Beeson Podcast, Episode #548
Dr. Andrew Brunson
May 11, 2021

>>Announcer: 


Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. 


>>Doug Sweeney:


Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Today on the show we have a very special guest who is on campus this week for commencement. Many of you have heard of Dr. Andrew Brunson, a long time missionary to Turkey with his wife Norine. He was imprisoned there for two years on false charges and released after a global concert of prayer on his behalf. A concert that included my old church in the suburbs of Chicago, I might add. 

We’ve invited him to speak to our students tomorrow at commencement. And since this episode is airing several weeks after the fact, you can head straight from here to our YouTube Channel, if you’d like, and hear Dr. Brunson’s commencement address in its entirety. 

Kristen, will you please introduce Dr. Brunson and get our conversation started?


>>Kristen Padilla:


Hello, everyone. We have on the show Dr. Andrew Brunson. He is the Co-Founder of Wave Starters, a nonprofit ministry he began with his with Norine. He is also the author of a book called, “God’s Hostage: A True Story of Persecution, Imprisonment, and Perseverance.” Welcome, Dr. Brunson, to the Beeson Podcast.


>>Dr. Brunson:


Thank you. But first, please call me Andrew.


>>Kristen Padilla:


Okay. We’ll call you Andrew from here on out. Most people know about you, Andrew, from your imprisonment – especially when it made headlines here in the US. But many of our listeners may not know your story before that. And so we’d love for you to take us back to the beginning, before you were a pastor in Turkey, and we’d love to hear about your spiritual journey. How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ? What led you to want to serve overseas in missions?


>>Dr. Brunson:


Now, my parents were missionaries to Mexico. So, I was raised in a home that, from my earliest time obviously, I was hearing about Jesus and I saw the example of my parents. In my home they read the Bible three times a day. In the morning they would read the New Testament for about half an hour and in the afternoon they would read the New Testament for a half an hour. Then at night Psalms and Proverbs. So, there was a lot of Bible reading in our home. An hour to an hour and a half a day. I grew up in that environment.

I did profess faith at a very young age. It didn’t really go very deep in me. It was in my senior year of high school that I really made a commitment to the Lord and my life turned around dramatically just in a five minute period a teacher prayed for me. I told him, “I’ve tried so many times to follow Jesus, I just can’t do it. I’m up and down.” He prayed for me and something happened. He asked for God to send his Holy Spirit and just transform me in a new way. And that did happen.

I remember I walked onto a soccer game, I was at a boarding school in the States. A friend of mine looked at me and said, “Andrew, something’s happened. Before, when I looked in your eyes I was afraid, but something’s happened to you. You look different.” It was a pretty radical transformation. 

As for missions, when Hudson Taylor ... The way I’ve heard this story ... When Hudson Taylor was an old, old man with a gray beard, a woman took her two young sons to him and said, “I want you to lay hands on them and set them aside for missions.” He did that. Both of the boys grew up to become missionaries. One of them, Stanley Sulto, when he was an older man, right before he died actually, my mother took me and my younger sister to him and said, “What Hudson Taylor did for you, I want you to do for my children.” So, he laid hands on us and set us aside for missionary work. 

I remember the days ... One of my earliest memories, I think I was only three years old, but I was acting up and so I got a spanking right after he prayed for us. It just engraved it in my mind. I never forgot it. So, I still have that image, kind of shadowy now, of him praying for us. But something happened. I think God honored what I would call an impartation that came from Hudson Taylor to Stanley Sulto, and then to me and to my sister. God honored those prayers. 

From that time I had a strong sense that I was to be a missionary. I’m the oldest of seven children. My mother wanted all of us to become missionaries. The others did not. So, it wasn’t just growing up in that environment. When I was not walking with the Lord in my teen years, if someone were to ask me, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” I’d say, “If I survive this period of my life I know that I’m supposed to be a missionary.” So, there’s something that God put very deep in my heart. When I met Norine at Wheaton College, started dating, she knew that if she married me missions was part of the package. I was just very committed to that.


>>Doug Sweeney:


Andrew, I’m told that when you were a student at Wheaton, many years ago now, you became a friend of Lyle Dorsett, who of course is a very important person at Beeson Divinity School. I’m also told that before my time here at Beeson, Lyle and Mary Dorsett played a key role in keeping the Beeson community abreast of your imprisonment in Turkey. So, I thought I’d take an opportunity to just ask you about your relationship with the Dorsetts. What role have they played in your life and how have they encouraged you in your ministry and in your missionary efforts?


