Open Doors' Project Pearl – the clandestine delivery of one million Chinese Bibles – celebrated its 25th anniversary on 18 June. Project Pearl was described by Time magazine's Beijing bureau chief as one of the most unusual and successful smuggling operations of the 20th century. Time called it “the largest operation of its kind in the history of China” in their 19 October 1981 article, 'Risky Rendezvous in Swatow'.
That evening in 1981, a 97-foot tugboat named Michael lumbered along at the sleepy speed of three knots an hour, towing the semi-submersible, 137-foot barge, Gabriella, loaded with 232 waterproof, poly-wrapped, one-ton packages containing a million Chinese Bibles.The 20 crew members on board Michael were from Australia, Canada, Holland, New Zealand, the Philippines, the UK and the US.
By nine o’clock on that historic night, Michael approached the beach near Swatow, China (now called Shantou), weaving through a maze of anchored, Chinese navy ships in the darkness near the port city as thousands of local Christians waited patiently on the shore.
The off-loaded, floating Bible packages were towed to the beach by three small, rubber boats. The Chinese believers waded out into the water – some up to their necks – and pulled the packaged blocks up onto the beach, cut them open with shears, and handed the 45-pound cardboard boxes of Bibles to one another up across the sand and into the tree-line of the cove.
Two hours later, Michael and Gabriella and their crews left, with the one million Bibles in the care of Chinese believers who promised to circulate them across the entire country. In some cases, that process took five years, and a number of believers paid dearly for it. For them, each Bible was indeed a 'pearl of great price' referring to Matthew 13:44, from which the project was named.
Much controversy and disinformation immediately followed the delivery. Some ministries – eg China’s official Protestant Three-self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) – still claim the Bibles were thrown overboard in bags by the crew, who were forced by authorities to leave the scene.
Interestingly, there are stories of “wet” Bibles and “perfumed” Bibles from Project Pearl that continue to be shared to this day.
Wet Bibles
Some of the boxes of Bibles did get wet during the off-loading procedure. Additionally, a night patrol of Chinese police discovered some of the boxes of Bibles stashed under the trees, still awaiting transfer to a safe storage facility. The police tried unsuccessfully to burn the Bibles and then, in frustration, threw them into the water.
