RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Brother Andrés died, a life dedicated to persecuted Christians

The founder of “Open Doors” passed away at the age of 94. He was called “God’s smuggler” because of the Bibles he began smuggling into Eastern European countries in 1955. During his lifetime he visited 125 countries to stand with those suffering for the faith of God. the.

Milan () – Anne van der Bijl, the Dutch evangelical activist better known as Brother Andrew, founder of “Open Doors”, an international organization active throughout the world in support of persecuted Christians, has died at the age of 94. His autobiography, entitled “El smuggler de Dios”, refers to the millions of copies of the Bible that he managed to take to the most closed places to the evangelical message, crossing any border.

Brother Andrew was trained in biblical studies at the Bible Training Institute in Glasgow. His life took a radical turn in 1955, when with a Dutch delegation he attended the World Festival of Communist Youth in Poland, then under the communist regime. There he discovered a Church behind the Iron Curtain, oppressed and persecuted, in desperate need of Bibles. And from that moment, helping those who suffer because of their faith in Christ became the reason for his life, through a foundation he called “Open Doors” precisely because every door must always be open to the message of the Gospel.

“With my life, I hope to testify that there is no more exciting mission than to follow Jesus, wherever he leads us,” he said of himself. And over the years, he managed to cross many borders: in the sixties, when the Cultural Revolution was still raging, he managed to enter the People’s Republic of China. In more recent years he has been one of the strongest voices in defense of Christian victims of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and South Asia. But he liked to repeat that for him the word Islam was an acronym for ‘I Sincerely Love All Muslims’.

Married for 59 years to his wife Corry, who passed away in 2018, Brother Andrew leaves behind five children and eleven grandchildren. He had long since left the active direction of “Open Doors”, which continues his work following his footsteps. Among his best-known initiatives is World Watch Listthe report that each year draws up the sad world “classification” of the countries where Christians are most persecuted.

Photo: Jako Jellema/Flick