L'Abri update

L’Abri, Huemoz, Switzerland

I would generally be writing this in a journal by hand, but I thought it would be good to do some on the computer, this will at the same time help my poor spelling skills by using Spellcheck. I met with my counselor today for the first time, his name is Richard, from Canada. There are many Canadians here as well as a few Australians. He is an intellectual, with a bright mind. He is finishing a Doctorate in Philosophy now, he was thus chosen to be my counselor, because I said this is what I would like for one of my focuses to be while I am here. Indeed it is, I am introducing myself to the love of knowledge, which is what the Greeks began to do many many years ago. It is an interesting subject, and one (I believe) worth the time to look at. At least as far as faith,and truth, and God goes, it is important. While Apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith against different types of accusations, Philosophy gives us a reason, and helps us understand the faith that we have, and why we have it. I have been introduced to Epistemology, which is the study of knowledge, and deals with the questions, How do we know? How much can we know? And, How do we know what we know is true? So these are relevant questions, that we can formulate answers from. Some of the reasons are through memory, but mostly what we know is transferred to us through other people telling us, i,e the Apostles, Historians, etc.

Life at L’Abri is hard to explain, I will attempt to do so, and hopefully better explain this place once I have lived here for a little longer. The people here are diverse and all have a unique outlook on life, there are people who claim Christ, and yet live as if he has never affected their lives. There are also people who do not claim Christ, and live in the same way. Also, there are people who claim Christ, are in pursuit of him, and are letting Him affect and change their daily lives. Among these diversities, there is no feel at all of spirituality. Christianity, I don’t know yet? If it is Christianity, it is one that I am not used to. There are no real rules here, there is a schedule, but no set rules. So people here do what they want, which plays out in various ways. The rules policy is a good thing, because everyone is able to get along very well, while all living under a single roof, in Chalet Bellevue. We have three hours of work a day and it is either in the morning, or the afternoon, on top of that, we have to help clean the dishes once a day which takes about half an hour. We have as well a study time of about three hours in the afternoon or in the morning. This consists of the student spending the alloted time in Farel House, listening to various lectures on tape and reading the books that pertain to the subject he is studying. There are recorded tapes from lecturer’s who have come here in the past, and they range widely in topic. Also the library is quite impressive, I don’t think it is impressive because of the number of books as much as the wide range of books there is to choose from. I think I could be happy for about three years just reading all the books and listening to all the lectures. On Wednesday and Friday mornings we have a lecture, and every afternoon for lunch we go to a different L’Abri worker’s home. But this isn’t a normal lunch, this is a formal setting where we the students have to come up with something to talk about, whether it be sex, drugs, and rock and roll, or Epistemology, or the North American Church, or whatever it may be that is bothering us at the time. It usually lasts for about an hour to hour and a half, this is a good time at which we can openly talk about whatever is on our minds, and not feel judged if it is a touchy topic. The L’Abri worker usually tries to head up the conversation, but generally lets the students interact with one another.

Thursday, May 17, 2007
L’Abri, Huemoz, Switzerland

Today was our day off, so we decided to go to Montreux, it is a city nearby. We headed out at about 1:30 P.M. And decided to hitch hike, now hitch hiking is totally different in Switzerland that in the US. First of all people here actually care about other people, so they are willing to help other people in need on the side of the road. So we waited for about five minutes and were picked up by a Lady who was not headed to Montreux, but Aigle, So we decided to hop on. Once in Aigle we could grab the train to Montreux, it ended up only being an 8 minute train ride. Aigle is the town in the valley where the nearest train station is, Huemoz, where L’Abri is about 1000 meters up the mountain. We arrive to Montreux, go to the tourist information booth and figure out that there is not much to do in there, but there is a 13th century castle with mosaic paintings all throughout. We didn’t end up going, but had an enjoyable time just walking around the city. We had already bought our return ticket to Aigle, and were waiting by the tracks to catch the train, accept we got on a train that was 6 minutes early, and figured out shortly after we got on that we were headed the wrong way. So we get off on the next stop and ask around, some of the group decide to take a bus back, while three of us decide to hitch it back. We got picked up about 10 minutes of sticking out the thumb, and the guy was real nice and dropped us off at the train station. We get off and stick out the thumb again, and were shortly after picked up again. These guys were in a brand new Honda, when they pulled up we asked if they were going to Huemoz, and they acted confused, then we said Villars, which is the town a little north of Huemoz, and after a few moments of bewilderment and conversing in French with one another, they chuckled, and said “Get in”. So we decided to go for it, and we were off, speeding up through the mountain curves at very high speeds, passing buses, and anything else that was in our way. We arrive to Huemoz, and they say “Huemoz” to which we get out and shock them with our French speaking abilities by saying “Merci”. The funny thing is when we got out, they simply turned around the car and speed off down the mountain, they were never even going to come up the mountain, they simply wanted to help us out. That was amazing to me, because I think of America, and how often this would ever happen there, and the answer is never. I think for numerous reasons, one because Americans think that if a person is by the side of the road with a sign in their hands it means they are bad people, that can bring me not good, and want to hurt me. This I believe is a misconception, in some cases. Some people yes, are scary, but really though, why can’t we be more willing to help more people out who are in need, when we are perfectly able to do so. It almost seems as if people here feel as if it is their duty to help others out, each time we got a lift today, they had to move all their stuff around and re situate things in the car to accommodate us, but it was so normal, an average everyday thing to do.