God's Smuggler

by Brother Andrew

  So for several days running I stood on corners, I went to the marketplace—bright with fresh summer vegetables—I rode the trams, and everywhere I handed out my booklets.

  I had never seen trams as crowded as these. There were riders on the platforms, on the couplings, on the hubs. I remember once squeezing onto a rear platform, holding my tracts over my head so they would not be crushed. A peasant woman near me looked up at the pamphlets and crossed herself.

  “Ja. Ja,” she said in German. “This is what we need in Poland.”

  That was all. But I knew that we had really met, she the Catholic from Eastern Europe, I the Protestant from the West. There on the crowded tramway platform we had met as Christians.

  ———

  As the days passed and no evil consequences followed the distribution of my booklets in public for all to see, I began to feel exhilarated about the possibilities in this unexpected mission field. And then one day I discovered how deep my own defeatist attitudes still ran. I believed that I had passed out Christian literature in every conceivable setting. But one morning in the daily Quiet Time that I had observed ever since London days, I thought about the military barracks just up the street from the school. Not only had it never occurred to me to pass out booklets to the soldiers there, but the very sight of their uniforms made me quicken my steps in the other direction.

  How blind could you get! I of all people ought to have known that the uniform doesn’t make the man. The day before the festival ended I walked up to the group of six Red soldiers standing guard and handed each of them a booklet. The men glanced at the booklets, at me, then at each other. I told them I was Dutch and found that one of them spoke German.

  “It must make you very bitter, the American occupation,” one of them said.

  “The what?”

  “The occupation of Holland by the American Air Force.”

  I was in the midst of trying to explain that we were not an occupied country when the soldiers all suddenly came to attention. Up walked an officer, barking orders in Polish as he came. The six soldiers wheeled smartly and marched away double time. But I noticed that they carried their booklets with them.

  “What was it you gave these men?” said the officer in German.

  “This, sir.” I handed him one of the little books. He looked at it carefully. Two hours later it was I who broke away. We were scheduled to leave the next day, and I had a dozen travel forms to fill out. As we parted, the officer, a Russian Orthodox by birth, wished me Godspeed and a safe journey.

  The next morning was our last in Warsaw. I was up even earlier than usual and out on the street at sunup. I found a bench on one of the broad avenues, wiped off the dew, and sat down with my pocket Testament on my knee. I had a special purpose in coming out so early. I wanted to pray for each person I had encountered on my trip. For a long time that morning I pictured the places and the people I had seen. On three Sundays I had visited Presbyterian, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, and Methodist churches. Five times I had been asked to speak during a service. I had visited a Bible shop, talked with soldiers and an officer, with people on street corners and on trolley cars. I prayed for each one.

  And as I sat praying I heard the music.

  It was coming toward me down the avenue. Martial, smart, with a sound of voices singing. And then I saw it—the perfect climax to the visit: the Parade of Triumph that ended the festival.

  This was the other side of the picture. For over against the one little Bible shop and the occasional Christian I had met, was this mammoth counterfact: the tremendous strength of the regime.

  Here they came now, the young Socialists, marching down the avenue. Not for a moment did I believe they were there under coercion. They marched because they believed. They marched eight abreast: healthy, vital, clean-cut. They marched singing, and their voices were like shouts. On and on they came for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, rank after rank of young men and young women. . . .

  The effect was overwhelming. These were the evangelists of the twentieth century. These were the people who went about shouting their good news.

  And part of the news was that the old shackles and superstitions of religion, the old inhibiting ideas about God, no longer held. Man was his own master: The future was his to take.

  What should we of the West do about them, these thousands of young people still marching past me, clapping now with a terrifying rhythm?

  Kill them? This was the answer the Nazis had offered.

  Let them win by default? Much as I loved and respected the WEC and its training college, it had never once sent a man behind the Iron Curtain.

  What should we do then? What should I do?

  The Bible in my lap lay open, pages ruffling in the morning breeze. I put down my hand to hold them still and found that I was looking at the book of Revelation. My fingers were resting on the page almost as though they were pointing. “Awake,” said the verse at my fingertips, “and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death. . . .”

  Suddenly I realized that I was seeing the words through a blur of tears. Could it be that God was speaking them to me right now, telling me that my life work was here behind the Iron Curtain, where His remnant Church was struggling for its life? Was I to have some part in strengthening this precious thing that remained?

  But that was ridiculous! How could I? As far as I knew, back then in 1955, there was not a single missionary working in this largest of all mission fields. What could I, one person without funds or organization, do against an overwhelming force like the one passing in front of me now?

  8

  The Cup of Suffering

  Our train pulled into Amsterdam right on schedule. I got off with the rest of the crowd, corduroy trousers still squeaking, but carrying a suitcase that was considerably lighter than it had been going to Warsaw.

  I did not go directly to Witte. Instead, I went to see the Whetstras in their new Amsterdam home.

