Brother Andrew was born in 1928 in Holland. Indonesia was still a Dutch Colony in 1945, and it was there, having joined the army, that he was wounded. During his recovery he began reading the Bible in earnest. "A bullet made an end to my sports ambition, but put me on the track to Jesus." Conversion "did not come suddenly," it grew from reading the Bible, and seeking God. He went to Glasgow in 1953 to study at the WEC mission college, but it was while attending a communist youth festival in Warsaw Poland, that he felt a decisive call to the field. He adopted the name Brother Andrew in 1960.