God's Smuggler

"God's Smuggler is the story of how one man came face to face with the living God and how this encounter changed his life forever. After you read this incredible true account of secret missionary activity behind the Iron Curtain you will never be the same." - Flyleaf. Nobody doubts that Russia and other Communist countries are different places today than they were a few years ago. They are more open, more receptive to new ideas, more available to the traveler. What brought such changes about? While the great matters of economics and politics are being analyzed by the experts, a small but highly signficant factor has gone larely unnoticed. This is the creative work of a tiny group of ordinary man and women -- of a single man in the beginning -- who have done their part in changing history. When we first met Andrew we knew at once that we wanted to tell this story. There was only one trouble. Much that was current in it could not yet be told, for this would place people in danger. Even in the part that was history, certain facts would have to be altered. In most cases real names could not be used; certain places and dates would have to be disguised. And of course the actual techniques involved in border-crossing and smuggling could not be disclosed. But with all these safeguards there remained a story so unique, so human, so full of significance for the future of us all, that we felt this much should be written now. Andrew grew up in a typical small Dutch town, the son of a not-too-prosperous blacksmith. Like everyone in the early 1950s he recognized that the overwhelming challenge to our generation was the third of the world under communism. Like us, he knew that the Communist bloc was closed to the West -- certainly to an unsponsored private individual like himself. Like the rest of us, he knew that you couldn't walk into Russia and Hungary and Albania and China and start preaching a different way of life. And at this point, his story becomes quite unlike the story of anyone else in the world. - John and Elizabeth Sherrill - Preface.