Time magazine called Project Pearl ‘the largest operation of its kind in the history of China’. The article was titled ‘Risky Rendezvous in Swatow’ and a Time Beijing bureau chief later described it as one of the most unusual and successful smuggling operations of the 20th century.
June 18 1981 was the delivery date for Open Doors’ Project Pearl: one million complete Chinese Bibles transported to Christians in China in one night. That load of Bibles weighed 232 tons.
Much controversy and disinformation immediately followed the delivery. Some ministries still claim — like China’s official Three Self Patriotic Movement — that the Bibles were all thrown overboard in bags by the crew who were forced by authorities to leave the scene. Nothing could be further from the truth, as many Open Doors workers will testify.
