NEWS: RARE SCHAEFFER VIDEOS TO BE RELEASED IN COOPERATION WITH L'ABRI AND SOUNDWORD ASSOCIATES

Schaeffer Apologetics Video Snapshot

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

In mid-August, we were able to acquire through public vendors a VHS copy of a 1983 lecture by Francis Schaeffer on Apologetics. Finding this rare tape was quite a find in itself, however after some further inquiries, we were surprised to discover more than we bargained for.

After finding this publicly available, out-of-stock video, my partner Jason Schaitel, inquired further with the company who produced the video to see if we might be able to digitize the video and make it available on line. The company, Sound Word, may be known to some of you, as they still do audio conference recording for L'Abri. You can find a list of currently available audio recordings here.

Sound Word, not only was willing to allow us to handle the Apologetics video for these purposes, but was also willing to offer a total of 11 master copies of video (9 segments) from conferences in 1983 and 1984. These historic lectures are of Schaeffer in his final two years of life on some very significant topics. They also include footage from Edith Schaeffer and Susan Macaulay (their daughter) as well.

We are thankful and honored to have been given permission by Sound Word and  L'Abri Fellowship to be entrusted with the task of digitizing and making these videos available to the public. Accordingly, francisschaefferstudies.org has purchased the masters and will digitize, edit, and produce them beginning in just a few weeks. We will then begin releasing them this fall and winter and throughout 2014, which will be thirty years after Dr. Schaeffer's passing. We cannot help but think this is a bit of Providence at work.

The following is a list of the contents of the videos we will be working on. The information provide is subject to change depending on the actual contents of the tapes. We will provide more information as it becomes available:

L'Abri Conference, Atlanta 1983

1. Introduction to L'Abri - Dr. Schaeffer and Susan Macaulay (daughter)
2. Names and Issues - Dr Schaeffer
3. Who Is For Peace? - Dr. Schaeffer
4. It is Your Life Involved - Dr. Schaeffer
5. Common Sense Living (Nehemiah) - Edith Schaeffer
6. Apologetics - Dr. Schaeffer

L'Abri Conference, Knoxville 1984
(All videos are labeled E & F Schaeffer)

1. Introduction to L'Abri (Various)

• Five Ideas - Dick Keyes

1. Discussion on The Great Evangelical Disaster (Book) - Part 1
2. Discussion on The Great Evangelical Disaster (Book) - Part 2
3. Conference Discussions / Dr. Schaeffer's Last Address - Part 1
4. Conference Discussions / Dr. Schaeffer's Last Address - Part2

Watch for updates and follow the releases as we make them available.

Providence!
Dan

Updates:

1. Promo Video Released
2. FIRST SOUNDWORD L'ABRI VIDEO RELEASED!! - THE QUESTION OF APOLOGETICS
3. SOUDWORD SCHAEFFER VIDEO PROGRESS
4. COMMON SENSE CULTURAL REFORMATION
5. 5 IDEAS - AN INTRODUCTION TO LABRI - DICK KEYES - 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO

PHOTO ACQUISITION: GEA - ANABEL BAKER

In chapter five of Edith Schaeffer's book L'Abri, which chronicles the early development of L'Abri Fellowship, one finds the account of two visitors named Betty and Gea. To the left is a new photo we have acquired of Anabel Baker, "Gea," Miss Kansas, being crowned queen of the 50th Anniversary American Royal, a large annual event here in Kansas City (Special thanks to William Gebby for directing us to this find).  

Of the two girls mentioned by Edith, Betty is of course Betty Carlson, author of several books on L'Abri, and artist in residence, who lived and worked side-by-side with her dear friend and opera singer Jane Stewart Smith at L'Abri. She is especially noted for having paid to send send Edith away to write the story of L'Abri and having consulted Francis Schaeffer on "writing books," prior to his first works. Gea's real name however, is never given in Edith's book. The only real information given describes her as being "dark and beautiful (Miss Wichita, Kansas, of the year before. She could both dance and play the piano and had Hollywood as her goal." (L'Abri, pg 55) Edith later documents, "As for Gea, she today is the wife of a pastor in mid-west America, and the mother of five children. Her husband wouldn't be her husband, and the children wouldn't have been born, if it hadn't been for what happened that week in [Chalet] Bijou." (L'Abri, pg 55).

