Huémoz

I have intended to do a post about Huemoz for a while… what is a blog entitled Life in Huemoz and Other Musings without some words specifically about the town. 

This town is a tiny collection of Chalets. There are no grocery stores, not even a post office. I believe I’ve been told that the town is about 300 people. One of the visiting lecturers said back in the old days when L’Abri was booming it was under orders to not exceed the size of the town. It’s hard for me to image L’Anri filled with so many people. Especially as this winter term has been particularly small. Consisting of between 15 and 30 students while I’ve been here. 

I learned recently that the 10 pm quiet hour is actually Swiss law and not a L’Abri quirk. The Swiss love how charming their country is and many of the laws reinforce this. There’s this one little church in the town where the bell rings every quarter hour, with different sets of chimes to represent the time. I listened to a podcast once of someone being disliked by a whole town in Switzerland for trying to get the church bells not to ring. 

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Really the only other interesting thing I know about the town is that before the middle ages it all sat in the valley beneath where Huemoz is now. However, the entire town moved to where it is now because of the plague. 

 Last but certainly not least, I should pay homage to the source of my contact with the outside world. The Huemoz Cafe… the only cafe where I’m brave enough to try out my French, order new things, and sit for hours answering emails and messages, and well posting these here blogs. 

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An Embarrassing Moment with Sam

People in Switzerland are kind and tend to great eachother on the street. I can’t tell you the number of times it’s been 6pm or later and I have said bonjour (hello or good day) to someone to hear back in reply bonsoir (good evening), the much more appropriate response. 

One time in particular I was sitting on a bench on the Panex road and I noticed someone was out for a run and coming in my direction. Seeing that it was the afternoon when my friend Carissa often runs and only taking a quick glance I thought it was her. I looked down at my phone until she got close, because no one wants you to watch them run. When I looked up I waved rather empatically, only to receive a quick bonjour and realize that the runner was a stranger instead if my friend. A stranger who must have thought I was an aweful friendly tourist. 

Prayer

Mondays at L’Abri are our days of prayer. This past Monday in particular was special because it was a day of fasting and prayer. We had no work crews and no lunch.

It was a quiet day, a peaceful day. A day where someone who I became close to while here was leaving. Thus in some ways it was a sad day. But also a day of thankfulness for the time we shared together. 

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What I realized throughout the day was just how beautiful this place really is… the fact that the workers can plan an adnormal day, a day that would seem so very strange in the normal world and everyone here just embraced it. We went for walks. We gathered in groups and shared what was on our hearts. For some inexplicable reason we even spent the day talking softly often in a wisper. It just seemed appropriate.

L’Abri has been such a place of rest for me, a place of shelter, a place of healing. A friend asked me at the beginning of the year if I had any new year’s resolutions. My response was “I just want to live a life where it’s not so hard to be ok.” A melancholy resolution born out of the struggles of grad school, depression, and post concussive syndrome. 

In some ways the fullfilment of that resolution has snuck up on me here. I realize that the times where I have to repeat a mantra to myself a fewer and farther in between. I used to repeat over and over to myself Lord your grace is sufficient for me… willing myself to believe it, wiling my breathing to stay steady and my emotions to stay under control. Now, now I feel at peace most of the time. 

When I go to bed late or can’t sleep, I don’t worry so much that it’ll send me to a dark place of anxious feelings. Maybe that’s because I can nap so easily here, but also maybe it’s because I’m not so tired. Despite the fact that I have no clue what my next step in life is I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be and I’m ever so grateful for that.

 I will end this blog post with a prayer request. If you’re reading this and will join me and countless others in praying for L’Abri. Praying that people who need L’Abri will find it. People who have questions and are seeking answers and people who are seeking rest. Also praying for L’Abri’s financial needs. L’Abri survives off of small student fees, clever budgeting, and donations. L’Abri recieves both donations and students purely by word of mouth, no advertisement. It’s faith in action, a beautiful thing. 

Thank you for reading and for listening. Love you, bye