Brother Andrew and Dan Wooding Interview — Brother Andrew

We're talking today with Brother Andrew, who has just released a new book, a very dramatic book, called Lightforce, with Al Jansen. And, Andrew, you're known as God's smuggler, and yet all of a sudden you switched in midstream to the Islamic world.

What caused you to switch? How is it that you suddenly saw that that was where your ministry was going to be?

Bringing the Gospel to Closed and Troubled Regions

I'm not a smuggler. I take the gospel where it's not allowed, and then when the people there ask me for Bibles, I cannot take them in officially, so I do it unofficially. I never tell a lie. I bring the Word of God in dark areas.

And when my first book came out, God's Smuggler, that was in 1967, I couldn't go back to the communist countries. So almost at once I switched over to going to the Middle East, because I expected the next crisis to originate there, and as it happened, indeed, so I'm very much involved in almost every Muslim country in the world, and it's simply because there's a church that needs us, that needs encouragement, a church that we know very little about, therefore we don't pray for them, and that's why I work there.

Encouraging the Neglected Middle Eastern Church

What did you find when you first went to the Middle East? Did you find a very discouraged church?

I did indeed, and when I probed a little further, I found that the real source of discouragement was our failure in the West to stay in touch with them, whereas millions of Christian pilgrims go to the so-called Holy Land, they all go to see, it seems, the dead stones, and nobody was looking for the living stones.

They felt neglected, they even felt betrayed, that's the word they used, we feel betrayed because nobody comes to look after us, to ask how we're doing, or even to worship with us, they have their own meetings, those Christian pilgrims, they never go to either Messianic churches or Palestinian or Arab churches, there are plenty of them, Baptists, the Lions, everything is there, but they don't come.

So we are building that link, that bridge, and you build a bridge for people to cross the bridge, so we bring them together in that way, we in the West, and they who live there, different tribes and religions and nationalities, they cross the bridge to find each other.

Building Relationships with Arafat and Palestinian Leaders

How did you first get involved with Yasser Arafat?

Oh, that happened in The Hague, in my own country, when an old gentleman, the former headmaster of the Christian school in Nazareth, was dying, and we couldn't find anybody to visit him, or eventually to bury him, but there was a Baptist pastor from America, running the Baptist church in The Hague, and he was asked to come and visit the sick man, but he asked me to come with him because he didn't know the way, so we both went there, it was a very profitable visit.

We prayed with him and read scriptures, and I think we even had a communion service, but then the gentleman in the house was so helpful, so in the end I said, well, who are you? He said, I'm Arafat's right-hand man.

I said, oh, interesting, can you get in touch with your boss? He said, only one phone call away. I said, make that call. A few days later I was with Arafat, and from there, of course, I've been many times both in Algeria and Tunisia, and in Gaza with Arafat.

What can people do to pray for Arafat? That I don't know.

He's a politician, I don't even know how to pray for politicians over here. It's hard to say. I think when we pray specifically for people in difficult or responsible situations, we should first have a prayer to God, asking God how we should pray, because God only can influence their hearts.

We cannot, I cannot, and then God will tell us what to do, how to pray, send a book or go and give a Bible like I did, or even give God's smuggler in Arabic. It's one of Arafat's favorite books, incidentally.

He always asks for more copies, bring a dozen more. I want all my officers to read God's smuggler. So he's one of my distributors.

Offering Himself for a Hezbollah Hostage

That's funny. Now, during the time when Hezbollah had the hostages in Beirut, you made a rather unusual trip to the leader of Hezbollah and offered yourself as a hostage replacement. About that?

What can I tell about that? I felt it was his time to go home to see his wife and children. He had been over four years chained to a radiator in a dark cellar. I thought it was time for us to switch places, so I prayed about it.

I put my house in order. I bought a nice big Arabic Bible in West Beirut. I went to see the Hezbollah leader, and I told him my plan. I first said, I don't know what the Koran says about hostage taking, but I know what the Bible says.

Here is the Bible. Read for yourself. God wants you to release them. Oh, he didn't want to hear that. So then I said, well, at least that one is a brother of mine in Christ. I want to take his place. Let him go, and I'll take his place.

His eyes almost popped out. Andrew, how can you say that? I said, well, that's the spirit of Jesus. He gave his life on the cross to let me go free and enjoy life, and that's why I'm here. Well, he did not follow my suggestion, my request, but we became friends.

Because of our acquaintanceship, I was able to visit the front line with Hezbollah Israel in the south of Lebanon, gave out lots of scriptures, carloads of scriptures we took there, and always surrounded by these little boys with big guns and very proud, me, Khomeini.

I said, me, Jesus. I gave scriptures, and we made lots of friendships. And even recently I was with him again this year. Many times I visited him.

