God's Smuggler

by Brother Andrew

  In answer, Petroff took me over to his desk. On it was an ancient typewriter with a sheet of paper in it, and next to the typewriter a Bible, open to Exodus.

  “Three weeks ago I was extremely lucky,” said Petroff. “I managed to find this Bible.” He showed me a second volume on the small dining table. “I got it for a good price too. Only a month’s pension. The reason it was so cheap is that the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Revelation have been cut out and—”

  “Why?” I interrupted.

  “Who knows? Perhaps to sell. Or perhaps to make cigarettes with the thin paper.

  “At any rate,” Petroff went on, “I was lucky enough to find it and have the money to purchase it. Now all I have to do is fill in the missing parts from my own Bible—and I have another complete book! I ought to be all finished in another four weeks.”

  “And what will you do with the second Bible then?”

  “Oh, give it away.”

  “To a little church in Plovtiv,” said his wife, “where there’s no Bible.”

  I wasn’t sure that I understood. No Bible in the entire church?

  “Certainly,” said Petroff. “And there are many such churches in this country. You’ll find the same in Rumania and in Russia. In the old days only the priests had them; ordinary people couldn’t read. And since Communism, it’s been impossible to buy them. It’s not often I have a piece of luck like this.”

  My sense of excitement mounted. I could hardly wait to show Petroff the treasure I had waiting for him in my car.

  That night I drove up to the apartment, checked the street to make sure it was empty, and then took inside the first of many, many cartons of Bibles I was to deliver to this man over the years. Petroff and his wife watched me put the box on their one table, their eyes wide in frank and open curiosity.

  “What’s that?” Petroff asked.

  I lifted the top and took out a Bible. I put it in the trembling hands of Petroff and another into the hands of his wife.

  “And—and in the box?” Petroff asked.

  “More. And still more outside.”

  Petroff closed his eyes. His mouth was working hard to control the emotion he was feeling. But two tears rolled slowly out from between his closed lids and fell on the volume in his hands.

  ———

  Petroff and I set off immediately on an extended trip through Bulgaria, delivering the Bibles to churches where he knew the need was greatest. “Do you know the official reason the government gives for suppressing Bibles here?” Petroff asked me as we sped through a countryside brilliant with roses for the perfume industry. “It’s because Bibles are printed in the old orthography. They hold back education, the government says. Chain people to ancient spellings and usages.”

  The visible Church in Bulgaria, he went on, had been purged of all elements contrary to the new regime. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church—state church of the country—was now little more than an arm of the government. The present patriarch praised the regime in all his official utterances: His speeches had as much to do with the glories of Narodna Republika Bulgariya as with those of the Kingdom of God.

  “In effect there are two churches here now,” Petroff told me, “a Puppet Church, which echoes the voice of the state, and an Underground Church. You’ll see one of these underground churches tonight.”

  It was my first service of worship in Bulgaria. It took twelve of us more than an hour that evening to assemble for the meeting, arriving at intervals so that at no time would it appear a group was gathering.

  At seven-thirty our time came. We walked past an apartment house, just happened to turn in together, just happened to stop at the third floor rear, looked around briefly, and entered the apartment without knocking. I could not help but remember Sundays in Witte, when the whole village turned out to promenade to church.

  Eight men and women were gathered when we arrived, two more coming at 7:45 and 7:55. The room was very dark. Only one small lightbulb hung from the ceiling, and blankets had been draped over the window to block out prying eyes. I wondered if these people were too poor to afford shades. No one spoke. Each new worshiper took his place around the central table, bowed his head, and prayed silently for the safety of the coming meeting. Precisely at eight o’clock Petroff stood up and spoke in a low voice, translating himself for me as he went.

  “We are blessed tonight to have a brother visit us from Holland,” Petroff whispered. “I shall ask him to share with you a message from the Lord.”

  Petroff sat down and I waited for the hymn, then realized that of course singing was impossible in this church underground. I spoke for perhaps twenty minutes, then nodded to Petroff. He jumped up and, with a flourish, unwrapped the package he had brought with him and held up . . . a Bible!

  There were exclamations that threatened to be too loud before those assembled caught themselves and put hands to mouths. Then there were great bear hugs from the men and warm foreheads-on-the-shoulder from the women, before they passed the Book from one hand to another, tenderly opening it and closing it again.

  ———

  One of the men at the meeting that night especially intrigued me. After we had stayed together for as long as we dared, we separated as we had come, in ones and twos, at intervals, for over an hour. The last person to get up from his knees was a mammoth grizzly bear of a man with a patriarchal beard, a square brown face, and the kindest, most guiltless blue eyes I had ever seen. This, Petroff told me, was Abraham.

  Abraham had spoken little during the meeting, but there was a childlike innocence and purity about the old man that came through without words. Like Petroff, he was over the maximum age for holding a job. And so for several years the two of them had spent their time trying to locate churches that had two Bibles, so that they could beg or buy one and give it to a church that had none.

  Abraham, Petroff told me, lived in a tent in the Rhodope Mountains. He had an income from the government of five dollars a week, and on this he and his wife lived. At one time he had owned land but had lost it because of his “subversive” activities.

