Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life by Colin Duriez

Author:Colin Duriez
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Non-Fiction, Spiritual & Religion, Biography
ISBN: 9781581348576
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2008-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it. (2:2)

Edith penciled into the margin of her Bible page, "Jan. '55, promise . . . Yes, L'Abri." She later reflected upon her excited jotting:

For I had the tremendous surge of assurance that although this [passage of Isaiah] had another basic meaning, it was being used by God to tell me something. I did not feel that "all nations" were literally going to come to our home for help, but I did feel that it spoke of people from many different nations coming to a house that God would establish for the purpose of making "His ways" known to them. I felt these people would tell others, and would say in effect, "Come . . . let us go up the mountain . . . to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths." It seemed to me that God was putting His hand on my shoulder in a very real way and that He was saying that there would be a work which would be His work, not ours, which man could not stop. I felt that this work was going to be L'Abri.220

"L'Abri" was a name that Fran had come up with that would be suitable for their chalet in Champry as he and Edith imagined its work in a future full of possibilities. Edith explained its meaning in a Family Letter written soon after they received the catastrophic notice to quit: "L'Abri is what we feel the Lord would have us add to the work He had given us here in Switzerland. L'Abri means 'shelter' in French, and our thought is to have a spiritual shelter for any who have spiritual need."221

Now, following the terrifying landslide of mud and ice in January 1955, a spiritual avalanche threatened that seemingly frail spiritual shelter. The same letter from Edith that explained the meaning of the Shelter went on to describe both the real and the spiritual avalanches. The spiritual is alluded to in Fran's comment in his Bible margin that on February 14 they had been ordered to leave. What they had been told was not only that they had to leave the chalet they loved in Champry, their hoped-for Shelter, and their Roman Catholic canton of Valais, but also Switzerland itself, all within six weeks, that is, by March 31.

The Schaeffers, however, were convinced that the verses from Isaiah were a direct "promise" or "sign" from God himself, notwithstanding the seeming impossibility of annulling the edict. The ruling appeared as immovable as the great mountains around them. With Isaiah's words in mind they were convinced that they must attempt to get it annulled. "As I see it," Fran said, "there are two courses of action open to us.

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