Open Doors With Brother Andrew Inc

Open Doors USA is a 501c3, non-profit organization with more than 60 years of experience offering many kinds of support to persecuted believers in more than 60 countries. At Open Doors, we seek to serve the worldwide persecuted through:

* Bible distribution in regions where the Scriptures are not readily available
* Christian training and discipleship
* Children's education programs
* Rebuilding Christian communities who have suffered attacks
* Safe houses for at-risk believers
* Trauma care
* Emergency food aid
* Provision of clothing and necessities
* Legal advocacy
* Job training
* Microloans and other customized support

In addition to our support efforts, our research provides needed data for the worldwide community. Every year, Open Doors releases the annual World Watch List via a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. This comprehensive, authoritative report ranks the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to live as a Christian.

Our strategies include, but are not limited to...

* Our U.S. based administration staff and international field partners use a digital reporting system to communicate and report incidents of persecution.

* U.S. staff work closely with partners working on the ground in hostile regions to authenticate and evaluate each need presented. Together, they determine the most effective way to support Christians facing various types of hardship and coordinate new initiatives to help meet those needs.

* Open Doors representatives also raise awareness and engage support in the free world through the sharing of stories across multiple channels: our website (opendoorsusa.org), mainstream media, a monthly Frontline newsletter, a quarterly Presence magazine, weekly emails, social media and other types of alerts.

* Our Advocacy Director in Washington D.C. works closely with government and public officials by providing information, education and opportunities to act on behalf of groups whose religious rights have been violated. This includes making supporters aware of opportunities to sign petitions, write letters and pray for social and political changes to protect victims of persecution.

Open Doors is the foremost organization in the world who works with persecuted Christians. We have more than 60 years of experience in this work and a long track record of organizational integrity. By persevering in our work through six decades, Open Doors has forged a worldwide network of international partners with expertise in building systems that identify needs and channel practical relief and support to Christian communities in the world's most hostile regions.

Today, Open Doors has bases and staff all over the world who work to support persecuted believers in more than 60 countries where Christians face persecution as a result of their faith. In recent years, to meet the growing needs due to an increase in religious persecution, we have expanded our team to over 50 U.S. staff persons, refined our infrastructure and adopted new innovative technology so we can be more effective in supporting even more persecuted Christians in the generation to come. This includes building a comprehensive digital reporting system that enables team members around the world to securely report persecution incidents as they occur. We've also adopted technology and systems to promote the acquisition and distribution of data, photos, video footage and other pertinent reporting information from around the world.

Among other roles, our team includes travel coordinators who network with hosts in-country; professional communication staff and journalists who seek to share stories across many mainstream and in-house platforms; an Advocacy Director who hosts events and lobbies government officials on behalf of the persecuted church; church representatives who engage churches across the country in prayer and support; and coordinators who recruit and train volunteers to act in support of persecuted Christians.

Open Doors USA is determined to raise massive awareness, prayer and support for persecuted Christians around the world--making the needs of the Persecuted Church unavoidable to the American Church. We believe that nothing impacts the world more than when followers of Jesus come together in his name to ask God to support, encourage, and strengthen His people.

In being present on the ground in 60 countries, Open Doors seeks to further the Great Commission by supporting the local church in some of the world's most difficult places. We help underground and struggling Christian communities survive and thrive so they can go on being the church in their contexts for generations to come. By coming alongside native believers with Bibles, Christian materials, training and practical relief, we help the church overcome hardships and advance the gospel in their local communities.

Our founder, Brother Andrew (Andrew van der Bijl), first began this work in Poland in 1955. During this time, Andrew began risking his life to smuggle Bibles behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War.

Andrew's work went on to span many decades and geographic locations. As of this writing, he had personally visited 125 countries and logged an estimated 1 million miles since his first missionary trip.

Throughout the years, Andrew and Open Doors have been able to positively impact persecuted Christians, while also raising awareness of religious rights violations in the free world. In 1967, for example, Andrew wrote the best-selling book, God's Smuggler, that has sold over 10 million copies and been translated into thirty-five languages. Although Open Doors delivers Bibles and offers various kinds of routine support to persecuted Christians on a daily basis, there have been many notable successes along the way. In 1981, for example, Open Doors coordinated "Project Pearl" which secretly delivered 1 million Bibles to China in one night. In the 1980's, during a seven-year prayer campaign for the Berlin wall to fall, Open Doors delivered one million Russian New Testaments to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2017, Open Doors launched a campaign to raise more than 750,000 signatures to help rebuild communities in Iraq and Syria that had been destroyed by ISIS. These advocacy efforts successfully brought Iraqi Christians to the United States to meet with United Nations officials as well as Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States.

Currently, Open Doors is devoted to building "Centers of Hope" in Iraq and Syria to meet emerging needs in the Middle East where Christian communities have been plagued by terror for close to a decade. Countless churches have been destroyed and an estimated 900,000 Christians have fled to refugee camps and surrounding areas.

These Centers of Hope will be built out to enable local churches to care for their people and serve the wider community through rebuilding efforts, trauma counseling, job creation, and Bible training.