>>Dr. Brunson:


So, Mary was working at special collections at the library at Wheaton, and I was working there as a student part time. I went in and complained to her how there was just no one who was really passionate for God at Wheaton College. Of course, I was the problem not the college. But she said, “You know? My husband is.” And so she sent me over to meet him. He was in charge of the Wade Center at the time, which is famous for housing papers of CS Lewis. So, I went over and met him. I invited myself over to their house to eat. I didn’t know that was inappropriate. I was an MK from Mexico. 

I said, “I’d like to come over to your house and eat with you.” And he very graciously accepted and I got to know him. That became a weekly thing. Mary fed me once a week. Lyle became my mentor. Norine lived in their home for a time before we got married. Lyle performed our wedding ceremony. Our oldest son is named Jordan Dorsett. His middle name comes from Lyle. 

I have a great dad, but Lyle because like a second father to me, a spiritual father. Through his influence I went on to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He was an admirer and friend of Robert Coleman. And I always heard about Coleman. So, I decided to go study. I went from Lyle to Coleman through Lyle’s influence. Lyle is the one who told me, “Drew, you’re an evangelist.” So, I thought, “Well, I must be an evangelist because Lyle Dorsett is saying this.” “Drew, you’re a preacher.” And so I started preaching. I did many things he motivated me just by his encouragement and belief in me. 

He told me recently, Lyle did, that he has missed praying for me only one time since those days. So, let’s call it 35 years. In 35 years he’s missed praying for me one day and that’s when he was in surgery. So, very deep commitment on his part. I only took one class from Lyle at Wheaton. He did not do a Bible study with me. We had no kind of program that we followed. I just absorbed from being around him. He gave me that opportunity just to spend time with him.


>>Kristen Padilla:


I remember running into Dr. Dorsett, before he retired, in the mailroom when you were imprisoned. He was giving me an update. We prayed for you then. You were always on his mind and heart. That’s a special relationship for both of you. So, we’re glad to have you at Beeson, especially. Well, getting to the story of your imprisonment, can you tell us what led you to Turkey in the first place? And what did your ministry look like over the span of more than 20 years prior to your arrest? Tell us about your journey to Turkey and your ministry there.


>>Dr. Brunson:


Well, first, Turkey was a good place for us to go. My wife and I both felt that the Lord was leading us to the Muslim world and Turkey is the largest un-evangelized country in the world. Most Turks have never met a Christian. They don’t have any Christians around. Most cities don’t have a church. They don’t have a missionary. They don’t have any pastors. 

So, it was a good place for us to go. But actually we didn’t want to go there. (laughs) We were wanting to go to Egypt. Our church at the time, our denomination that we were with then wanted to send a team to Turkey and they asked us to go. We went there in obedience, not having any desire to be in Turkey. We actually felt negatively about going there. When we got on the plane Norine was crying. “Oh no, my life is over. I’m going to Turkey.” 

But over the first few years the way we think of it is that God put some of his love for Turkey into our hearts. It wasn’t some idealized, romanticized view of Turkey and the food and the culture and all of that. Although we really came to enjoy those things. But more a love that expresses itself in a commitment to see God’s blessing come to that place. That took us through a number of hardships over the years. Since it wasn’t just a feeling we had for the country, there was a deep commitment that God put in our hearts.

As for our ministry, we spent early on learning the language. Spent some time in a Turkish university, things like that, but at some point we started a church plant. I discovered that I thought I wanted to teach in a seminary, that’s what I had prepared for and I’d gone on to do doctoral work for that. And then I was kind of thrust into a church planting situation. I discovered that this really animated me. That this is what God had for me. 

We’re not natural church planters. We’re both introverts and we’re in Turkey which is a very social culture. So, we really don’t fit. But somehow God used us in that. So, we were involved in several church plants over the years with the various teams that we led. Then a house of prayer. That seems that’s something God is doing now. I would say in the last 20 years especially. There’s a movement of intercessors coming together, setting up houses of prayer that I think prepare the way for then the work of evangelism and church planting. That kind of softens, opens the way up.

Then when the civil war in Syria started to heat up, many refugees poured into Turkey. Syria was kind of an unreachable place in many ways. Now they were coming into Turkey and we had a chance to meet some of their physical needs with humanitarian aid. But especially to tell them about Jesus in a time when they had lost everything and were very vulnerable and were starting to ask questions that they’d never asked before.

