Since 1955: A little history Lesson

• 1955Brother Andrew smuggles Bibles into Eastern Europe for the first time
• 1956He makes the first of many trips in his legendary VW Beetle. Countless stories of God making seeing eyes ‘blind’.
• 1967Brother Andrew’s biography, God’s Smuggler, is released and goes on to become one of the best selling Christian books of all time.
• 1970Open Doors UK is founded as Open Doors grows internationally. At the height of the Cold War it was a great opportunity to share the needs of the persecuted church.
• 1978Contact with churches in the Middle East begins.
• 1981Project Pearl- one million Bibles are delivered to a beach in China overnight! Years on amazing stories are told of how Project Pearl Bibles end up in far flung places, even as far as India!
• 1982A seven-year prayer campaign for the Communist Bloc begins. It ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989! The church on its knees in prayer. And God on the move.
• 1989Open Doors delivers one million New Testaments to Russia.
• 1992Project Samuel: One million children in the former Soviet Union get their very first Bibles, many in remote areas.
• 1994The first Chinese Children’s Bible in simplified Chinese is delivered.
• 1997The World Evangelical Fellowship presents Brother Andrew with the International Religious Liberty Award.
• 1998Open Doors launch the first of many relief projects, in war-torn Southern Sudan ‘Operation Daily Bread’.
• 1999Open Doors delivers over two million Bibles and Christian study materials to Chinese believers.
• 2001Open Doors Youth is born! Wahey! Passionate about telling the story of the persecuted to a new generation.
• 2003Heart for Iraq is launched, bringing encouragement and aid to the church in Iraq.
• 2005Open Doors celebrates 50 years, and a prayer chain for North Korea begins.
• 2010The Right to Believe campaign sees around 150,000 UK Christians (over 428,000 worldwide) sign up and show their support for persecuted Christians.
• 2013The Save Syria campaign sees Open Doors supporters help to provide monthly relief to 9,000 families, 328,000 people have sign the petition and 60,000 bibles and Christian books are distributed!
• 2015 and beyondOur aim is to make sure that we in the west stand alongside Christians who face persecution simply for following Jesus. This isn’t about us helping them. We’re family and those who risk it all for the faith have massive things to teach us about how we view our journey with Jesus. The church is God’s chosen plan to show his love and light to the world and God wants his church across the world to be united and committed to him, standing and working together to see that mission fulfilled.