Sharing Christianity with Hamas

Now, one thing that really has amazed me, I remember going into Gaza with you once, and you were greeted by one of the leaders of Hamas, and you've had an amazing opening there at the university, but how did you first get involved with Hamas, and then what have you been doing at the university?

I was involved with them since they were deported in December 1992, and I saw on the television the official Israeli statement that these people have no blood on their hands, otherwise we would not have deported them.

I said, well, that sounds strange to me. If they're not terrorists and not criminals, have no blood on their hands, then they still need Jesus. So I just packed my suitcase and took lots of Bibles and the Gospel in Arabic and Corrie ten Boom books, yes.

And I remember walking up to Dr. Rantizi, the one that was murdered recently, liquidated, they call her there, and I gave that book to him and said, now here, read also Corrie's book and see how you can become famous for saving Jewish lives instead of destroying them.

Well, he accepted the book, and later I visited him in his home and other places and gave him scriptures and books.

So now he eventually opened up the university for you?

That was the other guy, Zahar, who is presently the leader of the Hamas. But when I had meetings, I began to have meetings with them in Gaza, big meetings, three, four hundred Hamas men in one meeting.

I would open a New Testament, read and explain and give my testimony. And then he said, Andre, this is also very new. Could you come to the university? We make a special event, and could you then teach us on the subject, what is real Christianity?

Then the thought occurred to me, these guys don't know what real Christianity is. All they see is an official church body that supports Israel, which is their big enemy, and therefore that church is also the enemy of the Muslim fundamentalists.

But what does that have to do with Christianity? So when he asked me to do that, with fear and trembling, because I'm not a very courageous guy and I'm not very knowledgeable and don't speak Arabic, all I do is drink Arab coffee, but I was scared to face there the faculty and the board of the Hamas University.

It's the most fanatic Islamic university in the world. And all the students, and then speak. But the Lord gave me such grace, I was not nervous at all, I gave them the whole message, and some people got up, some students, they were angry, they left the room.

And the staff were afraid that they would all run off, because they'd never heard the gospel preached that way. So one stood up and he locked the door and they couldn't get out anymore. And so we had a good time overall, a very good time.

Training Palestinian Christian Leadership

Wow. Now Bethlehem, last time I saw you, you were staying in the Smugglers' Inn at the Bethlehem Bible College, you had this private room there. Why are you so supportive of the Bethlehem Bible College?

Because whatever our view and beliefs are about the Bible and prophecy, if prophecy is going to come true in our time, if this is the end time that we live in, as many people believe, then there has to be a church.

But the way it is going, there are no training places, no Bible schools, no seminaries. This is the only Bible school, evangelical Bible school, in the entire Middle East. And if we do not train Palestinian Christian leadership, they will all become fanatical and political and violent.

We have to, we can prevent that and we have to do that. So we are heavily supporting, as Open Doors, the Bethlehem Bible College. I make that my base. And as soon as I get there, I make my phone calls.

I make a phone call to the Rabbi in Jerusalem, to Hamas leaders somewhere else. I say, come together, have coffee with me. The Bethlehem Bible College, they come. That's when we open the scriptures. And I got to bring people together.

And I have to teach them how they should do it. That's why I never go alone on those trips. I bring people with me and show them you can approach Muslims, you can speak to fundamentalists, you can give scriptures.

And that in the end, I hope I'm not jumping ahead of your questions, but we got permission from Arafat to open a Bible shop in Gaza. And hundreds of Muslim fundamentalists, especially Hamas because they know me, come to the shop, get scriptures and get a Jesus video.

And hundreds, probably thousands have already heard and seen the gospel because of that post we have there.

Lightforce and the Church in the End Time

Now why did you write the book with Al Jensen? Because nobody here seems to know.

What I'm talking about. And I reach a lot more people through a book from the pulpit or in a conference like we have here, how great it is. But we have to spread the message there is a church, that's the first question I want to answer, there is a church with the Palestinians, there is a church with the Jews, the Messianic congregations, there is a church in Beslan, there is a church in Grozny, there is a church in Iraq, there is a church in Iran.

What are we doing for that church? And that's my concern, we don't know enough. So I wrote that book with Al, he's the best writer I know in America. And we want to open the eyes of the people to see that the remnant of the church must grow, must be encouraged, must be trained, must be prayed for.

And then the church can be really the church so that in this whole end time scenario the church can play its role for which it was placed there by Almighty God.

Understanding and Reaching Terrorists

When we hear about these terrorists in Iraq who are beheading people and you believe that everybody is reachable, how do you reach people like that?

