The one thing on my mind now was the need for a Russian pocket Bible. It became an obsession with me. I made the rounds of the Bible societies, but even when a society agreed that such an edition was possible in theory, there were practical problems. The American Bible Society, which had been supplying me with Russian Bibles free of charge, although sympathetic, could not see their way clear to printing a special edition just for this operation. The British and Foreign Bible Society was in the same position, the Dutch Bible Society was committed to work in Africa and Indonesia and did not handle Eastern European languages.
“Why don’t you print your own pocket Bible?” said Philip Whetstra one evening when I was talking over my problem with him.
“Very funny.”
“I’m serious. You know exactly what it is you want. Print it yourself.”
“You must be dreaming, Mr. Whetstra. That would cost at least five thousand dollars. Wherever would I get five thousand dollars?”
Mr. Whetstra looked at me sadly. “After all this time, you ask that?” he said.
Of course he was right. It would not be I who supplied the funds for such a project; it would be the Lord. Before I left the Whetstras’ that night, I knew that I was launched onto another grand experiment—the grandest yet. This time, though, it took longer than usual for the dream to unfold. And in the meanwhile there was the usual work to be done. Having Hans as part of this work was even better than I had imagined. We formed a team, one strong where the other was weak. It was while we were in Bulgaria one hot summer night in 1962 that Hans suddenly said, “Andrew, it is time we prayed for a new team member.”
I was sitting up in bed with the perspiration drying on me, trying to write a letter home. “Yup. That’s right,” I said absently.
“You remember when the visa finally came through to go to Czechoslovakia, only you were in East Germany and I was in Russia? If there were more of us, we wouldn’t have to make these choices.”
“Yup. That’s right.”
“You’re not listening.”
I put the notepaper down. It stuck to the heel of my hand. “Of course I’m listening.” I tried to remember what he had said. “We have more opportunity than we can satisfy. That’s true, Hans. But you know how it is if you expand too rapidly—”
Hans interrupted. “I’d hardly call one new member in seven years expanding too rapidly, let us pray.”
I looked at Hans closely. He had run the “let-us-pray” onto the end of his sentence so closely, I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly. But he was well into the prayer. I bowed my head too, and as Hans spoke I began to get his sense of urgency about finding another man who would give himself with us—full time, without salary, without reservation.
Almost simultaneously, Hans and I thought of the same person.
“What about Rolf?” we said together, and then laughed.
“It could be guidance,” Hans said.
“It could indeed.”
Rolf was a young Dutch seminary student finishing his post-graduate work in systematic theology. A brilliant theologian, Rolf was still a man of action. That same night I composed a letter asking him if he would consider joining us. And sure enough, on our return to Holland there was a reply waiting for us. He had read my letter with annoyance, Rolf wrote. Becoming a sticky-voiced, Bible-waving missionary was the last thing on earth he wanted to do. What did I think he had gone to school all these years for, if all he needed to know was “Onward Christian Soldiers”?
But since my letter had come, he went on, he hadn’t had a night’s sleep. God had thrust it under his nose night and day, eating or working, sitting or walking, until at last he’d given in, and when could he start?
And so, kicking and protesting, a third member came to join us. Hans took him right away on an orientation trip into Rumania. They had a fantastic time there, seeing a real break in the reserve of the Church in that beautiful land. They were spied upon by two men who hardly ever left their sight, but in spite of this managed to get rid of their Bibles and even to do some preaching in private homes.
Rolf came back open-mouthed and utterly convinced.
———
We shared with Rolf our longing for a small-format Russian Bible. Hardly had we finished our tale of difficulties before Rolf echoed Philip Whetstra’s thought that we should print the Bibles ourselves.
“How much would it cost to print five thousand Bibles?” Rolf asked.
And I had to admit that I had never asked for a bid. Rolf would not let me get away with that. Together, he and I contacted printing houses in Holland, Germany, and England. The best quotation we got was from an English printer who said that with a press run of five thousand he would print the Bibles for three dollars each.
“You see?” I said to Rolf, Hans, and Corry the day we received this bid in the mail. “Why, that comes to fifteen thousand dollars!”
Rolf and Hans were amused at me. “You sit there immobilized by such a little matter as money!”
And of course again they were right. I had learned to count on the Lord for toothpaste and shaving cream. But when it came to such a staggering sum as fifteen thousand dollars, I had trouble believing that the same principle held.
