God's Smuggler: Damaged Back & An Airplane Crash

Andrew smiled at us and we knew he, too, was remembering "an accident" that had God's handprint on it. His back problems began during Andy's first days in the WEC Bible College in Glasgow. The pain from multiple disks was so severe that the director's wife would find him unconscious on the floor. Andrew tried medication, exercise, no exercise; nothing helped. When he graduated, the president of the college told him he need not bother to apply for missionary work; it was clear he was too weak to travel.

Andrew became a missionary anyhow, of course, without official sponsorship. He traveled all the time, in a cramped Volkswagen, in such pain that someone usually had to help him put on the jacket he liked to wear when speaking in a church. He would have to cling to the chair back or pulpit rail just to remain upright as he spoke. In time, supporters raised enough to by Andrew a Citroen, with a suspension system that allowed him to drive with minimal discomfort. Andrew lent us the car once when we were researching the book in Hungary and Czechoslovakia; sure enough, we were hardly aware of long days behind the wheel. But Andrew's pain, though lessened, was never entirely absent, and at times it became nearly unbearable. A few years after the book was published, he planned to stop in New York on his way back to Holland from a trip to the Western United States. We were to spend several days together while we did an update for a Guideposts article on his work.

We went to La Guardia Airport to meet his flight. The last passenger got off. No Andrew. We phoned home and learned that just moments after we had left for the airport, our son Scott had taken a phone call from someone in Colorado: Andrew had been in an airplane accident. A tiny Beechcraft that was to take him to a regional airport for the flight to New York had lost power on take-off. The plane nosed into the ground. "Jump! Run!" the pilot shouted, fearing fire. Andrew managed to jump, but he could not run. He had broken his back. He was hospitalized in Salida and put into a body cast. And when the cast finally came off... marvel of marvels, his decades-old back problems had simply disappeared! At first he could scarcely believe it. Gingerly, tentatively, he resumed his activities. The pain did not recur. The violent wrenching of the plane crash had righted some ancient misalignment. Andrew's disk problems have never returned.

- Brother Andrew Bijl, from God’s Smuggler. True story.