“You mean, you mean…?” Andrew stammered.
The doctor broke into a broad smile. “Yes. Congratulations. You are going to be a father in June.”
Andrew was stunned. He was so happy to finally have a wife that he had not given much thought to being a father. He spent the rest of the week adjusting to the idea.
Two months rolled by, and in early 1959 Andrew was feeling restless again. He had decided to stay close to home until the baby was born, but now June seemed a long way away. A shipment of Romanian and Bulgarian Bibles had arrived for him from the British and Foreign Bible Society, and Andrew began wondering whether this was a sign that he should deliver them—soon.
Andrew discussed his thoughts with Corrie, who with morning sickness behind her was now feeling much better. Corrie was not excited about the idea, but after thinking about it, she told Andrew that in agreeing to marry him, she had also agreed to be a partner in his ministry, and if God was telling him to go, then he should go. She helped him load up the car with Bibles and camping gear. After giving his wife a final kiss good-bye, Andrew once again headed off across Europe.
The quickest way to Bulgaria from Holland was through Yugoslavia, so before setting out, Andrew had obtained a new Dutch passport and applied for another visa at the Yugoslav consulate in Holland. As he had suspected, the wheels of bureaucracy in Communist countries moved slowly, and the consulate had not yet received word that Andrew was an undesirable and should not be issued a visa. As a result, Andrew got the visa he applied for and headed for Yugoslavia. He was not listed as an undesirable at the border crossing either, and he was allowed to cross into the country. Andrew figured that it would take the Yugoslav authorities about four days to realize that he had reentered the country and track him down. By that time he intended to be in Bulgaria.
On his way through Yugoslavia, Andrew stopped off to visit Jamil and Nikola, who furnished him with the addresses of some churches in the south of the country that he should stop and speak at. Andrew did this, but it took him longer than expected, and on the fifth night he was still in Yugoslavia. He checked into a hotel for the night in a town fifty miles from the Bulgarian border, handing in his passport at the front desk, as he was obliged to do. He intended to drive to the border first thing in the morning and cross into Bulgaria. However, in the early hours of the morning he heard a knock at the door of his room. He opened the door, and there stood two men in business suits.
“Dress and follow us,” one of the men demanded in German.
Andrew did as he was told, and the men led him out of the hotel and down the street to a large, stone building. In a room inside the building sat another man behind a desk.
“Why are you here?” the man asked in German, slapping Andrew’s passport down on the desk. “Why did you come back? You were ordered not to do so.”
The man did not wait for Andrew to reply. Instead he opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a stamp and inkpad. He opened the passport, and with a quick flick of his wrist he stamped “No Return” three times in red over the visa.
“You will leave Yugoslavia within twenty-four hours. You will contact no one in the country, and we will phone the border guards in Trieste and advise them to expect you,” the man said when he had finished stamping.
“Trieste?” Andrew said. “But I am on my way to Bulgaria. Please, may I be allowed to cross the Bulgarian border?”
“You must retrace your route north and leave at Trieste,” the man snapped. “Are you clear on that?”
Andrew nodded dejectedly.
The next morning Andrew set out north toward Trieste. This was not what he had expected, and his spirits began to flag as he drove along. Now the only route open to him to get to Bulgaria was to cross into Italy and drive south all the way to Brindisi, catch a ferry to Greece, and drive north to the Bulgarian border. This would add about fifteen hundred miles to his journey.
As he drove south through Italy, Andrew began to grow depressed and frustrated. The Italian roads were clogged with traffic and people, slowing his progress. And to make matters worse, his back began to hurt more than it had ever hurt before in his life. By the time he reached Brindisi, Andrew could barely walk. Still the detour had put him on a tight schedule, and he had no time to seek medical attention.
Once in Greece, Andrew headed straight for the Bulgarian border. To his dismay, the Greek roads were potholed and in terrible condition, and once again Andrew’s progress was slowed. In addition, the road signs were all in Greek, causing Andrew to get lost several times and forcing him to have to backtrack.
As he got closer to the border, Andrew stopped in the town of Serrai, where he received another blow. He was told that only diplomats were allowed to cross into Bulgaria at the border crossing he was headed for. Since there were no other border crossings into Bulgaria from Greece, Andrew was advised that if he wanted to enter the country, he would have to head east to Turkey and cross into Bulgaria from there. Andrew could scarcely believe it—Turkey was over two hundred miles from where he was. And if that were not enough, the longer he sat driving in his Volkswagen, the sorer his back got. But since he could do nothing about it, he drove east toward Turkey.
As he drove along, Andrew became more and more depressed and despondent. This was not what he had planned for his journey. His back was now so sore that he wondered whether he would even be able to walk when he got to Bulgaria. He wondered whether this was any kind of life for a husband and soon-to-be father.
