Brother Andrew
Brother Andrew (1928–2022). Born Anne van der Bijl on May 11, 1928, in Sint Pancras, Netherlands, to a poor blacksmith and an invalid mother, Brother Andrew was a Dutch missionary and evangelist renowned for smuggling Bibles into Communist countries during the Cold War. After limited schooling, disrupted by Nazi occupation, he joined the Dutch army at 17, serving in Indonesia, where he was wounded and began reading a Bible, leading to his conversion in 1950. In 1955, attending a Communist youth congress in Poland, he discovered isolated churches desperate for Scriptures, inspiring his lifelong mission based on Revelation 3:2, “Wake up! Strengthen what remains.” Using a blue Volkswagen Beetle, he smuggled millions of Bibles across the Iron Curtain, founding Open Doors in 1955 to support persecuted Christians, now active in over 60 nations. Andrew authored God’s Smuggler (1967) with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, selling over 10 million copies, and Light Force (2004), detailing outreach to Islamic groups like Hamas. He ministered globally, from China to Cuba, and was knighted by Queen Beatrix in 1993. Married in 1958 to Corry, with five children, he died on September 27, 2022, in the Netherlands. He said, “The real calling is not a certain place or career but to everyday obedience.”
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Sermon Summary
Brother Andrew shares his harrowing experience as a young soldier in 1947, recounting how his bravado led to a tragic incident where he participated in the massacre of innocent villagers after a landmine explosion killed a comrade. This moment of violence haunted him, leading him into a downward spiral of guilt and reckless behavior, as he struggled to cope with the weight of his actions. Through his story, Andrew illustrates the profound impact of sin and the desperate need for redemption and forgiveness in the face of our flawed humanity.
Flawed
As a youth of 19 in 1947, Andy van der Bijl was a commando in the Dutch East Indies when the Dutch were fighting Indonesian 'rebels'. Andy was no half-hearted soldier either. He was the most daring of the daring. He once single-handedly captured ten armed guerillas on sheer bravado. He defiantly wore a bright yellow hat so the enemy could see him better. "Get smart. Lose your mind!" chorused Andy and his buddies. But one patrol soured everything. As Andy's unit drove through a village, an explosion shattered their ranks. One of Andy's buddies was killed by a landmine buried in the road. The angry Dutch commandos condemned the entire village, reasoning the inhabitants had to know about the mine to avoid it themselves. Andy and his buddies raked the village again and again with semi-automatic weapons. Andy only realized the depth of evil he had done when he saw the bodies of a young woman and her nursing baby - freshly killed by just one bullet. For the next two years Andy cycled from drunken lechery to daredevil killing, each vice drowning out the guilt of the other - for a while…
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Brother Andrew (1928–2022). Born Anne van der Bijl on May 11, 1928, in Sint Pancras, Netherlands, to a poor blacksmith and an invalid mother, Brother Andrew was a Dutch missionary and evangelist renowned for smuggling Bibles into Communist countries during the Cold War. After limited schooling, disrupted by Nazi occupation, he joined the Dutch army at 17, serving in Indonesia, where he was wounded and began reading a Bible, leading to his conversion in 1950. In 1955, attending a Communist youth congress in Poland, he discovered isolated churches desperate for Scriptures, inspiring his lifelong mission based on Revelation 3:2, “Wake up! Strengthen what remains.” Using a blue Volkswagen Beetle, he smuggled millions of Bibles across the Iron Curtain, founding Open Doors in 1955 to support persecuted Christians, now active in over 60 nations. Andrew authored God’s Smuggler (1967) with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, selling over 10 million copies, and Light Force (2004), detailing outreach to Islamic groups like Hamas. He ministered globally, from China to Cuba, and was knighted by Queen Beatrix in 1993. Married in 1958 to Corry, with five children, he died on September 27, 2022, in the Netherlands. He said, “The real calling is not a certain place or career but to everyday obedience.”