That night I sat down at the kitchen table with a bankbook open in front of me. It was labeled “Russian Bibles.” The entries, starting in 1961 just after our return from Russia, were now well into 1963. With all our hoarding, the total still came to less than two thousand dollars.
Corry sat down. “What are you thinking, Andy?”
I shoved the account book toward her. “In two years that’s all the money we’ve saved.” I took a deep breath, hating to say what I had to next. “How much do you think our house is worth?”
Corry did not answer me. She just stared.
“We got it at a bargain, and with the work we’ve put into it, it’s gone up in value many times. What do you think it’s worth? Ten thousand dollars? Twelve thousand? We need that much.”
“Our house, Andy? Right when we’re expecting a new baby?”
“We need to do something to get us off dead center.”
Corry’s face had gone white. “Maybe God doesn’t want us to have those pocket Bibles,” she said in a small voice. “Maybe the very slowness is guidance.”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
———
That was all we said that night about selling the house. But Corry told me the next week that she had begun to pray that she could think of the house not as our own but as belonging to God.
“It should be Yours to do with as You will,” we started praying together every evening. “And yet we know we really don’t feel this way, Lord. If You want us to sell the house for the Bibles, You will have to work a small miracle in our hearts to make us willing.”
The new baby came—the child we had been waiting for so long, a little girl. We named her Stephanie. Every cash present that came in for her went into the Bible fund. But twenty years of this kind of saving would never be enough. We stopped asking for willingness and just asked God to make us willing to be willing to sell the house.
And at last He answered our prayer. One morning Corry and I suddenly knew that we didn’t need that house or anything else on earth to make us happy.
“I don’t know just where we’ll live,” Corry began, and then she laughed. “Remember, Andy? ‘We don’t know where we’re going—’”
And I supplied the end of the sentence we had spoken so often, “‘—but we’re going there together.’”
That very day we got an appraisal on the house and land. The total, coupled with our savings account, came to just over fifteen thousand dollars!
It was the confirmation we needed. We put the house on the market, and I wrote to the printer in England asking him to start making the plates as we had discussed them. That night Corry and I slept in a happier, more positive frame of mind than we had enjoyed for months.
How faithful God is, how utterly trustworthy, how good beyond imagining! He asks for so little in order to give us so much. For although the housing shortage in Witte was still acute, not a single person came to look at our house all that week. And on Friday, Corry called, “Telephone, Andy!”
With Hans and Rolf traveling so much of the time, we had been forced to install a phone in the house. I often resented the interruptions it caused. But not this day. For it was from the Dutch Bible Society, asking me if I could see them that same afternoon.
Within a few hours I was seated across the table from the board of directors. They were committed, they explained again, to their own work. But they had not been able to get my need out of their minds. If I could make arrangements to have the printing done somewhere else . . .
I had? In England? Well, here was what they proposed. They would pay half the cost. If the Bibles cost $3 each to print, I could purchase them for $1.50. And although the Society would pay for the entire printing as soon as it was ready, I would need to pay for my supplies only as I used them. If this was satisfactory—
If it was satisfactory! I could scarcely believe what I had heard. I would be able to buy over six hundred Bibles—all we could carry at one time—right away out of our “Russian Bible” fund. And we wouldn’t have to leave our home, and Corry could go on sewing the pink curtains for Steffie’s room, and I could set out my lettuce flats and—I could hardly wait to tell Corry what God had done with the thimbleful of willingness we had offered Him.
The pocket Bibles were a reality at last. As I left the offices of the Dutch Bible Society, I knew that within six months, by early 1964, we would be able to begin supplying Russian pastors with the Bibles they so desperately needed.
———
Rolf was getting married.
Corry and I had dutifully recited to him the disadvantages and separations that went with this type of work. But, as Rolf pointed out, our own happiness was the world’s best argument against bachelorhood. Elena could go with him on his trips. She would be just as effective a team member as the men.
So we stood up for them at their wedding and gave them a honeymoon assignment dear to our hearts. The first print order of Bibles was ready. Rolf and Elena were to go pick them up in England.
We had a second vehicle now, a van especially built for long distance travel. It had a windowless rear section and could carry more than the Opel. Rolf and his bride ferried the van across to England and picked up our first order of pocket Bibles. What a red-letter day it was when Rolf and Elena burst into the house carrying one of the new Bibles, our own edition! I held it in my left hand, and in my right hand a standard copy. What a difference! I knew that we must be on our way as quickly as possible.
