He knew he could stop at any moment, and return to a quiet life in Holland. But he kept on carrying Bibles across borders—to Cuba, where Dutch visitors did not need a visa. To Uganda, and then across the Middle East
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskEarly on, he learned about putting a hand up to volunteer for a job or stretching one out to a fellow human being. His father was up at five watering the garden to help feed his six children. Then he cycled four miles to his smithing job. His invalid mother sat in her chair at home, listening to the gospel station from Amsterdam. Sometimes it was hymns, sometimes preaching.
The first communist country he visited was Poland. They called it socialism there, not communism. On hearing there was to be a big festival in Warsaw, he wrote to the organisers suggesting they might teach him about socialism if he could tell them about God. You can do what you want to, they said. So in July 1955 he set off across Europe by train. In his bag were hundreds of tracts entitled “The Way of Salvation”, which he intended to give away.
And so began his new life. The day his visa to Yugoslavia came through, a neighbour gave him his Volkswagen Beetle. “My wife and I have talked it over,” the neighbour said. “And there’s no untalking us.” Friends he stayed with in Berlin were enthralled at the idea of taking Bibles to the Soviet Union, he recalled. Their church had some Russian Bibles. Couldn’t he take them along? He wasn’t so sure. Their car was already weighed down.
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