So, that’s the kind of work that we did. I’m not really a pastor. I think people call me “Pastor Brunson,” because that’s how I was presented in media. I have done pastoral work out of necessity. I always said I felt bad for the sheep that I was taking care of. (laughs) The Lord used us more to start ministries. As I said, several church plants over the years of various teams. I do want to emphasize everything we did in Turkey was small and fragile. That is what you expect in the largest un-evangelized country. 

You asked about the last church that we started. It became the most infamous church in Turkey because I was accused of many things, and of being a spy, a terrorist, trying to carry out a coup against the government, all kinds of things. The media often came to this little yellow church in Izmir, ancient Smyrna, and it became known around Turkey. That was the last church that we were involved in. They remain faithful under a lot of pressure and we’re very proud of them.


>>Doug Sweeney:


Andrew, help our listeners understand how in the world a man like you, doing such wonderful ministry in Turkey, could have been arrested on charges like that? What was going on in Turkey then? What was it about your ministry that the authorities found so threatening?


>>Dr. Brunson:


So, Norine and I had been there 23 years already. We had a public ministry. We didn’t do anything in secret. We weren’t doing anything illegal. So, the government was very aware of our work. Because it’s a police state. Turkey is. They follow us and they sent people into our church to infiltrate it, secret police and all that. That didn’t really bother us, because we said, “Come and see what we’re doing. We’re not hiding anything.” 

So, they knew very well that I had not done the things that they accused me of doing. It wasn’t a mistake that some local judge or local police made a mistake in arresting me. It was intentional. I think what they were doing was ... We were called into the local police station. We thought we were going to get our long term residence papers so that we could remain there for the rest of our lives, basically, is what we expected. 

Then we were told at the police station that they had an order to deport us from Turkey and that they were going to arrest us while that process started. Usually that should take just one day to deport an American. But they held us for 13 days together. Norine and I were in a detention center. Then they released her and they kept me for another two years.

I think what happened is that there had been a coup attempt that summer. This provided an opportunity for the president of Turkey to round up all people who he didn’t like, or who opposed him, and put them in prison. In the midst of that, I think some people decided, “Let’s get rid of some of the missionaries.” Because the government of Turkey is very anti Christian. So, they chose me because they had to choose someone to make an example of. And I think that actually God intended for them to choose me. He had prepared me in some ways for this. I see it as an assignment from him.

I think they intended to deport us and then somebody decided to keep us and see what would happen. And I think they wanted to intimidate other missionaries and have them self deport. Because up until that time no one had been imprisoned for their faith in living memory, certainly not any missionaries. And so this was something new that people had to then factor in to counting the cost of being there. Some people did leave because they weren’t ready to stay with that risk. They also wanted to intimidate Turkish pastors and Turkish believers. The idea is if we can do this to an American we can do this to anybody.

Now, I know that this happens in many parts of the world where they persecute Christians, but Turkey is a NATO ally so the idea that they would do this to an American was something new. People had not anticipated this. So, it was really a message to believers in Turkey: “We can do what we want to, when we want to.” Intended to intimidate them.

Then in time they began to use me as leverage to gain concessions from the US government. I think of that as a human story. All the intrigue involved, the things they accused me of. They didn’t really accuse me of anything for a while. Then they said, “Well, human trafficking.” (laughs) Because we worked with refugees. Then accused me of helping, being a part of an Islamist group that they said was behind the attempted coup. Then they said I was working with Kurdish terrorists and had been fighting in Syria, and was a CIA agent. Well, actually, the head of the CIA for the Middle East that if I had been successful in the coup attempt I was going to become the head of the entire CIA. 

Just a lot of crazy things like this. What they were doing, really, was ... It was a government led propaganda campaign that gave free reign to the media, which is very closely connected to the government, to say whatever they wanted to about Christians, to put out all the ... There’s already a lot of animus toward Christians in Turkey as it is. But this just gave them an opportunity to pour it all out. I was the example they gave of a traitor, someone who hates Turkey because he’s a Christian. Someone who is a terrorist and a spy. But they were painting me with that brush, but really they were using me to paint the entire Church in Turkey and prepare the way so that when there’s more intense persecution in the future most Turks are going to say, “Well, those Christians deserve it.” 

