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.
A Great Marriage-Wrecking Lie
I met my aunt Margaret for the first time when I was ten. She was in a wheelchair in the middle of the front room, drooling uncontrollably, unaware of my presence, incontinent, and unable to take care of herself. And yet my uncle Gale cared for her, and he did so tenderly. They were high school sweethearts, but now she was dying of brain cancer after only fifteen years together. My uncle didnât abandon her. He didnât get a mistress. No, he had publicly vowed, âin sickness and in health, till death do us partâ â and he was faithful to his word. A few years later, she died. This is a biblical picture of marriage: joy through servanthood, faithfulness, and self-denial. But times have changed. Our societal expectations for marriage have gone through a radical transformation, and those changes have affected many in the church. Changing Expectations One commentator describes the transformation this way: âThe old attitude was that one must work for the marriage. The new attitude is that the marriage had better work for meâ (Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West, 267). My uncle worked for his marriage. He was willing to forgo short-term pleasure for the sake of his wife, his children, and the glory of God. He believed that keeping his marriage vows would enhance his joy in this life and in the world to come. But those who expect marriage to âwork for meâ often assume that âGod just wants me to be happyâ in the thin and predictable ways. Their focus is on me and my immediate needs. They will most likely bail when any significant, protracted marital trouble comes. Here is how University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox sums up our new marital expectations: Prior to the late 1960s, Americans were more likely to look at marriage and family through the prisms of duty, obligation, and sacrifice. . . . But the psychological revolutionâs focus on individual fulfillment and personal growth changed all that. Increasingly, marriage was seen as a vehicle for a self-oriented ethic of romance, intimacy, and fulfillment. In this new psychological approach to married life, oneâs primary obligation was not to oneâs family but to oneself; hence, marital success was defined not by successfully meeting obligations to oneâs spouse and children but by a strong sense of subjective happiness in marriage â usually to be found in and through an intense, emotional relationship with oneâs spouse. The 1970s marked the period when, for many Americans, a more institutional model of marriage gave way to the âsoul-mate modelâ of marriage. Professor Wilcoxâs âsoul-mate modelâ is a fruit of expressive individualism. The assumptions behind this model are a moral solvent, dissolving the covenant bond of marriage. At its center is a potent, marriage-wrecking lie: God just wants me to be happy â and that is âhappinessâ as I choose to define it. Couples have used this lie to justify abortion, divorce, adultery, abandonment, and all kinds of selfishness. âGod wants couples to pursue a greater long-term marital happiness through Christlike self-denial.â The problem with this lie is that it twists an important truth. God does want us to be happy, but he defines the terms, and immediate happiness is not Godâs primary goal. God wants couples to pursue a greater long-term marital happiness through Christlike self-denial. God expects us to deny self â to defer immediate marital gratification â in order to experience greater long-term happiness. There are times in marriage when such self-denial takes great faith. Beneath the Lie This lie is a deeply rooted cultural assumption, and assumptions can be difficult to address because they are often subconscious. They seep into us through television, movies, literature, media, music, and our educational system. For instance, one way they rise to the surface and become visible is through consumer advertising. Ad agencies get paid to identify the assumptions that motivate us. Here are some examples â each, if internalized a certain way, could be devastating to a marriage: Outback Steakhouse invites us to eat at their restaurants because there are âNo rules. Just right.â McDonalds tells us to buy French fries because âYou deserve a break today.â Reebok urges us to buy their running shoes âBecause youâre worth it.â And Nike, throwing all restraint to the wind, urges us to âJust do it!â The assumptions expressed by the mind of Christ, however, are strikingly different. Do we âdeserve a break todayâ? Are we really âworth itâ? And above all, should we give into sinful passion and âjust do itâ? No, we live by a deeper logic that counters the selfishness and presumption of the world around us: the logic of the cross. We deserved eternal death, but Christ humbled himself and died so that we might experience the full and abundant life. âJesus found joy through self-denial, and so will husbands and wives.