Bibles Smuggled into North Africa to Meet Growing Need of Church

 

Many are converting to Christianity in North Africa, and Bibles are being smuggled in despite the risk.

 

According to ChristianToday.com, the persecution charity Open Doors, founded by Christian missionary Brother Andrew who smuggled Bibles into communist countries during the Cold War, has been smuggling Bibles into North Africa to meet a growing interest in Christianity.

 

The specific North African country remains unidentified for security reasons. A 24/7 prayer meeting has been going on in the country since 2003, and the fruit of the prayer effort is being seen in a major way.

 

U.K. Open Doors volunteer Holly (whose name has been changed for security reasons) shared how the church is growing exponentially in the country and how the need for Bibles is also growing:

 

“There are church leaders who only have a few pages of scripture that they own," she said. "The church is growing so rapidly and people are just coming to know Jesus so quickly, they need to get Bibles in as quickly as they can and as many as they can. And not just Bibles, but also training materials for pastors and church leaders." 

 

Holly went on to share about the miraculous ways God is protecting those who are smuggling Bibles into the country. Security officials checked every bag except the one with the Bibles and training materials, Holly says.

 

"Maybe God just did what he did with Brother Andrew and 'blinded their eyes' to it. It was amazing that we were the only ones who didn't get searched."

 

"They were telling us that when they take the materials backs to their churches and to whoever needs these books, they have to go through 20 checkpoints, and at every single checkpoint they could be searched. The whole car can be searched; they might look inside the boot, under the bonnet, even cut open the spare tire if there's one in the back and look inside it to see if there's anything illegal in there. But it was amazing because [the Open Doors partners] said, 'We can keep the Bibles on the back seat of the car, they'll just never see them'," she continued.

 

Holly and other Open Doors workers believe it is through the power of pray that they are seeing such growth in the church and experiencing supernatural protection as they work to get God’s Word into the hands of these new Christians.