So, that is what was going on in the human side of the story. I also see a God story in this, which underlies it. All of the intrigue, the sanctions that came, the accusations, the trial, what the Turkish government was really intending to do, and then underlying it is God’s story that is more fundamental and a little more difficult to discern, but more real in a sense. And I think that God was using my imprisonment for his purposes. He didn’t put me in prison. I think that was a Satanic attack, but he was certainly involved. And he was using it for his purposes. One of the big ones was to raise up a world-wide prayer movement. I think the former Dean at Beeson, Timothy George, told me that it was an unprecedented prayer movement focused on one person in living memory.

So, yes, Norine asked for people to pray. Then the people she told asked their friends. But it spread far beyond that. This was clearly God initiated, God sustained, God driven. It was a supernatural prayer movement that actually went around the world to millions and millions of people and to many countries. The purpose ... I became a lightning rod. I was drawing in this prayer, people were praying for me, but God was intending it to spill out into Turkey and the region around it to prepare for a harvest that’s going to come in our lifetime.


>>Kristen Padilla:


Andrew, can you describe for us what your imprisonment was like those two years? Both physically and spiritually? And thinking about what you went through, I just wonder if you ever doubted God’s love or goodness in the midst of that imprisonment? And if so, what got you through such a difficult and painful time of your life?


>>Dr. Brunson:

So, the imprisonment was terrible. It was awful. And I came very close to failure. The first year, especially, was a year ... I describe it as a year of breaking. The second year I went through a re-building process. But the first year, I mean, both years were very, very difficult for me. If someone had told me before I went to prison that I would be going to prison ... And let me say here, I spent two years in Turkish prisons, but I didn’t know it was going to be two years. They wanted three life sentences for me and solitary confinement with no possibility to parole. So, there was a lot of uncertainty. That’s the weight that I was living under, not knowing when and if I would get out. 

I actually did not know that I was going to be released until the very day that I was released. I just lived with uncertainty those two years. So, if someone had told me before I went to prison that I was going to spend some time in Turkish prisons I’m pretty sure I would have thought about it in an idealistic way. Because of the biographies that I’ve read, because of my own expectations from my relationship with God. I would have thought that I would have a lot of strength. That it would be difficult and lonely and I’d have some grief, but I’d still have a sense of joy and a sense of grace. And especially that I’d have a sense of God’s presence, because I had pursued God’s presence for years. Intimacy with him, especially focusing on presences. All of that was cut off from me early on in my imprisonment. 

Every way that I had related to God and sensed him, felt him, interacted with him was just cut off. I think of those two years as the silence of God, experiencing the silence of God – a sense of abandonment. I know people are very sensitive about this, so I have to underline that objectively God did not abandon me, but he certainly let me feel that way. Jesus felt that way for a short time. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I felt it for a much longer period of time. 

The expectations that I had were not met. And this led to a wounding of the heart and disillusionment, disappointment with God, and deep offense toward him. And I understand the idea of suffering persecution, I don’t like it, but I understood until actually what was happening to me, what I could understand is, “God, where are you in the midst of it? I’m suffering for you after all. Why have you left me in this way with no sense of your presence?” And grace ... As I look back, I can see that I had grace. Grace brought me through, but it was an unfelt grace for the most part. It was much more difficult than I would have anticipated. 

So, as a result of the unmet expectations, the disappointment, the wounding of the heart, early on I began to question his existence, the existence of God, which is a shocking thing considering that I had been in ministry for many years. And then I kind of thought ... Eventually I concluded that God must exist, because otherwise I wouldn’t be persecuted the way I was. (laughs) 

I started a discipline where a number of times a day, early on, when I was really starting to have these doubts, I would declare certain truths. The first truth I would declare is, “God, you exist and you are involved in my life.” And I would go back and look at my history and think, “Surely, God you were involved in this point. And I believe that you were involved at that point.” Just looking at the things that before I would have very easily said, “Yes, you did that.” Now, really questioning and trying to find the evidence of God’s hand in my life over the years. And concentrating on that to strengthen myself in believing that, yes, God did actually exist and was involved in my life.

I kind of dealt with that and then I moved onto accusation. I really questioned whether God loved me personally. I know he loves the whole world. “But do you love Andrew Brunson? And if so, where is your hand? Where is the kind and gentle father that I had been teaching about for years? I don’t see your kindness and gentleness.” I want to emphasize that God is kind and gentle. He is also other things. Often we just ... God’s faithfulness may look different from what we expect. It doesn’t mean he’s not faithful. It means it may look different from what we expect. 