Driving along, Andrew noticed a road sign in Greek, and underneath the Greek was written the name “Filippi.” This was the site of ancient Philippi in the Bible. Andrew had to stop and see the place. He pulled the Volkswagen over to the side of the road and climbed out. He hobbled over to the chain-link fence that surrounded the site and looked out on the ruins of the city. This was where the apostle Paul had converted Lydia, who was considered to be the first European Christian convert. It was also the place where Paul and Silas had been imprisoned for their faith but God had miraculously set them free.
As he looked out on Philippi and thought about these events, Andrew felt his depression fall away. Faith began to rise in his heart. The same God who had guided Paul was guiding him. And if Paul could trust and praise Him from his prison cell, who was Andrew to complain about his situation? All he could do was trust that God was in control of his circumstances.
As he turned to walk back to the car, Andrew noticed something else. Not only had his faith been lifted, but also his back no longer hurt. He was walking tall and easy, with no pain.
Andrew drove on into Turkey and crossed the border into Bulgaria without incident. He then headed for the capital city of Sofia, where he made contact with a man named Petroff, whose name someone in Yugoslavia had given him.
Petroff explained to Andrew that the churches he saw with their doors open were puppet churches that were controlled by the government and denied the life-changing power of the gospel. The real Christian church had gone underground. Over the next two weeks, Andrew and Petroff visited many of these underground churches, which met secretly in people’s houses and apartments.
Bibles in Bulgaria were in short supply, and at each church meeting Andrew attended, he took one of the Bulgarian Bibles and presented it to the group. The members of the church would gasp when they saw it, and as they passed it from one to the other to examine it, tears would run down their cheeks.
Finally it was time for Andrew to move on to Romania. But as he was about to drive north to the Danube River, which marked the border with Romania, a group of people came to Andrew and begged him not to leave but to come and speak at their church. Andrew wished that he could, but he had to cross into Romania by the date on his visa, and that date was now only a day away.
At the Romanian border Andrew watched in shock as the three cars in line in front of him were almost torn apart as the guards searched them. He knew that if his car was subjected to the same level of search, the guards would easily find the Romanian Bibles he was carrying. As he prayed about what to do, Andrew felt that he should be open about what he was carrying into the country. He reached into the backseat of the Volkswagen and pulled out several of the Bibles he had hidden there. He piled them beside him on the front seat, where the border guards would be sure to see them.
Finally it was his turn. Andrew drove the car forward and stopped in front of the barrier. He rolled down the window and handed his passport to the guard. His heart pounded as the guard looked at the passport and then wrote something down on a piece of paper. Finally the guard looked inside the car, right where the Bibles were stacked on the front seat. Then, much to Andrew’s surprise and relief, the guard handed back the passport and waved him on into Romania.
Andrew had expected Romania to be much like Bulgaria, but as he drove along, he saw how mistaken he was. Romania was the strictest police state he had visited so far. Police roadblocks were situated throughout the country to check people’s papers, and unlike the Bulgarians, whom Andrew had found to be warm and friendly, the Romanians were deeply fearful and suspicious of each other and especially of foreigners like him.
Because of the people’s fear and suspicion, it took Andrew a while before he found a Christian willing to talk to him and interpret for him. As he talked, he learned that the way the Romanian government controlled the church was through a program of consolidation. The government would consolidate the churches in several villages down to a single congregation, and the empty church buildings would be confiscated. The effect of this consolidation was to cripple the church. Now, instead of attending their local church, people would have to travel to the next village or the village beyond that to attend services. This inconvenience caused many people to stop attending church after a consolidation had taken place.
Andrew left the Romanian Bibles he had carried into the country with his contact, who would know how and where to distribute the Bibles so that they were of the most use to the greatest number of Christians.
Finally it was time for Andrew to retrace his route and head back to Holland. Because of the delay in getting to Bulgaria, he was departing for home later than he had planned. Andrew sped along as fast as the road conditions and the Volkswagen would allow. It was now late May, and Corrie was due to give birth any day now.
Relief flooded through Andrew when he finally drove across the border into Holland. It felt wonderful to be home again, and he was hopeful that he was not too late for the birth of the baby.
Chapter 16
Into the Soviet Union
Much to his relief, Andrew found that Corrie had not yet given birth by the time he arrived home. A week later, on June 4, 1959, Corrie delivered a baby boy, whom they named Joppie. Three weeks after the baby’s birth, Andrew and Corrie celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
At the same time, Andrew’s sister Geltje was expecting her third child, and his brother Cornelius’s wife was expecting her first. Counting the new babies, six adults and five children would soon be living in the old van der Bijl house. Andrew could see that there were just too many people for the house, and he knew that it was time for him and Corrie to find somewhere else to live. But where could they go? At the time, housing was scarce in Holland, and even if they could find a place, they had very little money to pay for it. Small amounts of money dribbled in from people as a result of the magazine articles Andrew continued to write and publish about the plight of Christians behind the Iron Curtain. Andrew also received offerings from the various churches where he spoke, but he and Corrie had no savings for a house. Even the clothes they and Joppie wore came from the donation boxes.
