A Potted History of Open Doors
Milestones and Achievements
1955 BOLD BEGINNINGS Brother Andrew smuggles Bibles into Eastern Europe for the first time.
1956
BEETLE DRIVE The first of many tips to the Soviet Union
in Brother Andrew's blue Volkswaen Beetle which was to travel over 200,000
1955-78 EXPANSION Open Doors extends its network throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and then expands to bring Bibles and encouragement to persecuted Christians
1967
GOD'S SMUGGLER PUBLISHED Brother Andrew's biography, God's
Smuggler, becomes one of the best-selling Christian books of all time.
1978 MIDDLE EAST MINISTRY Contact with churches in the Middle East begins.
1981
PROJECT PEARL One million Bibles are delivered to a beach
in China in just one night. Time magazine calls is a "bold expedition.”
1982
SEVEN-YEAR PRAYER CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED Open Doors organises
seven years of prayer for the Communist bloc. It ends with the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989 - the region is opened to the Gospel and Christian prisoners
are released!
1985 PROJECT CROSSFIRE Five million pieces of literature are distributed in Latin America and thousands of youth are discipled to share their faith in Christ.
1989
TARGET ONE MILLION Open Doors delivers one million New
Testaments to Russia.
1992 PROJECT SAMUEL One million children in the former Soviet Union get their very first Bibles, many in remote areas.
1992 CHINESE STUDY BIBLE for church leaders and evangelists printed and distributed.
1994 CHINESE CHILDREN'S BIBLE STORYBOOK Delivery of first print run.
1993
BIBLES TO ALBANIA Brother Andrew presents the President
of Albania with the first copy of the full Bible in Albanian. Albania had
previously declared itself the world's first atheistic state!
1996 AGAPE STUDY BIBLE in Latin American Spanish printed and delivered.
1997
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AWARD The World Evangelical Fellowship
presents Brother Andrew with the International Religious Liberty Award.
1998
OPERATION DAILY BREAD Open Doors launches its first relief
project: Food and supplies are flown in to remote areas of war-torn southern
Sudan.
1999
FEEDING THE REVIVAL Open Doors delivers over two million
Bibles and Christian study materials to Chinese believers.
2002
OLYMPIC OPPORTUNITY Open Doors launches a new 7-year prayer
campaign - this time for China, leading up to and beyond the 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games.
The Full Story
In 1955 a young Dutch missionary discovered that Christians behind the Iron Curtain desperately needed the Word of God.
Brother Andrew (as he would later be known) distributed a suitcase full of Christian literature behind the Iron Curtain, marking the humble beginnings of Open Doors with Brother Andrew.
God's Smuggler
In the late 1960s Brother Andrew became known as 'God's Smuggler' after the title of his best-selling biography.
This book had a tremendous impact on many Christians in the West who, for the first time, read about the pain and deprivation of their brothers and sisters living in restricted countries.
Now available in 27 languages, God's Smuggler has helped to redefine the boundaries of modern missionary endeavour and has aroused millions to an awareness of the suffering Church in areas of limited access.
Global ministry
Brother Andrew's one-man operation quickly grew into a worldwide ministry.
The work of Open Doors broadened to taking Bibles into China, Vietnam and later Africa and the Muslim World, and organising training seminars and practical aid for suffering Christians.
Under Brother Andrew's leadership Open Doors has gone where most western Christians dare not go.
His underground network of indigenous Christians has aided in the secret distribution of millions of Bibles each year worldwide.
Open Doors has trained thousands of pastors and church leaders and provided spiritual and legal support for Christian prisoners.
We have also provided economic relief for their families and the families of martyrs.
Spiritual training and practical help
We have conducted Bible-based literacy classes and established discipleship training and vocational training in some of the most dangerous countries in the world.
In the early 1980s, Open Doors began to help persecuted Christians in Latin America as well.
In 1997, Brother Andrew received the World Evangelical Fellowship's Religious Liberty Award, recognising his service to the persecuted Church.
The challenge of Islam
Still travelling extensively, Brother Andrew feels passionately that the rapid spread of Islam could be, by far, the greatest challenge that he and Open Doors have yet faced.
His ministry has taken him into regular meetings with Yasser Arafat and with leaders of the Hamas and Hezbollah, and also with various armed groups in Latin America.
He has also broken down denominational barriers by preaching in Catholic and Coptic Orthodox churches.
Currently in his 70s, Brother Andrew and his wife, Corrie, live in Holland and have 5 children and 4 grandchildren.
Today Open Doors has many co-workers in over 45 high-risk countries.
As persecution increases, Open Doors will continue to go where faith costs the most, to equip and encourage Christians who are suffering for their faith.