God's Smuggler

by Brother Andrew

  I parked the car down the street and gave myself up to daydreams. She was the queen in the castle, and I was a knight in armor. She was Juliet, and when she appeared on her balcony, I would step forward. . . .

  But she didn’t appear, either on the balcony or anywhere else. The afternoon passed. Darkness came, but no light appeared in Corry’s rooms. Abandoning all pretense at subtlety, I went up to the door and rang the bell. A maid answered. Miss van Dam? Yes, she lived there. But at the moment she was with her family in Alkmaar.

  “Alkmaar?” All my studied casualness left me. “But there’s no one at the house in Alkmaar! The windows are all boarded up, and the garden’s been let go and—”

  Attracted by the sounds of distress, a white-haired lady appeared in the hall behind the maid. Gently she told me that Corry’s father was seriously ill and that she had gone to take care of him. The family had moved from their house to an apartment in which there would be no stairs to climb. She gave me the address.

  For the next few days I suffered through my appointments in the tiresome town of Haarlem. How glad I now was that I had always spent a few minutes talking with Mr. van Dam, the evenings we were in his home. What could be more natural than for me to pay him a visit?

  And so a few nights later I was standing outside the van Dam apartment in Alkmaar, knocking on the door.

  Corry opened it.

  The light behind her turned her hair to gold. “I’ve come to ask about your father,” I said faintly.

  The pretext would not have fooled a three-year-old child. But Corry led me gravely back to her father’s room. Mr. van Dam was very ill—I could see it even from the doorway. But he seemed delighted to have a visitor. And so for an hour I sat in a chair beside his bed and told him about my trips behind the Iron Curtain and my hopes for the future, while Corry came and went with bottles and trays, and I tried to keep my eyes from following her. She was wearing a white nurse’s uniform and seemed to me even more heavenly and unattainable than she’d been in my dreams.

  And so began a curious, fumbling courtship. Twice a week I called on Mr. van Dam; twice a week Corry and I held hushed, sickroom conversations at the front door. Oftener than that, I felt, would be intruding on this home preoccupied with its problem.

  Between visits I would often try to imagine myself proposing to Corry, and it sounded so awful that I knew ahead of time it was no use. Please marry me. I’ll be gone much of the time and I won’t be able to give you an address where you can write to me, and weeks will go by when I can’t get letters out to you, and though we’ll be in missionary work you’ll never be able to talk about the places and people we’re working with, and if one time I shouldn’t come back you’ll probably never know what happened. Add to that no foreseeable income, a room over a toolshed for a home—Corry was just too smart, as well as too pretty, to settle for a life like that.

  It was October 20, during the time I was making these semiweekly visits, that the letter came from the Hungarian consulate. My request for a visa, dated a week after the revolt, had been approved.

  And suddenly I knew how I would go about asking Corry to marry me. I would ask her then, that week, that very day, but I wouldn’t let her answer until I got back from Hungary. That way—supposing she even considered the proposal—she’d have a chance to taste this brand of marriage ahead of time: the separation, the secrecy, the uncertainty. Face it, Andy, I said to myself, the plain wretchedness of it.

  But now that I had a plan, my heart couldn’t help leaping for hope. I jumped into the car and covered the distance to Alkmaar in record time. I pounded on the door, forgetting for a moment the sick man inside. They were taking an awfully long time answering. I was lifting my hand to knock again when the door opened. One look at Corry’s face and I knew.

  “Your father—?”

  She nodded. “Half an hour ago.” Talking was obviously a struggle. “The doctor’s here now.”

  And so I drove back to Witte with my proposal still burning inside me. Except at the funeral, I didn’t see Corry for three weeks. I spent the time buying or begging every Hungarian-language Bible in Holland—which wasn’t many—and stowing them, along with a supply of Hungarian tracts, in the car.

  At last one beautiful moonlit night I asked Corry to come for a ride with me. We spun along a broad dike until our headlights picked out a smaller road leading off to the right. I swung down it and stopped. The moon gleamed up at us from the canal at our feet. The setting was perfect.

  And I said everything wrong: “Corry,” I began, “I want you to marry me, but don’t say no until I tell you how hard it will be. Hard for me and harder still for you.” And then I outlined for her the work that I believed God had given me. I told her the next month would be a fair sample of the life ahead for me—and for her if she chose it. “You’d be crazy to, Corry,” I finished miserably. “But I do so want you to!”

  Corry’s enormous eyes were bigger still when I had finished. She opened her mouth to speak, but I laid my hand on it. When I left her at her apartment, I had her promise that she would give me my answer when I returned from Hungary.

  ———

  What a difference in the trip across Europe! I had thought this separation would teach Corry something; I had not known how much it would teach me. The miles that had rolled away so easily beneath my tires before now tugged and called to me—every one a mile farther from her.

  The border crossing, too, was harder on me than usual. Whether it was that for the first time I wanted desperately not to be caught, not to be detained, not to let anything keep me from that date in Alkmaar, or whether the stories in the refugee camps had made me particularly fearful of Hungary, I do not know.

