11:35
(This story is taken from a fantastic biography about Brother Andrew, called The Narrow Road)
(Brother Andrew was holding meetings in churches all over Hungary. One day the secret police came for a visit in one of his meetings.)
And then one evening the police did come.
I knew it from the look on Professor B's face.
"They're here," he whispered, and I didn't need to ask who "they" were. He signaled that I was to follow him back into the vestry. Two plainclothesmen were waiting. They asked me a lot of questions, and then they issued a summons for me to appear the following morning, along with Professor B, at headquarters.
"The last time this happened," Professor B told me when they had gone, "two men were arrested. They were in prison a long time."
After the service all of the pastors gathered in the vestry to decide what we should do. Professor B suggested that we go to his home and pray. It was the first time I had been to his house. I had forgotten what a prominent place a professor has in the society of Eastern Europe: his home was immense and luxurious. And this was the position he was risking!
Professor B introduced me to his son, Janos. I instantly liked him. He had recently married and was doing well as a young attorney, and yet he too was willing to place his career on the line by taking part in these frowned-upon meetings of Christians. There were seven of us that night, seven Christians gathered in much the same way Christians had gathered since the Church began-in secret, in trouble-praying together that through the miraculous intervention of God Himself we be spared a confrontation with the authorities.
We prayed there in the living room of Professor B, all kneeling around a low round coffee table in the center of the room. For an hour we kept up an earnest intercession, begging God to help us in our time of need. And all at once, the praying stopped. To every one of us at the same instant came the inexplicable certainty that God had heard, that our prayer was answered.
We got up from our knees, blinking at each other in surprise. I looked at my watch. It was 11:35 in the evening. At that precise hour we knew that tomorrow everything was going to be all right.
The next morning promptly at nine o'clock, Professor B and I were at headquarters. While we were waiting, Professor B whispered to me that he knew the staff well. The head of the department was unrelenting in his attacks on the Church; his deputy was much more likely to be lenient.
"We are scheduled," he said behind his hand, "to see the department head. Too bad."
Nine-thirty came, and then ten o'clock. Eleven. We were both used to long waits in bureaucratic countries, but this was a long delay by any standards. Finally, just before noon, a clerk appeared. "Come this way," he said.
Professor B and I walked down a long corridor behind the clerk. We passed the department head's office and kept going. Professor B looked at me and raised both eyebrows hopefully. At last we stopped.
The head of the department, the clerk explained, had fallen ill the night before. In his stead the deputy would hear our case.
Professor B threw me a quick glance. Twenty minutes later we were walking out of the office, free men. I yearned to ask the clerk at what hour the department head had fallen ill. To this day I am certain his answer would have been: 11:35 P.M.
Open Doors, Brother Andrew with John & Elizabeth Sherrill, The Narrow Road, Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 2001, p. 179-181.