  “Some day you must try to visit him in his home,” Petroff said, “because it will give you a picture of what a man will sacrifice in the name of his God.” Most of the year, he said, Abraham and his wife lived on wild berries and fruit and a little bread.

  Petroff called the old man Abraham the Giant-Killer, because he was always setting out to find his “Goliath”—some high-ranking Party official or army man to whom he could bring his witness. “Abraham is always seeking a new Goliath,” Petroff said. “He finds him, too, and then there is a fight. Only Goliath wins, and Abraham ends up in jail. But on many occasions Abraham wins, and a new soul is added to Christ’s Church.”

  Before he left, I went out to my car and brought Abraham the Giant-Killer the rest of the Bulgarian Bibles I had brought with me. He would know what to do with them.

  Abraham held the Bibles as he might have held a baby. He did not say thanks, but the words he did say have remained with me to this day. His blue eyes burned into mine as Petroff translated for him.

  “The front line is long, Brother. Here we must give a little, there we may advance. This day, Andrew from Holland, we have made an advance.”

  The balance of that first trip to Bulgaria was spent visiting the tiny nonregistered, underground churches. “Strengthen the things that remain” became more than ever a command that haunted my sleep. How courageous they were, this remnant of the Church, how heedless of self, how utterly alone. Three ministers especially stand out in my memory from those weeks—Constantine, Arminn, and Basil.

  Constantine had been in prison for eighteen months for baptizing converts who were under 21 years of age. He had just been released. Constantine told me that the night after his release he had taken 27 teenagers out of town and baptized them secretly in a river in the country.

  Arminn knew there were government observers in his congregation at Christmastime, so he was careful in no way to trans
gress the law against evangelizing children. Speak only to adults. Keep away from politics. But in one unguarded moment, Arminn looked down at the children who were seated beneath the church’s Christmas tree and asked, “Do you know why we give each other presents at this time of the year? It is to symbolize the greatest Gift of all.” For those two sentences he was brought to trial and removed from his pulpit.

  Basil was notorious for working hand-in-glove with the secret police. Petroff had taken me to his service one Sunday so that I could have a chance to see the Puppet Church in action. The congregation of the church had dwindled steadily since the war. Basil was complaining about this to us before the service when suddenly, with no change in his expression, he said to me, “Would you like to hold a meeting here this afternoon?”

  I could not be sure that I had heard right. Basil knew as well as I that unregistered preachers were not allowed to hold meetings. What had gotten into the man?

  “I’ll—I’ll have to pray about that,” I told him.

  And pray I did, furiously, all through the service. Was this some kind of trap? Suppose he had set this up with the police to get me out of the country? And yet the answer I seemed to be getting with great clarity was a ringing “Go ahead!”

  At the close of the service Basil announced to the handful of people in the congregation that the brother from Holland was going to hold a special meeting that afternoon. He invited everyone to come and to bring a friend.

  We were all surprised that afternoon to see some two hundred people there. We had a wonderful meeting. At the end, when I issued the altar call, dozens came forward.

  Then Basil surprised me again by suggesting that we hold another meeting that night. I was more than willing, and so was Petroff. Still, we could not understand what had happened to this man who had a reputation as a marionette.

  That evening the church was packed. We all felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. That night scores of persons expressed a willingness to follow Christ, whatever the cost. And once again Basil invited everyone to come back the following evening.

  On Monday night the church was so crowded, people were standing along both sides and many were sitting in the center aisle. But this time Basil spotted half a dozen of his friends from the secret police in the congregation. We went ahead with the meeting but omitted the altar call. We didn’t even dare ask for a show of hands, for fear names would be taken down.

  After the meeting was over, Petroff and Basil and I sat in the vestry and wondered what we should do next. Obviously we could not hold any more meetings. What about Basil himself; would he be in trouble now? It was clear to me that he was acting in a way he himself did not understand. What was going to happen now? What would the police do?

  And as the days passed it became clear why Christ had chosen Basil rather than some other pastor to touch with His spirit. Because the police did nothing at all. Neither to me nor to Petroff nor to Basil. Basil was one of their most valuable collaborators, they thought. Surely what he was doing must have some orthodox motive. He was too high up in the New Outlook of the church to earn suspicion. Best, they must have concluded, to let the flame die with the departure of the Dutch evangelist.

  But when I departed, the flame did not die. That little church that had had fifty-odd people attending sporadically became instead a live congregation of almost four hundred. Eventually the government did try to stop the fire. Basil went to Switzerland for a long-delayed operation that fall; when he attempted to return to his country, he was turned back at the border. A new, “safe” pastor was chosen to take his place, and within three years he had successfully quenched the flames in this one building, for the attendance was back down to its original fifty. But the three hundred new converts left Stara Zagora, fanning out across the Balkin Peninsula, disbursed like the church in Jerusalem, to build fires wherever they landed.

  None of these developments, of course, could we foresee at the time. But Petroff and I had learned one thing right at the beginning. It is never safe to call a church a puppet—no matter how dead, no matter how subservient and temporizing it may appear on the surface. It is called by God’s name, it has God’s eye upon it, at any moment He may sweep the surface away with the purifying wind of His Spirit.

