I was incredulous. I had almost forgotten about my pending applications for travel there and other places, so wrapped up had I been with the camps. Still, I found myself glancing out the window of the volunteer hostel, watching for the morning mail. When I saw the carrier coming, I ran down to meet her. “A letter for you from Holland!” she said and fished around in her bag.
I took the letter from her. The address in Witte was crossed out, and above it, in Geltje’s handwriting, was the street and number of the hostel in Berlin. In the left-hand corner of the envelope was the seal of the Yugoslavian embassy at The Hague. “Thank you!” I said, and right there on the corner I ripped the letter open and stared uncomprehending at its contents. The Yugoslav government regretted to inform me that my application for a visa had been denied. That was all. No explanation.
What did it mean? Surely I had received some kind of advance knowledge about this letter. But my message had been that the visa was granted. Could it be that I was to go to the Yugoslavian consulate in Berlin and make a new application? I ran up to my room, snatched up a set of photographs, and headed for the tramway. Within an hour I was once more filling out those long triplicate forms. And once more I came to the line “Occupation.” This was the one, I suspected, that was causing all the trouble.
“Lord,” I said under my breath, “what shall I put here?”
And all at once I was recalling the words of the Great Commission: “Go ye, and teach all nations. . . .” Then, I was a teacher, wasn’t I? On the application form I wrote TEACHER and handed the forms across the desk.
“If you will have a seat over there, sir, I will examine your application right now.”
The official disappeared into another room. I waited an anxious twenty minutes during which time it seemed to me that I could hear the chatter of a telegraph key. But it must have been a mistake, because the clerk came back all smiles to wish me a happy journey into his country.
———
I had to tell someone the good news. My folks? We didn’t have a telephone, and it was awkward going through the neighbors. The Whetstras? That was it! I’d telephone the Whetstras.
I placed a station-to-station call and got Mr. Whetstra himself on the line.
“This is Andrew calling. How lucky to find you home in the middle of the day.”
“I thought you were in Berlin.”
“I am.”
“We were so sorry to hear about your father.”
“Thank you. But this call is good news, Mr. Whetstra. I just had to tell you. I have in my hand two pieces of paper. One is a letter from the Yugoslavian consulate in Holland turning down my request for a visa, and the other is my passport, stamped with a visa by the Yugoslav people here. I’ve got it, Mr. Whetstra! I’m going behind the Curtain as a missionary!”
“Andrew, you’d better come home for your keys.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Whetstra, this is a bad connection. I thought you said keys.”
“I did. To your Volkswagen. We’ve talked it all over, and there’s no untalking us. Mrs. Whetstra and I decided months ago that if you got the visa, you also got our automobile. Come home and pick up the keys.”
———
Once in Amsterdam I really did try to talk them out of it. Such a big gift. I just didn’t see how I could accept it.
“What about your business?” I asked them.
“Our business?” Mr. Whetstra spoke the words scornfully. “Andrew, you are on the King’s business! No, we’ve prayed about it, and these are our orders.”
And so that same afternoon, misgivings still struggling with delight, I went with Mr. Whetstra to get the papers signed over and became the still-unbelieving owner of an almost-new, beautiful blue Volkswagen.
———
The only disagreeable part of the experience was driving into Witte.
I tried to enter town unnoticed, but you can’t slip unobserved into a little Dutch town like Witte with a bright blue Volkswagen. The entire village immediately gathered around, wanting to know whose car it was, and—as I had guessed would happen—not liking it when I told them it was my own. What was the son of a blacksmith doing with an automobile?
“Religion is a good business, eh, Andy?” said one man rubbing the material of his own coat between his fingers. He winked broadly.
Everyone laughed, and although I told them again and again that it was a gift from the Whetstras, I could see that they still didn’t like it: The blacksmith’s son shouldn’t be driving a car. The families of Witte had often given me pennies from their grocery money for my work in the refugee camps. That money stopped now. My relationship with my hometown was never quite the same again.
———
But I had work to do. I spent several days planning my itinerary, scouring Amsterdam for any kind of Christian printed matter in Yugoslav languages, and going over the car for places to conceal what I found. I spent a little time, too, wondering how God was going to supply the money for this trip.
The end of March was my target date. Before then I drove down to see Karl de Graaf. I couldn’t wait to see his face when he saw the car—the visible proof of what he’d known only by faith till then.
But Mr. de Graaf showed no surprise whatever. “Yes,” he said, “I thought you’d have it by now. Because,” he went on, drawing an envelope from his pocket, “God has told us that you will be needing an additional sum of money these next two months. And here it is.”
He placed the envelope in my hand. I didn’t even open it. By now I knew enough of this remarkable group to be sure that the envelope contained precisely the amount I would need for the trip. And so with a heart full of thanks I said good-bye to him, to the Whetstras, to my family, and left Holland for Yugoslavia, behind the Iron Curtain.