I think of Paul. One of my favorite verses while I was in prison, at the end of II Timothy. Paul is sitting in a Roman dungeon and he’s expecting to be executed and he says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.” So, safely and rescue looked different to Paul than we would normally think about those words. He’s miserable and expecting to have his head cut off. But he says confidently, “Jesus is rescuing me and he’s going to bring me safely into his kingdom.” So, safety and rescue can look different. Faithfulness and love, they’re there, but they can look different than we would expect. I just want to underline that, because I don’t want to undermine ... I don’t want to say anything negative about God. I love him very much. 

I had questioned his love, his faithfulness, his truth, and his goodness. So, I questioned his existence, then I questioned his character, and this ended up suffocating my relationship with him. I came very close to failure in my time of prison. There was a turning time that came just as God made me aware. There was a picture in my mind of the valley of testing being filled with the bones and skeletons of believers who had failed in their task. Not talking about whether they go to Heaven or not, but about losing their friendship with God. 

God drove that into my heart as a grace. I became aware I was very close to that point myself. And so I began to fight for my relationship with him. The turning time was making that decision with my will, not with my emotions, which were completely in turmoil, to say, “No matter what you do or don’t do, whether you give me grace or not, whether you give me presence or not, your voice or not, deliver me or not, I will follow you. And I’m going to devote myself and fight for this relationship.” 

After that ... What it did was it positioned me so that I could begin to receive grace and cooperate with grace. But it was still very difficult. God did not give me a sense of presence after that, or a real sense of grace, but there was a re-building process that started so that there was a lot of healing that took place, and a lot of ... I came out stronger than I went in.


>>Doug Sweeney:


A lot of our listeners will be wondering what all this was like for your wife, Norine? What was her role in your ministry in Turkey? What was her role during your imprisonment? What was she doing during this time?


>>Dr. Brunson:


So, during our ministry, Norine and I are exceptionally close as a couple. All of our ministry we did together. So, I was leading the work, but pretty much we talked about everything. She was involved in every aspect of the ministry. When I was put in prison and she was released then she was really heading up the family of ministries that we had started. So, we were very much a team. 

During my imprisonment, especially because ... One reason why my imprisonment was so difficult is that I am so close to my wife and I had such grief, such a sense of loss being cut off from her, and also from my children. But something that she did ... She was released after two weeks. People we really respect, Christian leaders said to her, “Norine, you need to come back to the States. Let God take care of Andrew. You need to take care of yourself.” And she said, “I will go back to the States if God shows me clearly, but it has to be such a level of clarity like an angel comes to tell me, otherwise I’m staying here with my husband.” 

She placed herself at risk. There was some risk to her, but she knew I was in a desperate situation, how broken I was, and she was the only person who could visit me in prison. And so she became my lifeline. She would come in and try to encourage me so that I would get to the next, through the next week. I was suicidal a number of times. She had to come in and try to speak truth to me and get me focused on God in a positive way. I don’t know that I would have made it through without her doing that.

I do want to give you a picture of her because she was a lioness. She really fought for me. But when they put me into a high security prison ... So, Norine is coming, trying to get in, eventually they let her see me after several weeks. I have a visit. When she would come to this prison, it’s a high security prison so you have these high walls, it’s intimidating, razor wire, guards with submachine guns – for her to get in she has to go through several security checks. They scan her iris at least two different places. Just a very intimidating set up. 

And, on top of that she’s coming to ... It’s the shame they put on her because she’s coming to visit a notorious spy and terrorist, which is me. And that’s what everyone is thinking about me now because of the media. So, it’s an intimidating thing. But she began to approach it in this way. She’d come, draw close to the prison, and she would say, “I’m a daughter of the king and I’m here to see a son of the king.” And then she would literally put her head up high and walk in. This was a picture I carried with me of her, just the mentality that she came in with and the courage that she was showing.


>>Kristen Padilla:


When you were imprisoned, you wrote a song called, “Worthy of My All.” Can you tell us about that song? What led you to write it? What is the song about?


>>Dr. Brunson:


I had been called into a court session where I was basically told that they wanted three life sentences for me. Those were the charges against me. That really knocked me out. It felt like a death sentence. I really grieved after that. A couple of weeks after I received that news I was singing, actually, to God my grief, my pain, my tears. And then what came from my mouth, just as I’m singing this out to him, was, “You’re worthy of my tears and my pain, whatever I may suffer for you, you are worthy of this.” It just became a heart song. I was just singing my heart out to him. 