  However, once again God made “seeing eyes blind,” and at last I was rolling along through the Hungarian countryside. The road I was following wound along the Danube. It was beautiful, just as the song said—although its color instead of being blue was a deep milk-chocolate brown. I began to feel hungry and decided to stop by the river for lunch. So I pulled off the road, drove down a sandy lane, stopped in a little clearing at the water’s edge, and got out the makings of my picnic. In order to get the stove out, I actually had to move several boxes of tracts that the border guards had just overlooked.

  No sooner had I opened a can of peas-and-carrots than I heard a roar. I looked up. A speedboat was cutting through the water toward me at full throttle, throwing a wake higher than the boat itself. In the bow stood a soldier with a drawn machine gun. At the last possible instant the boat swerved and coasted to a neat landing at the river’s edge. Now I saw that there were two other soldiers in the boat. The man in front leapt ashore, followed by another one.

  “Lord,” I said very softly as they approached, “help me refuse to yield to fear.”

  The first soldier kept the machine gun on me while the other ran to the car. I kept stirring the peas-and-carrots as I heard the door of the car open.

  I began talking, speaking Dutch, which I felt sure these men would not understand.

  “Well, sir,” I said, stirring, “it certainly is nice to have you drop in this way.”

  The soldier stared stonily.

  “As you can see,” I went on, “I’m preparing to eat.”

  Behind me I heard the other door of the car open. I reached into my picnic box and drew out two extra plates. “Would you care to join me?” I raised my eyebrows and waved my hand in a gesture of invitation. The soldier shook his head brusquely as if to say he wasn’t going to be bribed. “At least not for a mess of peas-and-carrots, eh?” I thought.

  I could hear the other soldier poking around. Any moment now he would certainly ask about those boxes.

  “Well,” I said aloud, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and eat while the food is hot.” I spooned the vegetables onto my plate and then faced a dilemma. Should I say grace? In the camps they had told me that Christians were particularly suspect in Hungary now, since many had taken leading roles in the
revolt.

  But no, here was a chance to witness to three men. In a gesture far more deliberate than normal, I bowed my head, folded my hands, and said a long and hearty thanksgiving for the food I was about to eat.

  An amazing thing happened. While I prayed there was no sound from the soldier inspecting my car. Just as soon as I had finished, the door slammed and I heard the sound of boots coming rapidly toward me. I picked up my fork and took a bite of peas. For a moment both soldiers stood over me. Then abruptly they whirled. Without looking behind them, they ran down to their boat, jumped in, and roared off in a spray of white.

  Budapest was the loveliest city I had yet seen in my travels: two ancient towns, Buda and Pest, built on the two shores of the Danube. But signs of the revolt were everywhere. Buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, trees ripped up, tram rails twisted.

  I had been given the address of a Professor B, a man who held an excellent position in a famous school in Budapest. When I asked him if he would act as my interpreter, I did not appreciate the terrible significance of his answer. “Of course, Brother,” he said. “We are in this together.” That decision cost my friend his livelihood.

  Professor B was overjoyed with the gift of Bibles. He said they were almost unattainable. He told me that there were scores of churches open and functioning as best they could. I could be just as busy as I chose, speaking and distributing the books, provided I didn’t mind taking a few risks.

  “A few risks?” I said.

  “Well, you see, the revolt is so recent. The authorities think every church supper is hatching a plot.” Those who had suffered most, he said, were the pastors. Most of those in Budapest had been in serious trouble with the regime: About a third had spent time in prison, some for as long as six years. Each preacher had to have his permit renewed every two months, and this was a regulation that kept them in constant tension.

  Professor B took me to visit a friend of his, a Reformed pastor, who opened the door to us cautiously and looked up and down the hall before letting us in. His apartment was filled with lampshades! Some were completed, some just covered frames, some in the process of being rather crudely painted with street scenes from Budapest.

  This man, I learned, had been summarily dismissed from his pulpit—no reason given. He was not even allowed to sit on the platform during services. Afraid that his very presence would get others into trouble, he and his wife had withdrawn from the fellowship altogether. In order to keep his family from starving, he was painting lampshades. He worked from early morning until late at night to supply their most basic needs.

  After we left I asked Professor B how typical this pastor’s plight was.

  “Fairly typical among the churches that do not compromise,” he said. “But many compromise. They ‘adjust’ to the regime not only in politics but in the basics of the faith, so that they become little more than arms of the government.”

  I asked Professor B to take me to such a church, and he told me that the pastor of one of them was officiating at a public school festival that afternoon. Sure enough, the pastor was on the reviewing stand. In a few minutes he came over to talk with us.

  “Perhaps a third of that group,” he said, pointing to a row of youngsters lined up on the school lawn, “belong to our church.” Each child was wearing a brilliant red scarf, a symbol, he explained, of good citizenship. One of the requirements for the scarf was a “proper attitude” toward the religious superstitions of their parents.

  “What superstitions?” I asked.

  “Oh—miracles. And the creating story. Original sin. Fallen man. That sort of thing.”

  “What about the fact that Jesus was God?”

  “They would put that at the top of the list.”

  “How do you yourself feel?”