Unfortunately for the people who were beheaded that was the last time they reached them. How we reach them? By first trying to get into their skin, into their thinking. Why do you do that? Don't condemn, don't judge before we have walked in their shoes.

Is there any reason that the West has given for their hostility? And I think there is. We are creating more terrorists actually than we eliminate. The change has to come on our side and I hesitate. I hate using the word terrorist because a terrorist is not born.

A terrorist is made by constant neglect and persecution and being displaced or being made a refugee. No education, no job. And then in the end they decide well if there is no reason for living let's first take revenge on those who take away from us.

Those things that we think are our eternal rights. And if there is no solution then we will kill those that cause us to be so desperately unhappy. And that is the root of terrorism. So I want to go back to what causes them to be what they are like.

And that's one thing we do in the book. We put a human face on people that we flippantly call terrorists. I hate that word. Yet I use it myself. When I was with the leader of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza and then have a conversation I said I want to have a picture taken with the biggest terrorist in Gaza.

So I stood next to him and he laughed, he laughed. And so we made a very nice picture incidentally.

Spiritual Involvement and Bringing Light to Darkness

It must be very depressing at times for you because you started off where there was a lot of persecution. It never seems to die. In fact it seems to be getting worse.

How is this happening? It is getting worse. But what keeps me going is apart from the things I already mentioned if we can reach them we can win them therefore we have a chance to change the world. But the most important question to me and it also relates to all those decades that we work in the communist countries is what if I had not done it?

To that question there is no answer but it keeps me going because if we don't do it how much worse will it be? How many more people will get lost for all eternity because nobody shared Jesus with them?

That's what I pray and it breaks my heart sometimes, makes me cry when I see people blowing themselves up and I think anybody go to that guy and tell him about Jesus? Has he ever had the chance? We are so easy in our condemnation but have we prayed for him?

Have we prayed for Bin Laden? Have we prayed for Sheikh Yassin? Have we approached them and given them scriptures? We should really start searching our own heart and motivations. Then there is hope that things will change but that will not change without the deep spiritual involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ.

That's why this book is called Light Force. Light does not fight darkness. Light shines and the darkness is gone. That's what I so much hope will be the result of this book that we will bring a lot of light in the darkness of the Middle East.

The Not Terribly Good Club and Christian Failure

Two more questions.

One which always makes me laugh. Many people think you are very successful but you once applied to be the chaplain of the Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain. You wanted to be a failure and I actually wrote an article, Why I Want to Be a Failure by Brother Andrew.

Can you tell us why you wanted to be the chaplain of this club?

We all thought a small club would never get much publicity but then they published that they were going to have a conference with all the people that thought their own lives were terrible failures. I thought, hey, that appeals to me because who am I?

I didn't make much of a success. I still see in the write-ups about Brother Andrew that I graduated from Bible school. I never did. I never got the diploma. I don't have any diploma. I thought, well, that was a failure.

My trip to England was a failure in the beginning because I didn't speak the language. They all thought, what's this strange chap doing here? When I walked through that gate at the WAC Bible School in Glasgow there was this arch, Have Faith in God.

The moment I walked through it, I lost all my faith. I didn't have money, not much, and I was in very weak health. I was a wreck and I was even worse. When I left the college because the director in Parting said, Andrew, you don't have to apply for membership.

You're too weak to travel. I was written off even by the mission. Then I thought, hey, not so terribly good club. They need a chaplain. They need somebody to tell them that there is one who was a failure.

They crucified him. All his ambitions in the eyes of his disciples were all smashed. There was no king, no leader there. They crucified him. What a failure. I thought, this is my club. I wrote and I said, I want to be your chaplain.

Then they organized this congress and it was such a huge success. They wrote that book. The Book of Heroic Failures. The Book of Heroic Failures. It was such a success that according to their own principles, they had to disband and the whole thing disappeared because it was a success.

So you never became the chaplain then? No. It doesn't exist anymore, but I still exist. Final question.

Faith Beyond Human Limitations

What would you like as your epitaph on your tombstone? Uh-oh.

I don't think too much about that day, but now I know. He did what he couldn't. Could you explain that? Yeah, because that's... With God nothing is impossible, the scripture says. And we all... No, I don't want to generalize.

Most of us arrange their Christian life only according to what they think they can do, what they can achieve, how far they can go. And we don't go any further. We've drawn a line there and faith jumps over that line, doesn't accept the status quo, and gets further.

With God, that's where the life of faith begins. And everybody says, you're crazy. You can't do that. Okay? You can't do that. That's what my director of study said at the time. You can't do that. But I said, well, sorry, I just did it.

And that's my life story. Just do it, and then you'll see if God before us who shall be against.

Us. He did what he couldn't. Brother Andrew, thank you very much.