I wrote it down and I sang it every day for the rest of my imprisonment. I still had a year to go, more than a year to go. Part of it was a love song to Jesus, part of it was also declaring ... I mentioned to you that I had questioned his faithfulness, love, goodness, truth and I determined that I was going to declare the truth about God, the truth about Jesus, whether I felt it or not, whether I saw it or understood it or not. 

So, that’s one of the things I sang. “Jesus the faithful one who loves me. Always good and true. You made me yours. And you are worthy of my all.” Just declaring who he is. That he’s good, faithful, true, loving. 

A key for me in that song was ... One of the verses says, “I want to be found worthy to stand before you on that day with no regrets and cowardice, things left undone.” This came from thinking of, imagining, visualizing standing before Jesus at the end of my life and having him say to me, “Andrew, I had an inheritance for you to win in this world, and you lost it because you ran away or ...” And I really thought of him saying, “You were a coward. I had assignments for you and they were left undone because you were a coward.” 

This goes back to several months before. I had been at such a terrible point, such a dark time in my imprisonment, that I had told him, I said, “I renounce whatever assignments you have for me. I’ve served you here 23 years. I give up whatever inheritance comes from this. I don’t want any more assignments from you. If you intend to use my imprisonment, you want me to use this in some way, I don’t want it. Just release me. Let me go back to my family. I cannot handle this. You chose the wrong man for this.” 

So, that had been a terrible thing after years of serving him, to just kind of renounce serving him. And here I was several months later in a completely different frame of mind, in a worse situation because now I know that they want three life prison sentences. And I’m saying, “I repent from this. No, I want every single assignment you have for me to be accomplished. I don’t want to miss out on a single one. And I’m living. I want to focus myself on the day that I stand before you and live for that day. That every assignment you have for me will be fulfilled and I will not stand before you with regret.” 

Again, I want to emphasize this wasn’t an emotional thing. This was just a commitment of the will and focusing myself on what really matters on eternity. And I sang this every day, and as I did this and focused on living for that day it began to build ... Every time I did that it was flexing a surrender muscle and a perseverance muscle and over time it built a strength in me and a determination that had not been there before.


>>Doug Sweeney:


We believe deeply in the power of prayer, Andrew, and we know you do, too. We believe that the prayers of God’s people led to your release from prison. But from just a human worldly perspective, what happened? Why, after two years, did they finally let you go?


>>Dr. Brunson:


Well, the human story is that the US government put a lot of pressure on Turkey, but they’d been doing that for a long time. President Trump had a summit with the President of Turkey, President Erdogan, at about the eight month mark of my imprisonment. And he asked him three times in that summit, directly, to release me. Erdogan kept me for another 17 months. 

So, clearly, that didn’t work. That was actually very discouraging for me because I thought this has gone as high as it can go. Before, I said if the President started talking about me that would be a miracle, then, “Well, they talked about me, but nothing happened.” (laughs) So, I was very despondent. The US increased pressure. They continued for a long time. But the Turks were very obstinate and determined to keep me.

I think part of that is it was God’s plan. I think of it as a Pharaoh type situation. You see Pharaoh is famous for hardening his heart. About half the time it says, “God hardened his heart.” And so I think that the President of Turkey, a number of times ... He was the one making the decisions about me from at least the second month on. So, we knew that nothing was going to happen until he decided to let me go. They put me on trial, but it wasn’t a real trial ... It was a real trial, but it was a kangaroo court. He was the one ultimately who would make the decision. So, it was not clear that he would let me go. 

And then part of the time I think God encouraged that hardening because he had not yet completing what he intended to do with my imprisonment. In any case, at some point President Trump imposed sanctions, they were actually tariffs, he increased the tariffs on steal and aluminum. This isn’t a big deal. It was a big deal because nothing like that had ever been done to a NATO ally before. But as far as a real world consequence, it shouldn’t have been that big of a thing. But all the foreign investors saw this, the intransigence on the Turkish side and thought, “They’re getting into a fight with the world’s largest economy.” They just withdrew en masse.

So, the Turkish stock market dropped $40 billion, just overnight. Just very quickly. And the Turkish currency collapsed. So, their corporate debt is primarily done in foreign currency in Euros or Dollars, so now their cost of borrowing or to repay their loans, rather, across the whole economy has just almost doubled. So, the whole economy was on the verge of collapse. Now, they had a lot of structural problems in their economy before; this was going to come anyway, but the steps taken in relation to my case are what tipped it over. 