  ———

  Before I left Bulgaria, Petroff and I drove up into the Rhodope Mountains hoping to find Abraham. We had no idea how to locate his tent, only the name of the village nearest to it. It was just as well, for at the village the road, which had been threatening to disappear for several miles, vanished altogether, and we got out and stood, undecided, beside the town’s artesian well. Above us the forest stretched away as far as we could see. Where in all that vast wilderness was the man we were looking for?

  The line of people at the well were staring at us curiously as they waited to fill their jars. And then the first man in line finished drinking, straightened up, and turned around. It was Abraham himself!

  His blue eyes, when he saw us, blazed like the sky at noonday. The next thing I knew I was drowning in a mammoth wet embrace, the icy water on his great beard drenching me to the skin. Abraham was even more astonished than we at this unplanned meeting, for he told us he came to the village only every fourth day, and just long enough to buy bread. He picked up half a dozen round flat loaves now from the stone wall beside the well and began leading us up the mountainside.

  Again and again Petroff and I had to beg this 75-year-old man to stop so we could catch our breaths. He had just returned the week before, he told us, from giving away the last of the Bibles I had brought into the country. He described in great detail how they had been received, and Petroff pantingly promised he would repeat it all for me as soon as we were sitting down.

  It was two hours, including the rest stops for us, before we rounded a rocky ledge, stepped behind a screen of wind-twisted pines, and were standing in front of the goatskin tent where Abraham lived. He looked more than ever like the Biblical patriarch as he welcomed us to his home. In a moment his wife had stepped outside, as composed as though visitors were dropping into their mountain hideaway every day. She was as tiny as her husband was big, a slender, erect little woman with skin like wrinkled parchment. Only their eyes were alike, blue, childlike, trusting. I looked at this woman who had once had a house replete with rugs, cupboards, linens—servants, probably, for they had been well-to-do—and I thought that I had never seen a face more content with what life had brought.

  She offered us fruit that looked like tiny blue blackberries, and wild honey. We ate little, not knowing how much they had, and we stayed only a short while because we didn’t care to try the trip down the mountain after dark. The shortest of visits, no more than a glimpse—and yet in those moments was forged a friendship that is one of the bulwarks of my life.

  ———

  And so the visit to Bulgaria brought encouragement and deep love. And at the same time, it ended on a note of defeat. Just as I was leaving for Rumania, a group of people who had attended the meeting in Basil’s church came to ask me to hold a similar campaign in their town.

  “We’ve been waiting for this message for years,” they pleaded. “We don’t care about the consequences. We care only about the will of God.”

  And I had to look into these loved and loving faces and say no. I was only one person. I could not go with them and at the same time move on where I felt God’s spirit calling too.

  “I wish I were ten people,” I told them. “I wish I could split myself into a dozen parts and answer every call that comes. Someday, I’m going to find the way to do it.”

  15

  The Greenhouse in the Garden

  It took me four hours to get across the Rumanian border. When I pulled up to the checkpoint on the other side of the Danube, I said to myself, “Well, I’m in luck. Only half a dozen cars. This will go swiftly.”

  When forty minutes had passed and the first car was still being inspected, I thought, “Poor fellow, they must have something on him to t
ake so long.”

  But when that car finally left and the next inspection took half an hour too, I began to worry. Literally everything that family was carrying had to be taken out and spread on the ground. Every car in the line was put through the same routine. The fourth inspection lasted for well over an hour. The guards took the driver inside and kept him there while they removed hub caps, took his engine apart, removed seats.

  “Dear Lord,” I said, as at last there was just one car ahead of me, “what am I going to do? Any serious inspection will show up those Rumanian Bibles right away.

  “Lord,” I went on, “I know that no amount of cleverness on my part can get me through this border search. Dare I ask for a miracle? Let me take some of the Bibles out and leave them in the open where they will be seen. Then, Lord, I cannot possibly be depending on my own stratagems, can I? I will be depending utterly upon You.”

  While the last car was going through its chilling inspection, I managed to take several Bibles from their hiding places and pile them on the seat beside me.

  It was my turn. I put the little VW in low gear, inched up to the officer standing at the left side of the road, handed him my papers, and started to get out. But his knee was against the door, holding it closed. He looked at my photograph in the passport, scribbled something down, shoved the papers back under my nose, and abruptly waved me on.

  Surely thirty seconds had not passed. I started the engine and inched forward. Was I supposed to pull over, out of the way, where the car could be taken apart? Was I . . . surely I wasn’t . . . I coasted forward, my foot poised above the brake. Nothing happened. I looked out the rear mirror. The guard was waving the next car to a stop, indicating to the driver that he had to get out. On I drove a few more yards. The guard was having the driver behind me open the hood of his car. And then I was too far away to doubt that indeed I had made it through that incredible checkpoint in the space of thirty seconds.

  My heart was racing. Not with the excitement of the crossing, but with the excitement of having caught such a spectacular glimpse of God at work.