God's Smuggler

His learning to depend on God in every circumstance. And God's miraculous provision.

Wow! I have just finished reading this book, and all I can say is wow! Brother Andrew’s faith, and God’s faithfulness are truely an amazing testimony! Andrew’s story starts as a rebellious, trouble making kid, and you will see God transform him into a totally transformed man. Watching him rely totally on God for his everything, even his next meal, is pushing me to take a step of faith! Not to mention the excitement of crossing the iron curtain with HUNDREDS of bibles!!! You have got to read this book! It will change your life!

This book has inspired me greatly! There have been times I have read this book and felt the uplift of inspiration. The best thing about the narrative is that its real to life with a transparency that is familiar to anyone who has ever prodded through life wandering about life, God, purpose, and destiny. Let me share from one story in the book. I truly believe there is no other book that has inspired me to be challenged in my faith as this by Brother Andrew. "One night I went out for a long, solitary walk. On several occasions students had warned me not to 'go into Patrick.' Patrick was the slum sitting at the bottom of our hill. It was, they said, the home of addicts, drunks, thieves, even murderers, and walking its streets was unsafe. And yet this area drew me now as if it had something to say. All around me were the dirty gray streets of Patrick. Litter blew across the cobblestones. The September air was already raw. Before I had gone five blocks I was accosted two times by beggars. I gave them all the money I had in my pockets and watched as they moved without pretense toward the nearest pub. I knew that these drifters, begging in the streets of the Glasgow slums, would receive a better income than the missionaries-in-training at the top of the hill. I could not understand why this bothered me so. Was I greedy? I didnt think so. We had always been poor in my family, and I had never worried about it. What was it then? And suddenly, walking back up the hill toward the school, I had my answer. The question was not one of money at all. What I was worried about was a relationship. At the chocolate factory I trusted Mr. Ringers to pay me in full and on time. Surely I said to myself, if an ordinary factory worker could be financially secure, so coud one of God's workers. I turned through the gate of the school. Above me was the reminder 'Have Faith In God.' That was it! It wasn't that I needed the security of a certain amount of money, it was that I needed the security of a relationship. I walked up the crunchy pebblewalk feeling more and more certain that I was on the verge of something exciting. The school was asleep and quiet. I tiptoed upstairs and sat by the bedroom window looking out over Glasgow. ******************************************************* If I were going to give my life as a servant of the King, I had to know that King. What was He like? In what WAY could I trust Him? In the same way I trusted a set of impersonal laws? Or could I trust Him as a living leader, as a very present commander in battle? The question was central. Because if He were a King in name only, I would rather go back to the chocolate factory. I would remain a Christian, but I would know that my religion was only a set of principles, excellent to be followed, but hardly demanding devotion. Suppose on the other hand that I were to discover God to be a Person, in the sense that He communicated and cared and loved and led. That was something qui

In 1968 I received this book as a bonus from the Farm Family Book Club. I started to read it in the evening and read until I was finished at 4:00 a.m. The next day I said, "If Brother Andrew can trust God for 365 days a year, I can trust Him for one day, no matter how foolish it makes me look." I did, and I did look foolish. But I found out that He is faithful. My life has never been the same.

This book reads like a fast-paced suspense novel, but the fact that it is non-fiction makes every word all the more incredible. God is so real in Brother Andrew's life that he cannot help but convey that reality to the reader. Miracles of the most extraodinary nature happen routinely in this book, and while Brother Andrew is constantly amazed at God's provisions, he seems to also have the attitude:" Why not?" As if to say, our God is the Creator of all there is and yet why are we still confounded by the fact that He can make "seeing eyes blind" and "blind eyes see"!