Likewise, Betty Carlson does not give us any clues either in her account, The Unhurried Chase that Ended at L'Abri. She describes their meeting on page 88, saying "Gea and I had met about a year before at Camp Eleanor on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where she was a music director, and I was the swimming and tennis instructor. I don't recall when we first talked about Switzerland, perhaps I talked about it; but I believe that I was trying to explain to her why I was going back. It got involved, because it sounded melodramatic to say that there was an outer force compelling me to go back." She further talks about how that she inspired Gea's interest in Switzerland and eventually talked her into traveling, although she generally disliked it, "Even coming from Kansas to Wisconsin had been a hardship for her. But I gargled on about how marvelous it was, what extraordinary piano, drama, and ballet teachers where were in Lausanne. I was at the height of my persuasive power..." On page 86, Betty mentions in passing that Gea's husband's first name is Wayne, but we still have no mention of Gea's real name. Gea's account of their meeting is also in the book on page 94, where she recalls being introduced to Betty as the "world traveler"  and was shocked to find a less-than-interesting travel enthusiast who was more concerned about comfortable clothes and shoes than style. This of course was something she was intent on changing!

So in order to find out who "Gea" is one must do a little research. We were able to consult the records for Ms. Kansas, from Wichita of 1950 and see that she was known for her acting particularly Shakespeare's Macbeth. The name of that winner is Anabel Baker. There is another name from Wichita a few years earlier in 1948, but she is the well-known Vera J. Ralston (Vera Miles), who played Lila Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Psycho. Thus finally, just for due diligence, Colin Duriez in his book, Francis Schaeffer, An Authentic Life, also confirms this conclusion in the footnotes on page 118. 

Betty did eventually convince Gea to travel with her to Switzerland in the Autumn of 1950. They would eventually end up being directed to the Schaeffer's home by a mutual friend of the Schaeffer's, Baroness von Dumreicher. The Chalet Bijou, where the Schaeffer's first met the baroness, was regularly rented to artist and creatives, and was the Schaeffer's second home in the village of Champery before they eventually wound up at Les Melezes in Huemoz where they founded L'Abri (Betty and Gea's visit was actually five years before it's founding).

Betty had first met the baroness on her first trip to Switzerland after riding her bike from Sweden. Upon arriving at her pension, Baroness von Dumreicher would providentially become her friend and translator, helping to get her settled. So now, on this second trip, this time with Gea, a series of events transpired to bring about their trip to meet the Schaeffers. Both Betty and Gea had somewhat on a whim visited the Scotch Church and read the Bible a bit as a result but it remained something on the sideline with no deep appeal. Yet Betty, out of her conversations with a local man about politics, had written a series of about 50 "good will letters" to the states to encourage other students to study abroad and she had been fascinated with promoting the new idealogical fascination of a "the united states of Europe" to encourage nations to have a reason for not fighting with each other (remember this is right after World War II). One of these letters ends up getting published in a newspaper and is read by a sailor who is a Christian. He begins writing to Betty and sending her literature, explaining that there could be no lasting "good will among men" without Christ. Betty, although pitying the poor misguided sailor, had a fascination with the printed page, and read everything he sent. In continuance with her "good will" notion, her and Gea decided to found a traveling musical group to that end. They purchased instruments and a motor scooter for travel, and even invited a talented friend they knew from camp named Marianne. She traveled all the way from Chicago to meet them. When she arrived however, they discovered that she had become a Christian which presented some road-blocks to their big plan. Soon Betty developed a serious sinus infection that required her to be operated on. During her recuperation, Gea and Marianne ran the scooter into a taxi. This of course ended their dream of "good will troubadoring." When recounting their story to a Swiss friend, she said, "Well, it's simple. When you need to get over something in Switzerland, you go to the mountains." Yet there was one problem, they were broke. That next morning a letter arrived from Madamme Dumreicher, informing them that the Schaeffer's had written to her that they would like her friends to come visit them. Those who know the story of L'Abri, know that such coincidences were a regular happening as the Schaeffers prayed for God to bring them those whom He desired.