â The deepest marital happiness comes through self-denial, humility, unselfishness, patience, kindness, and the crucifixion of our me mentality. Ultimately, the wise Christian couple pursuing a happy, God-glorifying union will model their marriage on Christ and him crucified. Jesus found joy through self-denial (Hebrews 12:2), and so will husbands and wives. Deny Yourself for Her Again and again, Scripture gives us glimpses into the mind of Christ. After predicting his death and resurrection, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24â25) âTake up a cross? Are you kidding?â The cross was an instrument of torture, death, suffering, and shame. But Jesus urges us to save our lives by doing just that â taking up our cross. We save our marriages through denying ourselves â making our spouseâs happiness as important as our own. We apply the principle of the cross. We do this with the conviction that happiness deferred in patient obedience to God is much greater than happiness immediately gratified. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:26â28) Happy, fruitful marriages do not think mainly in terms of rights. They think from the mind of Christ. Jesus died to his rights to give us ours before God. Husbands and wives who follow him do the same. Do nothing from selfishness or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more significant [or important] than yourself. (Philippians 2:3) The closest âotherâ in your life is your spouse â the person that sleeps with you, eats with you, worships with you, and raises your children with you. Applying this principle gets really practical. The Lieâs Fruit As the lie proliferates in North America and beyond, the fruits are painfully obvious. Self-denial is an indispensable part of the glue that makes the marital covenant work. Without a willingness to deny self, people are less willing to marry, or they donât stay married. In 1970, about 70 percent of Americans over age 18 were married. Today, for the first time in U.S. history, that number is 50 percent and falling. âMarriage isnât changing,â notes sociologist Mark Regnerus. âItâs receding. In an era of increasing options, technology, gender equality, âcheapâ sex, and secularization, fewer people â including fewer practicing Christians â actually want what marriage is. Thatâs the bottom line.â Collapsing marriage also means collapsing fertility. We are not producing enough children to replace ourselves. Were it not for immigration, the population in North America would be shrinking. Thankfully, fertility rates in the evangelical church are better than the national average. Rejecting the Lie What can we do to reject the lie? We can start with the assumption that we donât deserve to be happy. As we have already noted, the cross shows each of us what we deserve â death, and that is the bottom line. Therefore, no matter how bad our marital circumstances, we are always getting better than we deserve. Those who believe this can continually thank God for his kindness, in spite of their marital problems. We can also reject the lie by believing that holy people are happy people, and marriage is one of Godâs primary tools to produce personal holiness. âTo be holy as he is holy,â notes Bruce Milne, âis the prescription for true and endless happiness. To be holy is to be happy . . . there is no joy like that of holinessâ (The Message of Heaven and Hell, 52). I have found it helpful to think of marriage as a spiritual gymnasium in which I strengthen personal holiness. Marriage toughens the muscle of forgiveness. It strengthens the willingness to love an enemy. It enhances the ability to humble myself and receive criticism. Marriage also teaches the crucial words, âIâm sorry. Would you please forgive me?â In the marital gym, I also strengthen the crucial muscle of perseverance. Most marriages face a moment when the couple would like to call it quits but, if they persevere, almost always later admit that would have been a mistake. Focus on the Family once did a study of couples who persevered through the desire to divorce, only to find that five years later, most of those who persevered now described themselves as happy in their marriage. Persevering when the going gets tough requires self-denial, but it often solves many lesser problems. Two Slaves Become One Ambrose Bierce, a nineteenth-century short-story writer, not known for being a Christian, nevertheless summed up marriage with these insightful words: âMarriage is a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, one person.â My insightful wife sums up the mind of Christ in marriage this way: âEvery fruitful, happy marriage begins with two funerals.â This is how the mind of Christ thinks. It thinks like my uncle Gale. Reject the lie that immediate happiness is the goal. Yes, God does want us to be happy, but the deepest, most lasting happiness comes only to those who deny themselves and take up their cross daily. They serve unselfishly, consider their spouse more significant than themselves, persevere through marital troubles, practice forgiveness, and grow in humility. These are the marriages that maximize long-term happiness, and in such a way that God gets the glory. Article by William Farley
