SOUTHBOROUGH L’ABRI PRAYER/NEWSLETTER
Christmas 2004; May, 2005
49 Lynbrook Road, Southborough, MA 01772

I am intrigued by the story of Gideon in the Book of Judges. God told him to raise an army to fight the marauding Midianites. In his uncertainty and fear, Gideon asked for extraordinary guidance from God to reassure him that God really meant what he had said in the first place. But when his army of 32,000 was assembled and ready, God told him to send most of them back home. Left with only 10,000 troops, I have always been amused at the way God told Gideon to make the final, drastic cut. The soldiers were told to have a drink of water at a stream. Those who drank water from their cupped hands were sent home, but the scant 300 who drank by lapping up the water from the stream were picked for the army. Whether or not we find this story amusing, the real issue was not a joke to liven up Sunday school lessons. The story addresses something serious about our attitude to God.

God said that he ordered the army reduced down to a small fraction of its original size because otherwise the Israelites would have taken all the credit for victory themselves. They would have said, “My own hand has delivered me”, and would have added further arrogance to their illusion of independence from God. The nation had already struck a blow for freedom and started to serve pagan idols. They would have attributed their success to themselves with Ba’al’s help and continued to ignore the true God who had created them, rescued them from slavery in Egypt and given them their own land. Before Gideon even gathered his army God had required him to destroy his father’s altar to Ba’al.

I wonder if God may repeat something like this pattern from time to time to teach us the dependence on him that we need in order to understand our lives accurately. I wonder about it now at our branch of L’Abri. Since the end of the winter term our “army” has lost three out of its seven soldiers. Mark and Terri Ryan with their daughter Michelle left to go to Australia en route to L’Abri in Vancouver, B.C. Nickaela Fiore has left to marry our son, Ben. They also plan to end up in Vancouver. Happily, Sarah Barsness is going to be starting as a worker next term, but even with her help we are feeling below “critical mass”.

As I begin to get afraid of this situation, I remember that the initial vision of L’Abri was to provide a temporary shelter to help people find and live in the only real and permanent shelter that there is – in God himself. The naming of “L’Abri”, “The Shelter”, came from Psalm 91. “You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow the Almighty, will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust’”. This has been both our confession and our purpose from the beginning. Dr. Schaeffer described L’Abri’s purpose as living the practical reality of Acts 1:8: “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” He went on to say that our hope was that Christ would actively build his church through the work of every person and part of L’Abri. He stressed that he did not mean that L’Abri would build the church of Christ, but that Christ would build his church and be pleased to use L’Abri in doing it. It is all about God, not about us.

How hard it is to learn, in Gideon’s time and in our own, to depend on God. This is not some heroic level of spiritual awareness or achievement, but only a minimal recognition of the basic truth of what exists! It is so hard because the truth must cut through much deep-seated illusion that our lives seemingly depend finally on us, that we are ultimately somehow self-sufficient and sovereign over our destinies and the fruit of our work.

A friend of mine queried, “What can you do to make God laugh?” He suggested, “All you need to do is tell Him your plans. But if you really want Him to laugh, tell Him your predictions”. This raises the same issue of our self-deceived sense of independence when it has to do with our sketchy grasp on the future.

All this is to say that we need your prayers in this time of small staff, first that we ourselves in L’Abri would be able to unload the illusion that it all rests on us, and then that God would do his work here in powerful ways for the sake of our students and others who come through. We have every reason to trust him. I mentioned our financial crisis in my last letter, but feel somewhat chastened by God because of His provision for us at the eleventh hour of last year. This kept us from red ink, got us through the year end and off to a start for 2005. God has been faithful.

We had a great group of students during the winter term. The quality of a lot of the discussion was very good and tutoring times were fruitful. We had more people than usual who were not Christians and almost the whole lot stayed for the entire term. Just after the end of the term we all trooped off to St. Louis for the 50 th Anniversary Jubilee celebration of L’Abri. Afterward I felt as if I had had 200 conversations, each lasting about 45 seconds. But it was a great encouragement and a time to give thanks for what God has done and is still doing.

Please pray for Sue Morrell as she is making a trip home to Australia just before our term begins to help her parents move to a smaller home. Pray for her safety in travel and for her to be helpful to her parents during a difficult transition. Joe is staying here, holding the fort. Nate is getting heavily into Little League. Luke continues to be an avid reader and is finishing Tolkien’s The Silmarillion this week.

April is turning out to be an important month of changes for the Keyes family. Chris starts work as a Mass State police officer this week, after finishing a grueling 6 months in the police academy where one of the purposes was to “immunize them to stress”. Tim has just started a new job as a wildlife biologist working for the State of Georgia. Ben gets married to Nickaela on April 30. They will be studying next autumn at Regent College in Vancouver. Please pray for them all.

Thank God for Mardi’s blood pressure coming down to a more stable place.

Thank him also for a number of speaking engagements that Mardi and I had during the break. They turned out to be really useful opportunities.

Pray also for my book on “cynicism”, which has been accepted by several publishers, that I would know the best one to do it.

Please pray for Sarah Barsness who begins as a worker in May. She comes from Idaho via Swiss L’Abri, and has been with us as a helper since last autumn. We look forward to her joining our little army with her many gifts of insight and hospitality. Pray also for three helpers who are scheduled to come, Jana, Bonnie and Taylor.

Pray for Mark, Terri and Michelle as they arrive at Bowen Island L’Abri in Canada, that God would help them settle in there and use them in wonderful ways.

Pray for our next group of students, that they would come prepared by God for whatever he has for them.

Pray for our Friday night lecture series, that the people will find their way here who would be helped by them.

Pray also for our finances as we will have to have somewhat fewer students, given the lower number of workers. Ask that we might be able to afford to do important maintenance on the house.

As our society seems to get ever more polarized, God’s truth is increasingly brought into that polarization. Pray for us all in L’Abri to be able to speak and live as salt and light while knowing that it is about God and not about us from start to finish.

Dick Keyes

P.S: We have begun to send out a more frequent and more detailed letter to anyone who wants to regularly pray for us. For financial reasons it will only be sent by e-mail. If you would like to get it, let us know that you would like to receive the “praying family letter”. Send it to Southborough@labri.org.