May 16, 1964, was our departure date. I knew I would need all the partnership support I could get for this venture, and Hans was in Hungary; so newlywed Rolf was tapped.
———
It was Sunday morning in Moscow, time to go downtown to church. Rolf and I left the van with considerable uneasiness. How much was our undeclared merchandise worth? A Bible could buy a cow now in the country districts. Six hundred and fifty cows—this cargo represented a sizable smuggling operation in cash value alone. We were planning to give the Bibles away, but that would make no difference if we were caught with them in our possession. A man was on trial right now for an “economic crime” against the people’s State. A man convicted of the same charge had recently been executed by firing squad. If we were caught . . . well this was not the time to think of that.
Ivanhoff was on the platform at church that morning. As he glanced at the visitors’ balcony, I was sure he recognized me, although he gave no sign. A few minutes later he got up and left the sanctuary. He did not return, nor was he in the vestibule after the service. But suddenly a hearty voice behind me said, “Welcome to Russia!”
It was Markov. I introduced him to Rolf. “We brought gifts,” I said.
“Wonderful!” he cried. “That’s grand news!” His voice was louder than necessary, and I knew it was a defense. No one would bother to listen if we were speaking openly.
“I wonder where we might go to visit a spell.”
“How about the same place as before?”
The same place! Two minutes from Red Square! Markov might have nerves of steel, but I did not.
“I’d rather see some new scenery.”
For the first time Markov lowered his voice. “On the road to Smolensk there is a large blue sign saying ‘Moscow.’ Rendezvous there at five o’clock. I will lead you to another place. Have the gifts unpacked so we can move fast.”
This sounded better, but Rolf and I were still faced with the problem of where to unpack those Bibles. It would take at least half an hour of uninterrupted privacy to do the job.
Back at camp I had an idea. “Let’s go for a ride,” I said. “You just keep sightseeing, and I’ll crawl into the back and begin unpacking. Whatever you do, keep moving.”
But I had barely begun when the van jerked to a halt. I crept forward and peered over the seats. A police officer was coming toward the car.
“Pray!” Rolf hissed, and then stuck his head out the window.
“What is it officer?” he asked in Dutch.
The policeman rattled off a long angry sentence in Russian, then produced a few words in English. “No turn! No turn! Sign say.”
“Was there something wrong with that turn, officer?” said Rolf, still in Dutch. “I’m terribly sorry. I’m not used to driving in such a vast and handsome city as Moscow.”
The policeman was raging in Russian again. I flattened my back against the side of the van, praying that the officer would not look inside. At the end of a lifetime I heard him say something else in Russian, more calmly. “The same to you, officer,” Rolf answered in Dutch. “And I do wish you and your people the very best of God’s love.”
Rolf put the van into gear and moved slowly out into traffic. Not until several blocks further did I let out my breath.
“Let’s not try that any more. It’s too much for me!”
We spent the rest of the afternoon looking for a place to finish our work. Finally, at four o’clock we knew that, ready or not, we had to head for the rendezvous. So with hearts that did not match the sunny sky overhead, we drove out the Smolensk road.
“Why are we worried!” Rolf said suddenly. “This is God’s work! He’ll make a way for us.” And as if to prove his conviction, he started to sing.
Oddly, as the mood inside the van brightened, the sky overhead darkened. First an overcast hid the sun, then a heavy buildup of clouds spread swiftly across the sky, dark and threatening. Lightning flashed in the distance. Thunder answered. And still Rolf and I drove on, singing.
Then the rain began.
In all my travels I had never seen a rain like this one. It was as if a celestial reservoir had burst, letting a solid sheet of water fall to earth. We had no choice but to pull to the side of the pavement. Other cars too had to abandon the road. The windows steamed up. We could hardly make out our own struggling windshield wipers. . . .
“Say—”
“I know—”
“God has made us invisible!” said Rolf.
Praising Him, we crawled back into the van, unhurriedly dislodged the rest of the Bibles, and packed them into cartons. We settled back in our seats comfortably just as the rain lifted and the skies lightened once again.
At precisely five o’clock we drove past the Moscow sign. Markov passed us, his headlights still on after the storm. He blinked them once. At ten minutes past five we stopped in front of a sort of shopping center where people all around us were unloading boxes or piling them into trucks. It took five minutes to make the exchange. After three years the first payment had been made on a promise to some pastors.