On June 18 , 1981 , several thousand men and women watched from a coastline near Shantou , China as a tugboat that had been christenedMichaeltowed a massive , 137 - pes barge and come to a stop just a few dozen foot from land . The percipient beganwadinginto the piss , some of them up to their neck , and retrieved thewaterproof boxesthe boat occupant were releasing into the sea . A handful of small boat push out toward the hoy and were able to grab several at a time .
Under the cover of night , the barge and the tugboat began withdraw into the distance . The recipient hide the box where they could , include under trees and giantism . Others were handed off to co - conspirators , who were waiting nearby in idling vehicle .
All the subterfuge hinted at a drug transaction . While it was true the group was distribute with contraband , it was n’t of the narcotic sort . Each of the boxes arrest 90 Bible , written in Taiwanese characters , which were notoriously difficult to come by under the country ’s communistic rule . A group of foreign missionaries had spend millions of dollars and risked their biography smuggling the Holy Scripture into China . It was now up to the insurgent citizen who had retrieved them from the water to get the book into the men of the devout before Taiwanese authorities arrived — and they were coming fast .
Smuggling scripture was something Andrew van der Bijl had plenty of recitation in . yield in 1928 in the Netherlands , Bijl , or " Brother Andrew " as he was known to many , heed a high calling after beingwoundedin the Dutch ground forces . move around around the Soviet Union and other Communist - ruled area , Bijl would obscure hundreds of Bibles in amodifiedVolkswagen Beetle and spill his direction through border or customs checkpoints .
It was an interesting juxtaposition — a man of faith breaking humankind ’s practice of law to facilitate God ’s give-and-take — and Brother Andrew accomplish a point ofnotorietyfor it after author his 1967 autobiography , God ’s Smuggler . But having a bill of celebrity meant his Clarence Day of personally pitch Good Book to oppressed areas were over . rather , he supervise the activities of Open Doors International , a missionary effort that service country where Christianity is discouraged or persecuted .
In 1979 , opened Doors learned that Protestants and Catholics in China were voicing business organisation over the limited availableness of Bibles in the land . Since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and seventies , many Christian church had been forcibly keep out down and Bible yield had come to a stop . Chinese officials never declare an outright proscription on the religion , but they continued making empty promise of allowing more Bible distribution . By most accounts , there were simply not enough Bible to put into the bridge player of the eight to 10 million Christians in China .
Brother Andrew and Open Doors vice United States President Ed Neteland lead off diagram an attempt to satisfy demand on a scale that missionaries had never before attempted . Their first obstruction was the ambition to circulate a Chinese Bible , which was not something well ordain through schematic means . According to a 1981articleinThe New York Times , Neteland approach Thomas Nelson Publishers and postulate an administrator , Thomas Harris , if he would be unforced to accept a printing job under a strict head covering of silence . When Harris gibe , Neteland place an ordering for roughly 1 million Bibles to be printed from a Chinese printing process plate render by unresolved door . ( Anotherversionof the story has Open Doors blab to Thomas Nelson ’s president Sam Moore , who demonstrated his Bible ’s toughness by fox it against a rampart and leaving a shrink - wrapped corner in a bathtub of water over a lunch break . )
Harris handled the gild — for which hechargedNeteland $ 1 per Bible — by pass on the employment between two industrial plant : a Rand McNally facility in Chicago and another pressure in Grand Rapids , Michigan . After two months , Thomas Nelson deliver the 232 - short ton order to Open Doors in California .
The Bibles were trafficked from California to the Philippines , where 20 volunteers from the United States , Europe , and England set track for the Chinese coast . hang back their cargo through a maze of idle Formosan dark blue ships , they arrived at the Shantou beach on the evening of June 18 , 1981 . Flashlights flickered on and off between the gravy holder occupants and those wait on land . A firm shower of Bibles , poly - wrapped to ward off saturation , flowed for two 60 minutes toward the hoi polloi on the shoring who were seek the exemption to pursue their chosen religion .
As the Open door missionaries departed , the record ' recipientsbegan stowing , stashing , and moving the Bibles , picking hiding places on the beach or administer the boxwood to wait vehicles . As expected , Taiwanese Army patrol authorities were flying to capture on and arrived with menacing intentions . Some of the volunteers were beaten and hauled to jail . Others watch over as the bible were pushed back into the water system , only to be recovered later by fishermen who made a goodly profits trade them .
The Bibles that had managed to leak out into the general population were also aim for disposal . Taiwanese authorities once dump a cache of them into a cesspool , believing they were soiled beyond use . chop-chop , Chinese Catholics who had witnessed the vandalism hosed them off and spray them with essence . Such was the hunger for these Bibles that even waterlogged and pungent copies were in mellow demand .
In total , Open Doors forecast that the undertaking had in all probability distribute up to 80 percent of the million Bibles ship to China . While many lauded the effort , others — particularly those living inside the Communist regime — weren’t so proud of . Han Wenzao of the China Christian Councilarguedthat these exploit made religion seem even more of a menace in the eye of the Formosan authorities , with Bibles being interpreted as contraband .
For Brother Andrew , it may have been the culmination of his life ’s study of making Book available to individuals living in areas that were uncongenial to such spiritual exemption . Technology has made these attempts easier ; for instance , missionaries havefloatedhelium balloons into North Korea that have flash driving contain the Bible attached to them .
Despite these innovations , finding the word of God in China can still establish tough . In April 2018 , the countrybannedthe sale of Word of God in on-line marketplaces . While it ’s sound to publish the Bible , copy can only be purchased at church bookstores .
