in Christ to endure messy situations, that also frees us to face this season in which God is still bringing to completion that which he began (Philippians 1:6): God is comfortable with process, too. We learn to avoid endless busyness when embracing slowness becomes not merely a personal value, but that of our community. Learning to go slower and maybe even âwasteâ more time together opens up fresh spaces to grow in our awareness of Godâs presence and work. We start to become people who can, in the slowness, pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), often without realizing that is whatâs happening. Slowing down â not filling every moment with distractions, dropping the compulsion to squeeze productivity out of every moment â allows us to hear God and others. It gives our imagination and creativity oxygen to breathe, and we start to develop a heart. It opens up the path of love. So go ahead, âwasteâ some time, because this may keep you from wasting your life.
