Brother Andrew, the founder of Open Doors and known around the world as ‘God’s Smuggler’ (also the title of his best-selling book), has died aged 94.
Brother Andrew was born in Sint Pancras, the Netherlands. He joined the colonial army of the Dutch East Indies, and converted to Christianity during a period of convalescence, where he spent much of his time reading the Bible. In 1955 he travelled to Poland, with a suitcase full of Christian tracts, ostensibly for a Communist youth rally. There, he discovered that churches behind the Iron Curtain were isolated and in need of encouragement. He then started smuggling Bibles to them in a blue Volkswagen Beetle.
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted Brother Andrew in 1993. In 1997, he received the World Evangelical Alliance’s Religious Liberty Award, recognising his lifetime of service to suffering Christians and his passion for evangelical ministry.