10
Lanterns in the Dark
Just ahead was the Yugoslav border. For the first time in my life I was about to enter a Communist country on my own instead of in a group invited and sponsored by the government. I stopped the little VW on the outskirts of the tiny Austrian village and took stock.
The Yugoslav government in 1957 permitted visitors to bring in only articles for their personal use. Anything new or anything in quantity was suspect because of the black market thriving all over the country. Printed material especially was liable to be confiscated at the border, no matter how small the quantity, because coming from out of the country, it was regarded as foreign propaganda. Now here I was with car and luggage literally bulging with tracts, Bibles, and portions of Bibles. How was I to get them past the border guard? And so, for the first of many times, I said the Prayer of God’s Smuggler:
“Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture that I want to take to Your children across this border. When You were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.”
And so, armed with this prayer, I started the motor and drove up to the barrier. The two guards appeared both startled and pleased to see me. I wondered how much business came their way. From the way they stared at my passport, it might have been the first Dutch one they had ever seen. There were just a few formalities to attend to, they assured me in German, and I could be on my way.
One of the guards began poking around in my camping gear. In the corners and folds of my sleeping bag and tent were boxes of tracts. “Lord, make those seeing eyes blind.”
“Do you have anything to declare?”
“Well, I have my money and a wristwatch and a camera. . . .”
The other guard was looking inside the VW. He asked me to take out a suitcase. I knew that there were tracts scattered through my clothing.
“Of course, sir,” I said. I pulled the front seat forward and dragged the suitcase out. I placed it on the ground and opened the lid. The guard lifted the shirts that lay on top. Beneath them, and now in plain sight, was a pile of tracts in two different Yugoslavian languages, Croatian and Slovene. How was God going to h
andle this situation?
“It seems dry for this time of year,” I said to the other guard, and without looking at the fellow who was inspecting the suitcase, I fell into a conversation about the weather. I told him about my own homeland and how it was always wet on the polders. Finally, when I could stand the suspense no longer, I looked behind me. The first guard wasn’t even glancing at the suitcase. He was listening to our conversation. When I turned around he caught himself and looked up.
“Well, then, do you have anything else to declare?”
“Only ‘small’ things,” I said. The tracts were small after all.
“We won’t bother with them,” said the guard. He nodded to me that I could close the suitcase and with a little salute handed me back my passport.
———
My first stop was Zagreb. I had been given the name of a Christian leader there, whom I shall call Jamil. The name had come from the Dutch Bible Society, which listed him as a man who occasionally ordered Bibles in quantity. However, they had not heard from him since Tito had become premier in 1945. I hardly dared hope that he would still be living at the same address, but with no other choice, I had written a carefully worded letter stating that toward the end of March a Dutchman might visit his country. And now I was driving into Zagreb looking for his address.
To underline the wonders of that first Christian contact in Yugoslavia, I shall have to tell what happened to my letter, even though of course I did not know the whole story until later. It had been delivered to the address all right, but Jamil had long since moved. The new tenant did not know his whereabouts and returned the letter to the post office. There it was held up for two weeks while a search was made for Jamil’s new address. On the very day I entered Yugoslavia it was finally delivered. Jamil read it, puzzled. Who was this mysterious Dutchman? Was it safe to try contacting him?
With nothing better than a vague feeling that he should do something, Jamil boarded a tram and went to his old apartment house. But then what? Jamil stood on the sidewalk wondering how to proceed. Had the Dutchman already arrived and gone about asking for a certain Jamil? Did he dare go to the new tenant with the suspicious story that someday an unknown Dutchman might call asking for him? What on earth should he do?
And it was at that moment that I pulled up to the curb and stopped my car. I stepped out not more than two feet away from Jamil, who of course recognized me at once from my license plates. He seized my hands, and we put our stories together.
Jamil was overjoyed at having a foreign Christian in his country. He repeated the theme I had heard first in Poland, that my “being there” meant everything. They felt so isolated, so alone. Of course he would help me set up contacts with the believers in his country. He knew just the man to translate for me. So a few days later, with a young engineering student named Nikola as my guide and interpreter, I set off in my blue Volkswagen to bring “greetings” to the Yugoslavian Christians.
On this first car trip behind the Iron Curtain I discovered that I had energy I never dreamed of. My visa was good for fifty days. For seven straight weeks I preached, taught, encouraged, distributed Scripture. I held more than eighty meetings during those fifty days—speaking as many as six times on a Sunday. I preached in large cities, hamlets, isolated farms. I spoke openly in the North, covertly in the South, where Communist influence was strongest.
At first glimpse it did not seem to me that the Church in Yugoslavia was under any particular persecution. I had to register with the police when I moved into a new district, but I was free to visit believers even in their homes. Churches operated openly. After a while I abandoned the pretext of bringing “greetings” and simply began to preach. No one objected. Except for certain restricted areas, mostly along the borders, I was free to travel wherever I chose within the country, with no government guides to check on my activities.