Although Betty and Gea were directed to the Schaeffers without knowing of their background and were astonished to find out they were staying with missionaries, there were soon overcome by their genuine care for them and hospitality. They realized that the Schaeffers were not some misguided zealots as culture has so comfortably labeled many Christians at times. Much to their surprise, they found themselves even defending them. On a venture down to a local hotel (Edith notes this as the Hotel Champery in her letters, With Love Edith pg. 208) to see their friend Angela, whom Edith describes in her letters as an English Jewish girl. Angela started by making some slightly disparaging remarks about the Schaeffer's calling them "balmy," which prompted both Gea and Betty to speak up in their defense. Gea said rather hotly, "They are the nicest family I have ever met in my life Angela. Maybe I don't agree with them straight down the line, but nobody calls the balmy in my presence!" Likewise Betty spoke up in regard that the Schaeffer's "might go overboard on their religion" and said, "Whatever it is that they believe, it surely hasn't hurt them. They know more about what's going on in the twentieth century than the three of us put together. And furthermore, the more you think about it, there's not much point in believing something, unless you really believe it." Yet Angela was not without a comeback stating, "I don't doubt their zeal of sincerity, but their insistence that Christianity is the ultimate truth in the universe happens to be nonsense, passe, and you know it! There isn't a respectable school in England that doesn't teach that all religions are equally good..." To this Betty interrupted, "Angela excuse me, but for the first time in my life I'm beginning to see how the old refrain belittles God, to keep saying that all religions are basically the same and basically good. Why that reduces the supreme being to a status lower than a floorwalker in a department store. For years I have thought it was the open-minded, intelligent thing to say that are all religions stem from the same God! A foreman in a factory has better organization that the popular vague god-of-all-religions who tells people to believe anything, do anything, and we'll all come out together in the end!" (see conversation in The Unhurried Chase that Ended at L'Abri, pg 134-135)


Betty and Gea did come to follow Christ soon thereafter. Edith notes in her letters (With Love Edith pg. 209) spending hours over supper preparations and canning, hearing Gea's life story. In her book L'Abri on page 54,  she tells us that Betty came in one day and told her rather nonchalantly and matter-of-factly that she had come to believe the Bible and wanted to accept Christ as her savior and likewise Gea left a message to the same affect in their guest book. Their story is one of the early stories foreshadowing what would come to happen at L'Abri. It really typifies what so many have encountered. As Betty remarks in her book, "Many continue to come to LAbri along a path similar to the one Gea and I traveled. They arrive hungry, contentious, full of themselves, not knowing Who or what they are seeking; but they knock on the L'Abri door because someone along the way cared enough to direct them to risk upsetting them in order to set them straight." (The Unhurried Chase that Ended at L'Abri, pg 147)

EDITH SCHAEFFER : 1914 - 2013 - Ranald Macaulay

Photo by Sylvester Jacobs

Every generation produces individuals who seem larger than life. Like meteors they
blaze into life and become something of a wonder to those looking on. ‘What remarkable talents,’ we say, ‘what energy, what achievements’ This is what Edith Schaeffer was like and for 17 years Rochester was her home.

Like many coming to the Mayo Clinic the reasons for her arrival were hardly auspicious. Her husband, Francis, had just completed filming in Switzerland for his second major documentary series called, ‘Whatever Happened to the Human Race’. At the end of a gruelling day on the slopes near their alpine home, his dramatic weight loss over the previous week led Edith to telephone a medical friend at Mayo to seek advice. ‘Get him here as quickly as possible’ he said. So on the 9th October, 1978, Edith and Francis arrived in Rochester. Within hours he had been diagnosed with lymphoma and put on chemotherapy. It was to be the beginning, for Edith certainly, of a long association with the city and its people. Happily, Francis responded well to treatment and continued to be active and influential throughout the world for another seven years. By then Edith had moved their home from Switzerland to Rochester and it was there, on the 15th May 1984, that she heard his last quiet words… “from strength to strength” – taken from the sentence ‘they go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion’ in Psalm 84:7. Her days as the wife of one of the world’s most significant evangelical leaders in the 20th century had come to a close.