  It was a beauty: a handsome brown brick house in a pleasant, tree-lined street near the river. Parked in front was a shining new Volkswagen, light blue, which Mr. Whetstra had also written me about. I put my suitcase down on the sidewalk and tried the little car’s door.

  “Well, son, what do you think of her?”

  I turned around to find Mr. Whetstra smiling at me. He took me for a short spin around the waterfront.

  “But enough of showing off,” he said. “You must tell us about your visit to Poland.”

  So for the rest of the afternoon I told the Whetstras about my trip. I told them, too, about the Bible verse that apparently had been given me in such an uncanny way.

  “But how would I go about strengthening anything?” I said. “What kind of strength do I have?”

  Mr. Whetstra shook his head. He agreed with me that one lone Dutchman was scarcely an answer to the kind of need I had been describing. It was Mrs. Whetstra who understood.

  “No strength at all!” she answered me joyously. “And don’t you know that it is just when we are weakest that God can use us most? Suppose now that it wasn’t you but the Holy Spirit Who had plans behind the Iron Curtain? You talk about strength. . . .”

  ———

  My return to Witte was coupled with a pleasant surprise.

  Neighbors dropped in all evening with questions, the basic ones all of us were asking in 1955 when travel behind the Curtain was just beginning and the Communist world was still cloaked in mystery. But finally the last guest clomped across our little bridge, and it was time for bed. I stretched, reached for my nearly empty suitcase, and started to follow Cornelius up the ladder to the loft.

  “Just a minute, Andy,” said Geltje.

  I stopped.

  “We have something to show you!”

  I got down off the ladder and followed Geltje into the room off the parlor that had once been Mama’s and Papa’s. Every inch of it was filled with memories: Bas’s wasted form beneath the blanket; Mama during the last months of the war�
�too weak to lift her head from that pillow. . . .

  “With the new room for Papa finished over the shed, Andy,” Geltje was saying, “we’ve decided you should have this for your headquarters.”

  I couldn’t find my breath. In my wildest dreams of bliss, I had never imagined a room of my own. In this small house I knew at what sacrifice Arie and Geltje were making me this gift.

  “Until you’re married!” Papa boomed from the living room. Papa was beginning to make frequent remarks about his 27-year-old bachelor son. “Just until you’re married!”

  I somehow found words to say, “A room of my own!” That night after the rest of the family had gone to bed, I closed my own door and went around my room just feeling my furniture.

  “Thank you for a chair, Lord. Thank you for a bureau. . . .” I would build a desk. I’d put it there, and I’d spend hours here in my room, studying and working and planning.

  I had not been home a week before the invitations began to come in. Churches, clubs, civic groups, schools; everybody wanted to know about life behind the Iron Curtain.

  I accepted them all. In part I needed the payment they offered. But I had an even stronger reason. Somehow I felt sure that through the speeches I was going to be shown what I was to do next.

  And that’s what happened.

  A church in Haarlem where I was to speak had posted advertisements all over town stating that my subject was to be “How Christians Live Behind the Iron Curtain.” I would never have presumed to speak on such a topic after a three-week visit to one city. But at least the announcements did draw a crowd—the hall was jammed. And they drew something else: a group of Communists.

  I recognized them right away—some of them had been on the trip—and I wondered what heckling I might be in for. To my surprise, however, they made no move either during the speech or during the question period that followed. But afterward one of the women came up to me. She had been a leader of the Dutch delegation in Warsaw.

  “I didn’t like your talk,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would.”

  “You told only part of the story,” she said. “Obviously you haven’t seen enough. You need to travel more, visit more countries, meet more leaders.”

  I said nothing. What was she leading up to?

  “In other words, you ought to take another trip, and that’s what I’ve come to suggest.” I held my breath. “I am in charge of selecting fifteen people from Holland to take a trip to Czechoslovakia. They’ll be gone four weeks. There’ll be students and professors and people in communications, and we’d like someone from the churches. Would you come?”

  Was this God’s hand? Was this the next door opening in His plan for me? I decided to put the question before Him once again in terms of money. I knew I didn’t have funds for such a trip. “If You want me to go, Lord,” I said in a flash prayer beneath my breath, “You will have to supply the means.”

  “Thanks,” I said aloud, “but I could never afford such a trip. I’m sorry.” I began to pack away the pictures of Warsaw I had brought with me.

  I could feel the lady staring at me.

  “Well,” she said finally, “we can work that out.”

  I looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “About the expenses. For you, there will be no charge.”

  ———

  And so began my second trip behind the Iron Curtain. It was much like my visit to Poland except that the group was smaller and I had a lot more trouble getting off by myself. I kept wondering what it was God wanted me to learn in Czechoslovakia.

  And toward the end of the four weeks I found the answer. Everywhere we had been told about the religious freedom that people enjoyed under Communism. Here in Czechoslovakia, our guide told us, there was even a group of scholars, paid by the State, who had just finished a new translation of the Bible and were even now working on a Bible dictionary.

  “I would very much like to visit these men,” I said.

