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About the Book
"Waiting for Morning" follows the story of Hannah Ryan, a young widow who must navigate grief and loss while raising her two young children. Amidst her struggles, Hannah finds hope and healing through unexpected friendships and the power of faith. The novel explores themes of love, forgiveness, and the strength that comes from trusting in God's plan.
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.
What Does It Mean to Be Real
Nobody likes a fake. Even in our airbrush culture, we despise counterfeits and crave authenticity. Everyone wants to be real. But what does it mean to be real? No one really knows. Or so it seems. Try an experiment. Listen to people talk about what it means to be a Christian. Do you know what you will hear? Lots of competing answers and plenty of confusion. Perhaps you recall when 2012 presidential hopeful, Senator Rick Santorum, claimed that President Barack Obamaâs policies were based on âa different theology.â Reporters, of course, pounced on this juicy piece of journalist red meat. âDid Senator Santorum,â they asked, âhave the audacity, not of hope, but political incorrectness, to call into question the presidentâs claim to be a Christian?â When Senator Santorum was pressed, he gave a politically savvy response: âIf the president says heâs a Christian, heâs a Christian.â End of story. Next question, please. His answer satisfied reporters, and thousands of others following the story. It was as if he said, âTo profess faith is to possess faith.â And what could be less objectionable, or more American, than that? But one wonders what Jesus thinks of what Santorum said. More Than Mere Talk Is it enough simply to say  weâre real, or should we be able to see  weâre real? And if so, what should we see? Are there marks of authentic faith we should see in our lives, or in the lives of others? And what about the watching world? What should they see in the lives of real Christians? Now, more than a decade into the twenty-first century, the evangelical church faces huge challenges to its ministry and mission â radical pluralism, aggressive secularism, political polarization, skepticism about religion, revisionist sexual ethics, postmodern conceptions of truth. But perhaps the greatest threat to the churchâs witness is one of our own making â an image problem.  Many outside the church view Christians as unchristian  in their attitudes and actions â bigoted, homophobic, hypocritical, materialistic, judgmental, self-serving, overly political. Several years ago, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons showed this in their book Unchristian , which landed like a bombshell on a happy-go-lucky evangelicalism, causing many of us to do some serious soul-searching. The evangelical churchâs image problem doesnât bode well for its future. In fact, the data suggests that evangelical Christianity is declining in North America. Despite the churchâs best efforts to appeal to the disillusioned, we continue to see alarming trends. Droves of people, especially from younger generations, are leaving the church and donât plan to return. This has driven some to even predict the end of evangelicalism (See David Fitch, The End of Evangelicalism? ). One True Soil The reasons for this discouraging state of affairs are complex, not cookie-cutter. But we know one thing is certain: When Christians are confused about what it means to be real, the spiritual decline of the church will follow. In our increasingly post-Christian culture, where confusion about what it means to be real abounds, and where distrust of organized religion has reached an all-time high, the church needs to get real . We must clarify for ourselves, and for a watching world, what it means to live a life of authentic faith. While Christians are confused about what it means to be real, Jesus is not. âThus you will recognize them by their fruits,â he says (Matthew 7:20). You know youâre real if you bear fruit, he tells us. Fruit is the telltale sign of authentic faith because fruit doesnât lie. âFor no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bushâ (Luke 6:43â44). Jesus underscores this point in his famous parable about the sower (Matthew 13:1â23). The parable itself is straightforward. A farmer sows seed in a field, and the seed represents the good news of the kingdom. It is sown on four different kinds of soil, each representing a different response to the message of the kingdom. Simple enough, right? But hereâs the punch line: Only one type of soil bears fruit. Counterfeits Exposed The seed sown on the first soil hardly gets started. Satan comes and snatches it away. But whatâs even more troubling is the outcome of the seed sown on the second and third soils. Why? Because both respond positively  to the message, at least initially. These seeds appear to take root and begin growing into something real. Yet as the story continues, we learn that neither seed bears fruit. Neither lasts to the end, and thus neither seed is real. Some of the seeds fail to develop roots, and they donât persevere when life gets hard and their faith is tested. All we see from this seed is a burst of enthusiasm, but no staying power. Perhaps this is someone who got excited about fellowship or forgiveness, but lacked love for Christ. They only have the appearance  of being real. Over time, their faith proved counterfeit. We assume the third seed had a similarly joyful response to the message. Yet this soon dissipates because of revived interest in the things of the world â a career promotion, a new vacation home, saving toward their 401(k) plan. These concerns choke any fledgling faith, and the person falls away. New People with New Lives Why does Jesus tell his disciples this sobering parable? Why such a blunt story about the distinction between authentic and inauthentic responses to his message? Evidently, Jesus doesnât equate professing faith with possessing faith, as we so often do. Instead, he warns his disciples that only one things matters â bearing fruit Although provocative, I think Jesusâs point is simple. Real is something you can see.  There is a visible difference  between real and not-real Christians. Itâs not enough to say  youâre real; you should be able to see  youâre real. Real faith is something you can see. Being real is more than regularly attending church, feeling good about God, or âacceptingâ Jesus as your Savior; it goes beyond being baptized, receiving Communion, reciting the creed, or joining in church membership. As important as these things are, being real runs deeper than these things. Real Christians are new creatures. Physically, they wonât look different than others, at least not in the way they dress or keep their hair. Yet real Christians are radically changed â theyâve experienced a new birth, received a new heart, and enjoy new desires. Which makes them altogether new people who live new lives. And it shows. If youâre real, it will reveal itself in your life. Real Christians bear the marks of authentic faith in ways that can be seen, heard, and felt. When you know what youâre looking for, you can see the marks of real in their lives â and in your own.
