God’s younger smugglers

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 21st. Thanks so much for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: smuggling God’s word.

China’s communist government keeps a tight rein on Bibles. You can’t buy or sell them online or give them away. And forget the app store. The only way you can legally get a copy of God’s word is at a registered church approved by the government. But approved churches are rare outside of major cities. And the communist party is rewriting even those Bibles, removing the divinity of Jesus and adding in socialist ideals.

REICHARD: So how do Christians under communism get a Bible? WORLD’s Whitney Williams talked to a Bible smuggler to find out.

MUSIC: [Asian music]

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, REPORTER: On Sunday, February 12, a five-year-old American boy with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a nervous smile pulled on a backpack full of Chinese Bibles. His goal? Get past that stern-faced Chinese soldier, the one checking bags at the Beijing Airport.

That little boy was the first of more than 300 children to carry God’s word into China that day—China being an orange cone on the other side of the large Sunday School space, and the Chinese soldier, well, he was a white guy dressed in an extremely convincing military costume a la Amazon. His wife, Lindsay Tucker, made him do it, he whispers with a coy smile and a nod in her direction.

LINDSAY TUCKER: Y’all are some good Bible smugglers. I saw y’all! A little sneaky!

Stonegate Church in Midlothian, Texas, had invited the 38-year-old nurse-practitioning mother of three to share her real-life Bible smuggling story with its children’s ministry.

In college, Tucker helped to sneak more than 1,000 Bibles from Hong Kong into mainland China. She worked with Open Doors, a missions organization serving the persecuted church.

TUCKER: I actually thought it was going to be a little bit more stealthy than it was.

Tucker’s Bible smuggling team consisted of four college-aged girls from the United States, three old men from Ireland—well, they seemed old to her at the time—and Paul, an 80-ish-year-old man from Denmark who stirred her heart to praise.

TUCKER: He had terrible hips, like arthritic hips, and he would be up before all of us walking in the garden to like, warm up his hips to walk the Bibles across.

Once Paul got his hips warmed up for the day’s mission, the team would meet together for a time of prayer and worship. Then they’d load up their suitcases and head to nearby train stations. Like all of the other travelers, the team members would put their bags up on the conveyor belt for scanning, but not Paul.

TUCKER: He'd just walk through it all and they'd watch him go across and they never even stopped him, I think out of respect for him.

And so here we are, these young people kind of have all this tension and Paul's just walking through with his warmed up thighs, you know, like, just so amazing.

When asked how the rest of the team got through the checkpoint undetected time after time, Tucker speaks of miracles.

TUCKER: I honestly truly believe that supernatural things happened. I truly believe that. Whether it was distraction, you know, timing of things that the Lord just blinded eyes. And there's no other explanation.

The team would cross into mainland China multiple times a day, taking different routes. Once they passed through security, they’d hop on a train and travel to a drop point. For safety, they’d never meet the Bible recipients face-to-face. But there was one man, a pastor from an underground church, who risked his life to meet the team at their gathering flat in Hong Kong. He wanted to thank them for what they were doing, to join in on their pre-smuggling time of prayer and worship.

TUCKER: And so we're all singing Amazing Grace. It sounds terrible, like truly terrible. So much so that I can hardly even worship in those moments. And I remember looking like opening my eyes. And he has tears streaming down his face. And it just hit me. It just hit me. And then after we stopped singing, he is just like, that was so beautiful. And he said, I just haven't gotten to hear like really hear worship in so long. And then he challenged us, like, when you go back to America, sing twice as loud for me.

The pastor explained that the plan was to give one Bible to each underground church in his network.

TUCKER: And so any time we were able to get some across, we just knew the value of God's word, man,

You are praying harder than you've ever prayed, Lord, please blind their eyes, you know, that your word can go forth.

And God did … until Tucker’s final attempt to cross. Her team members ahead of her had all made it through.

TUCKER: And so I'm last and as I'm going through, the man stops me and he pulls me to the side and he opens the my suitcase. And he's kind of asking me some things, and then he takes me to another area. He takes my passport, he starts putting things into his computer, and I'm thinking, “Oh, no, this is probably not good.”

The soldier kept asking Tucker, “Who are these for?” But she really didn’t know. Open Doors made sure of that, for the safety of all.

TUCKER: I didn't have an answer. And I just remember saying, “Lord, you have to help me.”

When the soldier asked Tucker again, God gave her the words.

TUCKER: And I remember he asked me again, who are these for? And I said, “anybody that wants one. Would you like one?” And man, like, I think it took him aback truthfully, kinda like, was surprised. And then he like, like, looked down at it. And then he looked at me again. And then he just said, Go, and he kept all the Bibles.

You could have heard a piece of rice drop as Tucker shared her smuggling story with the children—and there was plenty of rice dropping, by the way. The kids each had a cupful and were trying to eat it with chopsticks as she spoke.

TUCKER: You know, as a grown up, you get used to knowing there's people suffering all over the world for Jesus. And you know, the scriptures that say ‘remember as though you're bound with them,’ you know, and it's just like we forget, and these kids just like, “What? They can't just go to church? They can't just read a Bible when I have five Bibles in my house?” It was just like hearing it all over again for the first time and having just a burden and an ache again, by getting to see them awakened to that reality.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Whitney Williams in Midlothian, Texas.

TUCKER: “Welcome guys! Where did y’all just come from?”
KIDS: “ummmmm. Africa!”
TUCKER: “You were in Sudan?! Oh my goodness, y’all are world travelers! Today, now, guess where you are right now.”
KIDS: “CHINA!”

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