  So that afternoon I was taken to a large office building in the heart of Prague. It was the Interchurch Center—the headquarters for all Protestant churches in Czechoslovakia. My first impression was astonishment at the size of the physical facilities that the Church was able to maintain. I was led into a suite of offices where scholarly looking gentlemen in black coats sat behind heavy tomes and piles of paper. These were the men, I was told, who had worked on the new translation. I was very impressed. But gradually some amusing facts began to emerge. I asked if I might see a copy of the new translation, and was shown a bulky, much-fingered manuscript.

  “Oh. The translation has not been published yet?” I asked.

  “Well, no,” said one of the scholars. His face seemed sad. “We’ve had it ready since the war, but . . .” He glanced at the tour director and let his sentence drift off.

  “What about the Bible dictionary? Is that ready yet?”

  “Almost.”

  “But what good will it do to have a dictionary of the Bible and no Bible? Are there earlier translations?”

  The scholar looked again at the tour director as if trying to decide how much he could say.

  “No,” he finally blurted out. “No. It’s very difficult. Very difficult to find Bibles here nowadays.”

  The tour director considered the interview over. I was shepherded out without having a chance to ask more questions. But the damage had been done. I had glimpsed the subterfuge. Rather than make a frontal attack on religion in this devout nation, the new regime was playing the game of Frustration. It was sponsoring a new translation of the Bible—a translation that never quite got published. It was sponsoring a new dictionary of the Bible—only there were no Bibles to go with the dictionary.

  The next day I asked our guide to take me to the Interdenominational Book Store at Jungmanova No. 9. I was determined to see for myself how difficult it was to buy a Bible. The shop was well stocked with music, stationery, pictures, statues, crosses, books that were more or less related to religion. In any similar shop in Holland there would be an entire section of the store devoted to different editions of the Scriptures.

  “May I see a red-letter Bible, please?” I asked the saleswoman. By now I had discovered that, between English and German, I rarely had any trouble communicating.

  The saleswoman shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. Those are out of stock right now.”

  “Well, how about a standard black-and-white edition?”

  But these too, it seemed, were temporarily unavailable.

  “Ma’am,” I said, “I have come all the way from Holland to see how the Church is faring in Czechoslovakia. Are you going to tell me that I can walk into the largest religious bookstore in the country and not be able to buy a single Bible?”

  The saleswoman excused herself and disappeared into the back of the store. There was a rapid and somewhat excited discussion behind the curtain, followed by the sound of paper rattling. And then the manager himself appeared, carrying a parcel already wrapped in brown paper.

  “Here you are, sir.” I thanked him. “It’s that new translation that makes Bibles scarce,” the manager said. “Until that comes out, new Bibles just aren’t being printed.”

  ———

  It was our last day. Big plans had been made for us. We were to go out of Prague on a tour of model communities in the countryside. Then we were to come back for dinner, a press conference, and final good-byes.

  I might possibly have suffered through this schedule for the sake of politeness, except for one thing: It was Sunday. It was my last chance to worship with Czech believers without having a “guide” hovering nearby.

  I had planned my escape for days. I had noticed that the rear door of our tour bus had a faulty spring: Even in “closed” position there was a gap over a foot wide between it and the doorjamb. By holding my breath . . .

  As the bus pulled away from the hotel that last day, I was in the last seat. At every traffic light I sized up my chances for slipping out that
door unseen. But too many heads were turning, taking in the sights of the city. At last came a chance when every neck was craned forward, staring at the heroic bronze figure of a man on horseback. I never learned who it was, for as the tour director began describing it, I sucked in my breath, squeezed through the opening, and stepped down into the street. The air brakes hissed, and the powerful motor revved up. I was alone in Prague.

  Half an hour later I was standing in the vestibule of a church I had spotted on a previous tour of the city, watching people come in. I was particularly anxious to see how a church could function without Bibles. Occasionally someone carried a hymnal, more rarely a Bible. But one thing that puzzled me—many people brought looseleaf notebooks. What were they for?

  The service began. I took a seat in the back and immediately had a surprise. Almost everyone seemed farsighted! The owners of the hymn books held them out at arm’s length, high in the air. Those with looseleaf notebooks did the same. And then I realized: The people with books were sharing them with those who had none. In the notebooks were copied, note by note and word by word, the favorite hymns of the congregation.

  It was the same with the Bibles. When the preacher announced the text, every Bible owner in the congregation found the reference and held his book high so that friends nearby could follow the reading. As I watched those men and women struggling literally to get close to the Word, my hand closed over the Dutch Bible in my coat jacket. How much for granted I had always taken my right to own this Book. I thought that I would never reach for it again without remembering the old granny in front of me now, standing almost on tiptoe, squinting as she strained to see the words in the Bible her son held aloft.

  After the service I introduced myself to the preacher. When I mentioned that I had come from Holland chiefly to meet with Christians in his country, he seemed overwhelmed.

  “I had heard,” he said, “that Czechoslovakia was going to begin opening its borders. I didn’t believe it. We’ve been—” he looked around—“almost imprisoned since the war. You must come and talk with me.”