God's Smuggler

by Brother Andrew

  ———

  Setting out on this trip, I had tended to lump Bulgaria and Rumania together in my mind. Now, of course, I knew that they were two very different places. Rumania was known among Iron Curtain Christians themselves as the “greenhouse of atheism.” It was still Russia’s laboratory in which she tried out antireligious experiments. Rigid control of the Church by the state, economic pressures against believers, sowing of suspicion among religious leaders, confiscation of property, restriction of worship services, a prohibition on evangelism. This, I was told, was what I could expect to find in Rumania.

  As soon as I was over the border, I could sense a new degree of police control. At every village, it seemed, there was a police checkpoint. Officers stopped every peasant cycling into the hamlet. Where was he going? What was his business? Even I, with the relative freedom of a “hard-currency tourist,” had my visa stamped with the cities I would visit and dates on which I must appear at each point along my itinerary. I found out how real this control was when I arrived in a charming little town about fifty miles from Cluj and decided, since it was already getting late, that I would like to spend the night there. The local authorities were surprised that I should even ask.

  “But, sir,” they said, looking at my tourist card, “you are expected for dinner in Cluj. You can barely make it now by hurrying.”

  Not wanting to get in trouble on such a minor point, I did as they wished. I sped into Cluj, arriving just as the hotel dining room was closing, to find my table set, the hors d’oeuvres out, and even a little Dutch flag sitting snappily in the center of the water glasses.

  Inside the various cities, however, I was free to come and go as I chose. It was Sunday morning. I woke very early to a bright and cheery day, anxious to join my fellow Christians in this lovely garden of a land. The clerk in the hotel eyed me a little dubiously when I asked for a church. “We don’t have many of those, you know,” he said. “Besides, you couldn’t understand the language.”

  “Didn’t you know?” I said. “Christians speak a kind of universal language.”

  “Oh. What’s that?”

  “It’s called ‘agape.’”

  “Agape? I never heard of it.”

  “Too bad. It’s the most beautiful language in the world. But anyhow, how do I get to church?”

  While the chief weapon against the Church in Bulgaria was the registration requirement, in Rumania the technique was Consolidation. Consolidate denominations, consolidate physical facilities, consolidate the hours of worship. Wherever there were churches with empty pews, the congregations were merged with others in nearby villages, and the leftover facilities confiscated by the State. In theory it sounded reasonable and even advantageous to the Church: one large united congregation in place of several small struggling ones. In practice it meant that many members of the shut-down churches simply ceased attending anywhere. Most of them were peasants, attached to their old places of worship, and travel between villages was slow and difficult.

  Two church services were allowed each week, one on Saturday, another on Sunday. But Saturday was a full workday in Rumania; the Saturday night services were poorly attended, so that, in effect, worship had been consolidated into a single meeting.

  But what a meeting!

  I arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, and the service had already been underway for an hour. I would not have found a place to sit, except that I was recognized as a foreigner and invited to take a seat on the dais. And so, with my knees squeezed tight against the organ, I spent the next three hours with this group of Christians in the heart of Communism’s Inner Circle.

  When it came time for the collection, I put in the plate approximately the same amount—in Rumanian currency—that I would have at home. As luck would have it, I was the first person to whom the plate was passed: there lay my bill for all to see on the bottom of the alms basin.

  As the collection continued, I realized with growing embarrassment that I had put in twenty or thirty times as much as anyone else was giving. I noticed something else. Often one of the worshipers would put a coin in the basin and hold it while he made change. I had seen this in Catholic and Orthodox churches where there were pew fees, but never in a Protestant church. The entire coin was obviously more than most people could give. Probably a bill as large as the one I had placed in the plate represented a month’s free-to-spend income. I felt bad about what must have come across as the ostentation of a rich foreigner—and that made me smile, remembering how we had always been the poorest family in Witte. To make matters worse, at the end of the offertory hymn the head usher, instead of taking the plate to the altar, brought it to me!

  He shoved the plate into my hands, repeating some words in Rumanian. Finally, I understood. I was to take my change. No one would put so large a note into the offering without expecting some back. What should I do? Accept the change in the name of graciousness? Or accept the chagrin and let the church have the money I wanted them to have?

  While I was debating, with every eye in the room upon me, I realized with great joy that this was not my money at all. “That was not my gift,” I began in German—and fortunately a man emerged from the congregation to translate. “That was not from me,” I repeated, remembering the hundreds of readers of Kracht van Omhoog whose anonymous gifts were represented in that bill. “It is from the believers in Holland to the believers in Rumania. It is a token of oneness in the Body of Christ.”

  I watched the faces in the room as the man translated, and once again I saw that incredulous question, that dawning hope: We are not alone, then? We have brothers in other places? We have friends we never knew?

  ———

  When at last that long service broke, I approached the man who had spoken German and said that I would like to talk with him. It turned out that he was secretary for the entire denomination in Rumania. But it was clear that he did not welcome my suggestion of private talks. He gave evasive answers and, as soon as he could, excused himself.

