Book Review: Light Force, Brother Andrew and Al Janssen, Hodder & Stoughton (2008)

‘Who do you know in Hamas?’ Abdul asked.
’I have met with Sheikh Yassin [the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas]’
‘What do you wish to discuss?’ His pirecing gaze was unrelenting.
‘I represent Christians in Holland and the West…I would like to know his thoughts about the Palestinian situation.’

That remarkable conversation between Brother Andrew and the leader of Hamas took place in Gaza in 2001 in the aftermath of the second intifada (Arabic for uprising); the first lasting from 1987-1993.

If I have one critical comment about Light Force it is this: the title. It feels sterile and impersonal whereas the book is all about personalities – the love of God and the person of Jesus Christ. But let’s move on – this is not a book to judge either by its cover or its title. It is a must-read.

Light Force has been a compelling book for (bedtime) reading in the run-up to Christmas. Many of its diary-like pages are devoted to further meetings with Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem and elsewhere in Gaza and the West Bank. It has been a gripping read, particularly so in the current terrible conflict between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah as a consequence of the attack by Hamas on unarmed civilians at the Supernova music festival and kibbutzim including Be’eri Kibbutz on October 7th 2023.

Brother Andrew is well-known to many Christians for his other book God’s Smuggler which describes his conversion to Christ, and the miraculous healing of his crippled leg, and the subsequent story of how as a young man he dedicated himself to illegally transporting Bibles and Christian literature behind the Iron Curtain (often in a VW Beetle) to persecuted Christians living under atheistic communistic dictatorships in Russia, Eastern Europe, and China during the 1950s and 1960s.

Tension in the book is almost tangible as he finds extraordinary ways to meet with leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah

After the publication of God’s Smuggler, it was too dangerous to continue his travels to the Communist block but by then he had formed an organisation, Open Doors, to carry on the work. His focus then shifted to the Middle East and the conflict between Palestinians and Israel – and the Christian church existing on either side of the national divide.

Tension in the book is almost tangible as he finds extraordinary ways to meet with leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah – terrorist organisations dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the ‘liberation’, as they see it, of Palestine from Israeli occupation. The impressive core of the book, however, lies with his adventures with Jewish and Palestinian Christian believers and the influence he, and Open Doors, has had in strengthening the church in Israel and in Gaza and the West Bank, bringing Arab and Jewish believers together.

Readers of a certain age will remember Yassar Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). Light Force records how Brother Andrew met with him, gave him a Bible, and asked for and secured permission and funding to open a Christian Bookshop in Gaza.

This book vividly explores the extraordinary faith and courage of Brother Andrew – but also of many others inevitably caught up in the conflict. It will take the reader inside the News, away from the headlines to a very different story.

A story well told - and one that deserves to be re-told.

Despite being written in 2008, it is as relevant in 2024 as it was when first published.