Brother Andrew was born in Sint Pancras, the Netherlands. He joined the colonial army of the Dutch East Indies, and converted to Christianity during a period of convalescence, where he spent much of his time reading the Bible. In 1955 he travelled to Poland, with a suitcase full of Christian tracts, ostensibly for a Communist youth rally. There, he discovered that churches behind the Iron Curtain were isolated and in need of encouragement. He then started smuggling Bibles to them in a blue Volkswagen Beetle.