This amounted to a real kind of freedom, much more than I had expected. But bit by bit as I got to know Yugoslavia better, I became aware of the slow wearing-down process the government was exerting on Christians. The effort seemed to be centered on the children. Leave the old folks alone, but wean the young people away from the Church.
One of the first churches Nikola and I visited was a Roman Catholic one in a small village not far from Zagreb. I noticed that there was not a single person under twenty in the entire congregation, and I asked Nikola about it. In answer he introduced me to a peasant woman who had a ten-year-old son.
“Tell Brother Andrew why Josif is not here,” said Nikola.
“Why is my Josif not with me?” she asked. Her voice was bitter. “Because I am a peasant woman with no education. The teacher tells my son there is no God. The government tells my son there is no God. They say to my Josif, ‘Maybe your Mama tells you differently, but we know better, don’t we? You must remember that Mama has no education. We will humor her.’ So? My Josif is not with me. I am being humored.”
A few days later in another town, we were visiting a Christian family when I saw a little girl playing in the dust outside the house in the middle of the day.
“Why isn’t she in school?” I asked Nikola.
From the mother he learned the story. Marta was accustomed to saying grace before meals at home. When it came time for the school lunch, Marta had given thanks aloud as she always did, without even thinking about it. The teacher had been angry. Who had supplied this food, God or the people through their own good government? “That was a wicked thing to say, Marta. You will fill the other children’s minds with nonsense.”
But the next day, so deeply was the habit ingrained, that Marta did it again, and for this she had been expelled.
It was in Macedonia, however, that we encountered the first signs of real fear on the part of churchgoers. The poorest of Yugoslavia’s six states, Macedonia is also the area where the Party is strongest. Our first speaking date in this part of the country was scheduled for ten o’clock in the morning. When we reached the church, however, not a soul was there.
“I can’t understand it,” Nikola said, getting out the letter we had received from the pastor. “I’m sure this is the right place.”
At eleven we decided it was useless to wait any longer. We went outside to where we had parked the car. Just as we were getting in, one of the villagers strolled past, paused long enough to shake my hand warmly, wish me Godspeed, and wander on. I was just turning again to open the door of the car when another villager ambled past, and the scene was repeated. For 45 minutes that morning the entire village just happened to be out for a stroll, and as luck would have it, they all happened to pass the visiting preacher’s automobile so that they could meet him and shake his hand.
Even Nikola was puzzled as to how to interpret this. A few days later we had an evening meeting scheduled in another town in Macedonia. The pastor invited us to dinner before the service at eight. At five minutes before eight I suggested to the pastor that we start for the church.
“No,” he said, looking outside. “It is not yet time.”
At 8:15 I brought the subject up again. “Don’t you think people will be waiting?”
“No, the time is not yet.” Again I noticed he looked outside before he answered.
At 8:30 the pastor finally went to the window, peered out, and nodded.
“Now we can go,” he said. “The people won’t come to church, you know, until it gets dark. It isn’t that we are doing anything illegal. But—well—it pays to be cautious.”
And then I saw the sight I was to become so familiar with all over Macedonia. From the darkened countryside kerosene lamps began to appear. The peasants came slowly across the fields, in twos and threes, never more, each man carrying a lamp. Then came the townspeople from the little mud houses that lined the only road, lanterns low so that their faces were in shadow.
No one seemed to mind being recognized once he was inside the church; after all, everyone there was taking the same risk.
The lamps were hung on hooks along the side o
f the room so that there was a warm and pleasant glow for the meeting. I spoke on Nicodemus, coming late in the night to make inquiries of Christ. He, too, I said, had felt it advisable to seek the Lord under cover of darkness. It didn’t matter. Time and place would always dictate how we made our first steps toward God. More than two hundred persons had come that night to hear the foreigner speak. Eighty-five of them used the occasion to commit their lives anew to the Christian way, even when that way led for the time being through darkness.
———
It was in another village in Macedonia that we had our only serious encounter with the police.
I had told Nikola that I wanted to visit Christians in both the large cities and the small towns. Nosaki was a small town, all right. Just getting there was an undertaking.
We had picked up a second guide to steer us through Macedonia—which Nikola knew scarcely at all—a wonderful Christian whom everyone called “Little Uncle.” Now Uncle pointed to two tracks across a field and assured us that this was the road to Nosaki. The tracks got fainter and the ruts deeper until the undercarriage of the car was scraping the soft earth, and at last we found ourselves driving across a freshly ploughed field.
“So much for your road,” I said. “How much farther, Uncle?”
“But we’re here!” he said, pointing to a clump of trees in the distance.
So we got out of the car and tramped across the field until we got to the little collection of mud huts called Nosaki. There was supposed to be a church here, but we saw no trace of one. Nikola made inquiries and learned that there was in fact a church in the village, but it had only one member. She was the widow Anna, who had converted her home into a church—to which no one came.
We went to visit Anna. She was amazed that a missionary had come to her little village.
“But I should not be surprised,” she corrected herself. “Have I not been praying for help?”
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