So, of course, they blamed me. (laughs) They blamed President Trump, but they blamed it on the Dark Terror Priest, that’s me, and they still call it the Brunson Crisis in Turkey in the media. It’s called the Brunson Crisis. So, this was what led eventually to my release. The damaged cost to their economy. But even after that damage it still took them another two months before they released me.

I was on trial on the fourth trial session, which this was spread out over six, seven months, the four sessions. They moved very quickly to convict me and to sentence me. I thought, “Oh no, after all this pressure, all of this prayer, I’m just going back to prison. They’re not letting me go.” And then suddenly they said, “We’re releasing you while you appeal the senate. You can leave the country. So, please leave right now.” (laughs)

It caught the US government by surprise. I know that they expected at some point that there would be movement, but they were not ready for my release the way it happened. And they very quickly scrambled to get an air force plan from Germany to fly to Turkey to pick us up and get us out of there as quickly as possible. 

So, what I think is that the pressure was there, but it was God who determined the timing of it so that even our government, who had put all this pressure, did not know what was coming.


>>Kristen Padilla:


We’ve talked a lot about prayer on this podcast. It’s not lost to me that tomorrow, when you give the commencement address, there will be some graduating students in the audience who started their time at Beeson at the end of their imprisonment and were involved in praying for your release. So, to see you before them will be such an answer to prayer for them. I know that you have talked about this worldwide prayer movement as a result of your imprisonment. Can you tell us about Wave Starters, the ministry that you and your wife are involved in? And kind of get us up to speed on what ministry has looked like, or what life has looked like since your release?


>>Dr. Brunson:


Wave Starters, the name comes from – in 2007 I began to pray what I think of as the Wave Starter prayer. “Father God, draw me so close to your heart that you’ll be able to trust me with the authority to start waves.” I wanted to see waves of the kingdom start in Turkey, which has no waves of the kingdom, it’s a very dark place spiritually – largest un-evangelized country. I’m saying, “God, we need to see something bigger happen here. We need to see waves of the kingdom spread through this land. How do we get there? We need authority from you to start these waves. Who do you give authority to, to the ones you trust? How can we gain your trust? We run after your heart.”

So, I was focused on getting authority for waves and God was focusing me on the first part of that prayer, which is, “Father God, draw me so close to your heart.” And this began a pursuit of intimacy with God. That pursuit, as we made that our priority, running after him, drawing close to him, that positioned us for him to give us assignments and eventually what I think of as the prison assignment. Because running after him was shaping our hearts and preparing ... That’s why I’ve said that God prepared me for this. It didn’t feel like he prepared me for it, but I see that the years of drawing me into that pursuit of his heart prepared me to suffer for him. 

In a way, I ended up in prison because of that prayer. So, we still have the same desire now, to see waves start. We did see a wave start. I didn’t start it. I just sat in prison, tried to hang on, and God started the wave, but it was a pretty amazing wave. I say I rode a wave of prayer to Turkey, but a tsunami of prayer crashed into Turkey and God is going to use it to transform that country. 

So, our goal in Wave Starters is to see waves start in the old Ottoman empire. Turkey was the head of the Ottoman empire, the head of the Muslim world, they ruled ... They conquered many nations in the name of Islam. They were the sword of Islam. They suffocated Christianity everywhere they went. So, they were over North Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. I believe that this wave of prayer is going to lead to harvest in Turkey, but also to a change in the spiritual atmosphere in the entire area that Turkey ruled in the name of Islam. That we’re going to see a powerful move of God there.

So, for years we were saying, “How can we prepare for a harvest in Turkey?” Now we’re saying, “How can we prepare for a harvest in the area that Turkey ruled in the name of Islam?” So, we’re focused on the Muslim world. 

The second focus area we have is ... I think one of the things God was doing with me, or in me, during the imprisonment was teaching me to persevere and to be faithful in difficult circumstances. He was preparing me so that I can help to prepare other people who are going to have to make difficult decisions under pressure and face persecution. I think that’s going to be here in the States. I have an urgency for this country, not that I want to focus my ministry here. I really have a missionary calling. But I think there’s an urgency to prepare people here to stand under pressure, because I think it’s coming very quickly, it’s accelerating, and most people are not ready for it. And that’s very, very dangerous because if we’re not prepared then it’s much easier to be knocked out.