  The pastor lowered his eyes. “What can you do. . . .” He shrugged his shoulders.

  The children were obviously having a wonderful time. Once again I heard that awesome clapping that I had heard both in Poland and in Czechoslovakia. As before, it started spontaneously; but within twenty seconds it picked up a group rhythm that became a single pounding, driving hammer on an unearthly anvil. Clap. Clap. Clap. All in perfect unison, all united, all one. The principal of the school let the clapping go on until it got to my very bones. I could see it was having the same effect on the pastor. I could see him lift his hands, almost shaking, as if he wanted desperately to put his fingers in his ears but dared not.

  When the school ceremony was over, the pastor took us to see his church. He was talking about the improved heating plant and the new windows and the enlarged playing field out back, when suddenly he said to me, “Brother Andrew, what should I do?”

  I didn’t answer right away. How could I give advice when I had never stood in his shoes? It was easy to say, “Be strong.” But this man knew that his license, and therefore the support of his family, depended week by week on the whim of the government.

  I could not give advice, but I could tell him the stories of Christians in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, facing pressures and problems similar to his own, but never failing to preach Christ’s redeeming love. With this love in their hearts, it seemed to me, people could be trusted to find out for themselves the truth of these other matters of faith.

  Professor B assured me that there were churches in Hungary, too, that were finding ways around their restrictions. One of the most interesting was funeral-and-wedding evangelism.

  Professor B asked me one morning to take part in a Hungarian wedding.

  “This will be like no wedding you’ve ever attended,” he promised. “Now listen carefully, because I’m going to ask you to do a strange thing. You will have a chance to speak, and when you do, you are to say a quick word of congratulation to the bride and groom, and then you are to preach the hardest-hitting blood-and-thunder salvation sermon we can pray for.”

  I had to smile.

  “Don’t laugh,” said Professor B. “This is the way we preach to most people these days. Folks today are afraid to enter a church except for funerals and weddings. So we preach to them then! A government official said to me last week, ‘I’ll bet every night you pray for your friends to die so you can get your sermon in.’”

  So I preached at the wedding, and afterward I told Professor B about the other device I had discovered: that of bringing “greetings” from Holland. He was entranced at the idea. He wanted to start a campaign right away. So he got on the telephone and began making calls. That same night we held a thinly disguised revival meeting in one of the largest churches in town.

  The next night we held another meeting, but in a different church. And so on, night after night. We never announced until the end of the meeting where the next meeting was going to be. Even so, people were lining up on the sidewalk to hear the visiting Dutchman talk. This was attracting too much attention, and we soon devised the technique of simply stating that there would be a meeting the following night without saying where it would be. Then all the next day people would be on the telephone, passing word along as to where we were to meet.

  As we sat on the platform waiting for the service to begin, I would see the pastors searching the faces in the congregation.

  “They’re looking for the secret police,” Professor B explained. “We know many of them by sight. After the revolt it has been dangerous to attract large crowds for any reason.”

  The nervousness and anxiety were contagious, so that halfway through the campaign I too began to dream at night of trouble with the police.

  And then one evening the police did come.

  I knew it from the look on Professor B’s face.

  “They’re here,” he whispered, and I didn’t need to ask who “they” were. He signaled that I was to follow him back into the vestry. Two plainclothesmen were waiting. They asked me a lot of questions, and then they issued a summons for me to appear the following morning, along with Professor B, at headquarters.

  “The last time this happened,�
� Professor B told me when they had gone, “two men were arrested. They were in prison a long time.”

  After the service all of the pastors gathered in the vestry to decide what we should do. Professor B suggested that we go to his home and pray. It was the first time I had been to his house. I had forgotten what a prominent place a professor has in the society of Eastern Europe. His home was immense and luxurious. And this was the position he was risking!

  Professor B introduced me to his son, Janos. I instantly liked him. He had recently married and was doing well as a young attorney, and yet he too was willing to place his career on the line by taking part in these frowned-upon meetings of Christians. There were seven of us that night, seven Christians gathered in much the same way Christians had gathered since the Church began—in secret, in trouble—praying together that through the miraculous intervention of God Himself we be spared a confrontation with the authorities.

  We prayed there in the living room of Professor B, all kneeling around a low round coffee table in the center of the room. For an hour we kept up an earnest intercession, begging God to help us in our time of need. And all at once, the praying stopped. To every one of us at the same instant came the inexplicable certainty that God had heard, that our prayer was answered.

  We got up from our knees, blinking at each other in surprise. I looked at my watch. It was 11:35 in the evening. At that precise hour we knew that tomorrow everything was going to be all right.

  The next morning promptly at nine o’clock, Professor B and I were at headquarters. While we were waiting, Professor B whispered to me that he knew the staff well. The head of the department was unrelenting in his attacks on the Church; his deputy was much more likely to be lenient.

  “We are scheduled,” he said behind his hand, “to see the department head. Too bad.”

  Nine-thirty came, and then ten o’clock. Eleven. We were both used to long waits in bureaucratic countries, but this was a long delay by any standards. Finally, just before noon, a clerk appeared.