  Puzzled, I followed him out of the church. He was striding up the street as rapidly as he could, for he was a heavyset fellow. Perhaps it’s talking to me in public that he’s afraid of, I thought. And so I followed him, but at a discreet distance, until to my delight he turned in at a private house.

  What a piece of luck! I thought. Now I’ll have a chance to talk to him with no one to see.

  I hung around for another fifteen minutes until I was sure the street was empty, then went up to the door and knocked. I could feel eyes peering out at me. Then the door was thrown open quickly, and I was pulled inside the house.

  “What do you want?” said the secretary.

  I tried to cover my surprise at his brusqueness with a friendly smile. I just wanted to talk with him some more, I said. To ask if there were anything I could do for him.

  “Do?”

  “Well, Bibles, for instance. Do you have enough Rumanian Bibles?”

  The secretary looked at me sharply. “You have Rumanian Bibles with you? You brought them across the border?”

  “I have Bibles, yes.”

  He paused a moment. Then, with decision: “We need no Bibles! And you must never again under any circumstances come to my home or to the home of any believer in this way. I hope you understand that.”

  Was I mistaken, or did I hear a cry for help through all this suspicion and brusqueness? “Well, could I see you in your office then? Would that be safe?”

  “It isn’t a matter of safe, I didn’t say that.” And then, “But yes, if you come to our office tomorrow, I will see to it that the president is there for a brief talk with you.”

  The next day I walked into the headquarters of this denomination carrying six Bibles in my briefcase. The secretary was there, looking as uncomfortable as ever. Big drops of perspiration had formed on his forehead. I could not get over the impression that he was in terror of something or someone.

  I was ushered into the office of the president. “What can I do for you?” h
e asked in German.

  I shook his hand and started to reply that perhaps I might be able to do something for him. But then I remembered that earlier conversation with the secretary: Apparently to admit a need bordered on a political statement. So I simply said I was visiting his country as a Christian and wanted to bring back to my people any word of greeting he might like to extend.

  The president’s face relaxed. This was safe ground. A word of greeting to the exploited peoples of Holland from the people of the great Republica Populars of Romina! The secretary smiled and stopped mopping his forehead.

  “Won’t you sit down?” he asked, drawing up a chair. For a quarter of an hour the three of us talked, carefully avoiding any real exchange. We talked about Rumanian tomatoes, the largest I had ever seen, and about watermelon, which I had tasted for the first time in this country. We talked about the pleasant climate, kept mild, the president explained, by the Black Sea.

  And while we talked I had a chance to glance around the room. I was fascinated by one observation. Every chair, every table, every picture on the wall had a number on it. I wondered if they had been inventoried by the government to keep them from being diverted to personal use.

  After we had exhausted the weather and the local tomatoes, the conversation lagged. Taking a deep breath, I decided that the time had come either to be rebuffed again or else to establish a real contact with these two frightened men.

  I opened my briefcase and drew out one of the Bibles. “Will you permit me—no that’s not what I want to say. Will you permit the Dutch people to present the Rumanian people with these copies of the Bible?”

  Right away the two men stiffened. It was amazing how quickly the secretary began to perspire again. The president took the Bible in his hand, and for the briefest moment I caught the tenderness with which he held it.

  But no, he wasn’t going to yield. He shoved the Bible abruptly back into my hands.

  “I do not want this,” he said. “We’ve spent too long already. I have things to do this morning. . . .”

  And so I walked out of that building carrying the six Bibles I had come in with. The receptionist, I noted, crossed my name off a list as I left, almost as if she were on guard in a military establishment. Who knows; maybe she herself was a member of the secret police. How could I condemn the fear and the suspicion of the president and the secretary when I had never experienced the conditions under which they had to work?

  ———

  And still, this was not the entire story in Rumania. For the following week I met Christians living under the same persecution, who had still kept alive something of divine hope and trust.

  The circumstances were similar enough to make a really good comparison. In both instances I met with the stated leaders of established Protestant denominations in their official headquarters. In both instances there were two men present beside myself, an important element in the comparison, since suspicion of one’s fellow Christians played such a large factor in the slow wearing down of the Church.

  This time, too, I noticed the numbers. On the walls of this office were three pictures. They showed the president of the country, the secretary of the national Communist Party, and the famous old artist’s conception of the Straight And Narrow Way. How, I wondered, had the government clerk described that painting?

  I was worried about the president of this denomination—Gheorghe—the moment he stepped into the room. This frail little man was so winded from the effort of walking that it was several minutes before he could catch his breath.

  When he did, we discovered a problem. Neither he nor Ion, secretary of the group, spoke a word of my languages, nor I of theirs. We sat facing each other across the barren, multinumbered room, quite unable to communicate.