>>Doug Sweeney:


That’s a great segue to our final question for you, Andrew. Especially this last year or so, we’ve been asking lots of our guests on the podcast for concluding words of encouragement for our listeners who have been much more aware of their suffering in recent months than at other times in their lives. Obviously, suffering under the COVID epidemic. So much social and political turmoil in American society these days. 

What encouragement might Andrew Brunson have for US American listeners about how to get encouragement from the Lord and bear up under persecution and suffering?


>>Dr. Brunson:


There are a number of things I could go into. I’ll focus on one. There are many things I do not understand. The level of grace that I expected I did not feel it, sense it ... it didn’t make as much of a difference in my life as I would have hoped. That may not sound very encouraging to people. (laughs) But I made it through. And through very difficult circumstances. Obviously God’s faithfulness was underlying that. But I will say together with that, I didn’t understand his faithfulness and I still don’t. I can’t predict what God is going to do. He’s faithful, but I don’t know what it’s going to look like in my specific situation.

And so people have told me sometimes, “Andrew, your imprisonment was really about you trusting God.” I say, “You know? That gives me much more credit than I deserve.” (laughs) Because I had a difficult time getting my mind and my heart around trust, understanding it, and I know it’s very important to God. But people would send me messages, “Andrew, just trust God.” And what they were communicating to me was, “Everything is going to turn out okay. You’re going to be released.” 

People would say to my wife, she was afraid of flying in the past and they would say, “Just trust God.” Well, what they’re saying is, “You have no reason to worry about getting on a flight.” Well, how do you know? Where does it say that her plane isn’t going to go down? 

So, my point is that it probably won’t, but my point is that often in the way we talk about trust, trust is tied to an outcome. I know we emphasize, “Trust the person, not the outcome.” But functionally we really tie trust to an outcome. We’re trusting for something to happen, something to change. The truth is that in my situation I had no guarantees of what was going to happen, especially when it comes to persecution. There are no guarantees. 

So, this is what I hope will be helpful to your listeners. The way that I began to think about trust, not knowing what the outcome will be ... And we often don’t know. So, I was under persecution, but many people I talk to have difficulties. I think everyone ... We have many challenges and often we have a sense of strength or grace from the Lord. But I think almost every believer goes through a time when they’re in crisis where they don’t have that sense, and they feel the silence of God or abandoned by God. I felt that for a long time. Very intensely.

The way that I ended up thinking about trust is leaning into the leadership of Jesus. The idea that ... I’d say, “I don’t know where you’re going to take me. I don’t know what difficulties I’m going to have to go through. But I believe that you’re a good leader. And even though I don’t understand you I don’t have to understand you. I just have to lean into you.” Isaiah 50:10 became my theme verse. God is speaking to Israel in exile and he says, “For the one who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in the name of his God and lean on him.” 

So, God could have said, “I’m going to send you light.” That’s what we expect. That’s what we want. We’re very optimistic as believers, often. And eventually he did send them light. But at that time he didn’t say that. He said, “When you’re in darkness,” and you’re going to be in darkness for a while, they were, “lean into me.” And so this is what God was teaching me. When I don’t understand, when I have doubts and questions, when I am weak and broken I can still lean into him. It’s a decision that I make, it’s not a feeling. And I made a decision with my will. I choose to love. I choose to be faithful. I choose to put my eyes on you. It’s a decision of the will. 

At my weakest points, because there were many, I’m very weak and I can just barely turn my eyes in his direction. It may be just a one degree turning in his direction, but that one degree is all the difference in the world. Because it means that I’m turning toward him, rather than away from him. And that positions me so that then he can work in my life. And that one degree, turning my eyes toward him even that one degree was a difference in my being re-built in prison or failing in prison. 

So, I want to encourage your listeners: lean into Jesus, lean into his leadership. You don’t have to understand it. You just have to make the decision with the will. “I choose to lean into him. I choose to be faithful to him.”


>>Doug Sweeney:


Amen. You have been listening, deal listeners, to Dr. Andrew Brunson, Co-Founder of Wave Starters, a nonprofit ministry he began with his wife Norine. He shares his story at greater length in a new book entitled, “God’s Hostage: A True Story of Persecution, Imprisonment, and Perseverance.” Andrew, thanks very much for being with us today. And more importantly tomorrow at commencement. We say to our listeners, please keep us in prayer. We are praying for you. Goodbye for now. 


>>Kristen Padilla:


You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.