In Summary In his latest column, journalist Dan Wooding interviews Brother Andrew, the author of "God's Smuggler" and founder of Open Doors, and discovers some extraordinary facts about the Dutchman's incredible new "calling" to work with Arab Christians as well as bringing a new "Peace Plan" to the Middle East.

Brother Andrew has always been a trailblazer. He made history during the early days of the Cold War when he began loading up his little Volkswagen Beetle and started smuggling Bibles into Eastern Europe. His book, "God's Smuggler," which was co-authored with John and Elizabeth Sherill, is still one of the widest read Christian books in the world and spawned his ministry, Open Doors with Brother Andrew.

When the Berlin Wall came down, however, and communism crumbled in the Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union, many thought that his ministry was over. But what they did not know was that he had already begun an even more extraordinary outreach that has brought him in contact with the Islamic and Christian leaders in that troubled region. His uncompromising stand for Jesus Christ has earned him great respect from these men and also the love of the Arab Christians whose cause he has championed.

As we met in Santa Ana, California, recently, where Open Doors has its US headquarters, I asked Brother Andrew why he had shifted his emphasis to the Islamic World, when he was so well known for his ministry to the communist world.

"Well, my problem was, as soon as 'God's Smuggler' came out, I couldn't go back to Russia. Yet even then I had perceived that the next threat to the world, and to the Christian Church, would be Islam," said Andrew, now 69 years old. "When the book came out, I had already been to the Middle East but I never published that; so I've already been in the Muslim world for 30 years now, and I've visited almost every Muslim country."

I wondered why he thought it was important for Christians to be involved in the Islamic world.

Communism - An Empty "Religion" "It's important because we know so little about it," he stated. "What we need to understand is that it's a monotheistic religion, whereas communism was an empty religion. It said, 'There is no God.' That was very stupid, because why dedicate your whole life to fighting something or someone you say doesn't exist. The actual number of Christians killed in the name of communism will never be exactly known, but then I already knew that the experiences and the lessons I learned in the confrontation with communism, or working with the persecuted Christians in the church under communism, would now help me to understand the problem of Islam."

As Brother Andrew was becoming more involved with the Muslim world, so was fundamentalism being born with the return of Khomenei to Iran some ten years before the collapse of communism.

"They had a revival in Islam because of fundamentalism," he said. "They discovered an eschatology that in the end times they will rule the world and I saw them as a greater threat to the church than communism. So then, because we didn't know much about it, we began to discover that, in these Islamic countries, the church was already diminished to a marginal role, very limited in numbers. In some countries they went from 30 or 40 percent Christians in the whole country to 3 or 4 percent, but in the West we never heard that the decline of Christians in Muslim countries was greater than in the communistic countries.

"We never focused on Islam and we were reluctant to do it because they happened to have the oil ... and they are using their oil to evangelize the world. The biggest show is in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where they print millions and millions of Korans and ship them all over the world in cases free of charge. So the stories began to come about persecution and the neglect by the rest of the church in relation to those countries. That's why we decided we had to do something about it; that's why we try to travel and have training and teaching programs, and scripture distribution with the existing missions."

Brother Andrew added, "the big revelation to me is the fact that the Muslims are so open to the Gospel. They are incredibly open."

Brother Andrew then talked about a visit with a Muslim leader who told him one day, "Andrew, you Christians have a problem. You Christians are not following the life of Jesus Christ anymore."

"Back To The Book" Andrew continued, "What a terrific observation! I sat quiet for a while and I looked at him and I said, 'What do you think we should do?' He replied, 'You must go back to the book.' A little later in the conversation, after more coffee, he said, 'Andrew, we Muslims have a problem, we Muslims are not following the life of Mohammed anymore.' Then I said, 'What do you think the solution is? More hostage taking, terrorism, fundamentalism.' He said, 'No Andrew, we must go back to the book.'

"That to me was such a message; he urges us to go back to our book, and he urges his people to go back to their book, the Koran. It dawned on me that if we would really, worldwide, go back to the basics of Christianity, and get rid of any enemy image we may have, be they communists or Muslims, and love them as Jesus does, if we would go back to our book and to the great commission and to faith in Christ and holy living - then there may not be any need for them to go back to their book.

"To me this is a cornerstone, because I see in them a tremendous longing. In places where the confrontation is so fierce, like in Algeria, where there are actually people that start a new party and even write upon their forehead the name of the party, they are disappointed in God, they are not happy in Islam, and we do not provoke them to jealousy after we have reached them. We write the terror stories: 'How terrible, they kill people, and slit their throats and kill babies and mothers' and so on. The only solution is to effectively preach the Gospel, but if we do it, we'll see a lot more terrorism that is based on their fear and more polarization between the rest of the world and the power of Islam.

"I see a growing influence of their fundamentalism. I perceive war in the Middle East. But the door is still open; if you realize the openness of these people, if we can make ourselves available, then we can have the love of God flow through us to them. We must learn to stop Islam by sincerely loving all Muslims. Then God will use us. I find it a great personal challenge and we take Scriptures into Gaza and other places and continue our witness."

I concluded the interview by asking Brother Andrew what was Open Doors' main ministry today to the Islamic World.

What Open Doors Is Doing Today "We do lots of training, at centers, conferences and Bible schools, and we have workers in a number of those countries," he said...in the Bible school in Beirut, as well as supporting a Bible College. We also support churches in the Middle East. In many Muslim countries, one of the largest needs is literacy. Illiteracy in some is over 85 percent. We have dozens of literacy schools and teach adults to read and write - thousands of them. We have trained over 600 teachers. With the textbooks, they all get a Bible. We also have seminars all over those countries and we are very much involved in all the missions work over there.

"Open Doors doesn't have the missionaries, we are only there to help other missions, and Bible societies, and schools. And we spread awareness here, that there is a church in the Muslim world and, where possible, we must reach out to them, strengthen them, encourage them, before they are wiped out by whatever cause. We want to identify with them. "

He added, "We continue our ministry in the remaining bastions of communism, bringing the Word of God and leadership training to the Church in Vietnam, China and Cuba. In Latin America, the Church in Peru, Columbia and Southern Mexico, caught in the crossfire of revolutionary forces, also demands our attention.

For Brother Andrew, being on the front lines is second nature. He is an example for all of us in the Christian Church to follow.



Dan Wooding (assistcomm@cs.com; www.assistnews.net) is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times). Wooding is also a syndicated columnist, and was for ten years a commentator on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 39 books, one of which is "Blind Faith" which he co-authored with his 92-year-old mother Anne Wooding, who was a pioneer missionary to the blind of Nigeria in the 1930s. Copies of this book are available from the ASSIST USA office at PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126.


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