  Then I saw something. On Gheorghe’s desk was a well-worn Bible, the edges of the pages eaten back an eighth of an inch from constant turning. What would happen, I wondered, if we were to converse with each other via the Scriptures? I took my own Dutch Bible from my coat pocket and turned to 1 Corinthians 16:20.

  “All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.”

  I held the Bible out and pointed to the name of the book, recognizable in any language, and to the chapter and verse number.

  Instantly their faces lit up.

  They swiftly found the place in their own Bible, read it, and beamed at me. Then Gheorghe was thumbing the pages, looking for a reference, which he held out for me.

  Proverbs 25:25: “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”

  Now we were all three laughing. I turned to the epistle of Paul to Philemon.

  “I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord. . . .”

  It was Ion’s turn, and he didn’t have to look very far. His eyes traveled over the next lines, and he pushed the Bible to me pointing with his finger:

  “For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”

  Oh, we had a wonderful half hour, conversing with each other through the Bible. We laughed until the tears were in our eyes. And when at the end of the conversation I brought out my Rumanian Bibles and shoved them across the desk and insisted with gestures and remonstrances that, yes, they were supposed to keep them and that, no (to the hand in the pocket and the raised eyebrow), there was no charge, both men embraced me again and again.

  Later that day, when we finally had an interpreter and our conversation became more mundane, I made arrangements with Ion to take all the Bibles I had brought with me. He would know better than I where to place them in this hard country, and he assured me that it was better to have just one contact than several.

  That night, back in my hotel, the clerk called to me.

  “Say,” he said, “I looked up that agape in the dictionary. There’s no language by that name. That’s just a Greek word for love.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “I was speaking in it all afternoon.”

  ———

  The communications dam had been cracked at last. Over the next week and a half I traveled throughout Rumania with an excellent interpreter, following leads given my by Gheorghe and Ion.

  I met every shade of attitude, from the extreme of defeat to the extreme of courage. It was easy to sympathize with the defeated ones. “What can we do?” was such a natural reaction. So many had only one ambition: to get out of Rumania altogether.

  Oddly though, the more devoted a Christian, the more likely he was to stay put. In Transylvania we visited such a family. These Christians had a poultry farm that was still at least partially their own property. However, the state had given them a production quota that was beyond their capacity to meet. When they failed to reach it, they had to buy enough eggs on the open market to make up the difference. Year after year this had happened, and the economic suffering was great.

  “Why do you stay then? So that you can keep your farm?” I asked.

  The farmer and his wife both looked shocked. “Of course not,” he said. “In fact, we certainly will lose the farm. We stay because—” he let his eyes travel across the valley—“because if we go, who will be left to pray?”

  ———

  But I also met Christians who were less sure. I learned of one little church far off the beaten path that was working with gypsies. Even as we drove up, I could tell it was in trouble. The grass was high in the churchyard, several windows in the sanctuary were broken, the beehives out back were toppling over. My interpreter and I went around behind the church, where the pastor’s living quarters were, and knocked. The pastor was not at home, but his wife greeted us, and shortly we were eating saucers-full of honey, so sweet it hurt my teeth.

  The pastor’s wife told us that her husband had gone to Bucharest to plead their case with the central government. The local Party chief was demanding the church building, saying it wa
s needed for a clubhouse.

  She and her husband, she said, had worked among the gypsies for almost thirty years. I had seen many of them on the road coming in, little groups, sitting by their wagons, always accompanied by a meager horse and some squawking geese. Recently, she went on, the government had at last decided to do something for them by offering them better-paying jobs. She and her husband had been delighted of course; they had been urging this for many years. But there was a condition: No gypsy who attended the church could apply for one of the new jobs.

  “And so,” said the pastor’s wife, “we are in this crossfire. Our members are leaving us, and as our congregation dwindles, the Party has more and more of an argument for taking away our building. I don’t think we will be here next year.”

  And all at once she began to cry, soundless, inwardly, only her shoulders betraying her. I suggested that perhaps the three of us could pray about the things she had told us. And so we bowed our heads, and I prayed for her and for her husband, for the gypsies, for the whole desperate situation in that little hamlet. When finally we raised our heads, her eyes were moist again as she said, “You know, years ago, I knew that people in the West were praying for us, but now for many years we have not heard from them. We’ve never been able to write letters, and it’s thirteen years since we’ve received one. It has come to us that we are forgotten, that nobody is thinking of us, nobody knows our need, nobody prays.”

  I at least was able to assure her from the depth of my heart that as soon as I got back, enough people would know about them that they need never again feel that they were carrying their burden alone.

  ———

  Once again the time was approaching when I should have to leave. My visa had almost expired. Most important, I knew that Corry’s time was almost here.

  My last hours in Rumania were spent with Gheorghe and Ion. I arranged to leave on a Monday so I could attend the Sunday service with them. It was a meeting to remember. By now I was used to services lasting from nine to one, but this one lasted from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, breaking then for an enormous meal.