However, her surprise at finding herself living in Rochester was hardly her last! She
seemed to specialize in surprises in fact. The next one came within weeks of her
husband’s death and through what had been the major part of her life’s work, namely L’Abri Fellowship. She and her husband had founded this Christian work in Switzerland in 1955 and one of its half-dozen branches (now ten world-wide) had moved from California to Rochester to provide, amongst other things, practical support for them in their medical need. Not long after the funeral in Rochester came the new surprise - a Steinway grand-piano no less. This was a gift to L’Abri in memory of Francis Schaeffer and it held pride of place in her gracious living room. But the surprise contained yet another surprise and one which opened up a new chapter in her life. For what she quickly realized was that the actual piano involved, discovered not far from Rochester incidentally, had been manufactured the same year as her marriage – and came into her home the 6th July 1984, 49 years exactly after the very day she and Francis had their wedding - 6th July 1936! This piqued her already vibrant curiosity. So the next time she was in New York she arranged to call at the Steinway factory. Quite unexpectedly she found herself in the midst of a red-carpet-welcome and all because the company’s senior piano-voicer, Franz Mohr, had for many years been one of her avid readers and admirers.

The visit began a lasting friendship and even resulted in a new book called ‘ForeverMusic’. Amongst other things it was a paean to the wonder of God’s creation. It also provided her with a medium to express one of the leading characteristics of her life, namely her delight in anything and everything beautiful. She herself was a beautiful woman and always dressed impeccably. When she provided meals it became an occasion not just for good food but for a ‘work of art’ – hence the title of another of her books, ‘Hidden Art’. But ‘Forever Music’ also described how God works into our
individual lives – in this case via the biography and conversion of Franz Mohr himself. This in turn led to a concert with the Guaneri Quartet in Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Centre, NY, and to personal friendships with some of the world’s most illustrious musicians like Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Horowitz and Yo Yo Mah.

Her ongoing life continued to be part of the ‘Rochester L’Abri’ for more than a decade and it enabled her to put her gifts of teaching, hospitality and creativity to good use. Many, for example, were the musical soirees in her living room around the Steinway. She spoke regularly at the annual Rochester L’Abri Conferences in February. But she also served as an international Trustee of L’Abri until 2001 making a grand total of 46 years within the life of the Fellowship. She also went on with her writing. Already she had completed nearly a dozen books, some of which, like ‘The L’Abri Story’, ‘The Tapestry’, and ‘Christianity is Jewish’ had sold almost as successfully as her husband’s – as they still do. The scope of her activities went well beyond Rochester, though, both within the United States and abroad. For example, she had been instrumental in the formation of the Francis Schaeffer Foundation based in New York and Switzerland and also in the Francis Schaeffer Institute in St. Louis, an adjunct of Covenant Theological Seminary. Her speaking itinerary was extensive.

Then followed another major surprise when she returned, now aged 80, to the very place in China where she had been born. Once again she found herself the subject of an official red-carpet welcome laid on, believe it or not, by the secular city dignitaries! The third and last of three daughters born to missionary parents, she was only five when they returned to the United States. Like all her memories, however, her recollections of China remained vivid and these she put into a children’s book bearing her Chinese name ‘Mei Fuh’.

For all her fizz and sparkle, however, and despite frequent displays of energy and
creativity, even in old age, which left her younger colleagues in L’Abri breathless, the
time came for her to return to her beloved Lac Leman in Switzerland. There she lived in a flat in a small lakeside village beside Vevey where she and her husband had spent many happy years. In due course she needed more care and one of her daughters, Mrs Debby Middelmann, with her husband, Udo, graciously provided a home in the mountains not far from where she and Francis had first founded L’Abri Fellowship in 1955. There, after a long decline in health, she died on the 29th March 2013 - aged 98.

It was a long and remarkable life – truly meteoric. But when all is said and done the best thing about Edith was who she was as a person: she never became big-headed because of her successes; she was always generous (even to a fault!); she consistently, and however inconveniently, treated all who came within her ambit with a gentleness and love both radiant and deeply genuine. In short, she was ‘real’ - a true Christian lady whose first desire was to glorify her Maker and Saviour. What she and her husband took as their life-long goal was to try to demonstrate and declare to all they met that the Bible really is true and that the Judaeo-Christian God is a kind and gracious Saviour to those who come to Him. She never swerved from that object. Nor, right until the day she died, did she ever flinch from the costliness of that call. She obeyed the apostolic summons to ‘present your body as a living sacrifice to Christ’ (Romans 12: 1). And now she is with Him. Hallelujah!

Written by Ranald Macaulay MA Cantab
(Son-in-law of Edith Schaeffer)
The Round Church, Cambridge.
http://www.christianheritageuk.org.uk/








Read also: FINALLY ENTRANCE TOGETHER INTO ETERNITY  - Edith Schaeffer (1914 - 2013)