Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--And How I Learned to Love Women by Frank Schaeffer Page A

become a part of it, too—or, as Mom would say, “Another thread in the tapestry.” With every new chalet added to The Work, every new brother-in-law, every new step—for instance, when Dad and Mom published their books—the “L’Abri Story” got longer.
    I forget the point Mom made with her two trees in the prayer talk. I only remember that she spoke at length about going up into the woods and putting her feet on the trunk of one tree, then switching her feet to the trunk of the other tree
while praying, something she demonstrated while lying on the living-room floor. (Mom liked to wear slacks when she spoke, because that way she could prance around, get on the floor, do whatever it took to illustrate her points.) Anyway, the trees illustrated something or other about how one trunk represented our requests to God and the other trunk was something to do with how he answered us—or, rather, answered Mom, because she was our number-one prayer warrior, the rest of us not even being a distant second.
    It was amazing how everything Mom did in her personal life had such spiritual significance, even Mom’s favorite spot in the forest above our chalet where those trees were folded into the ministry. Mainly what Mom’s talk on prayer proved was that she prayed for hours and hours every day and just loved it! Sometimes I wondered if she did protest too much. Who was Mom trying to convince that she was having so much fun up there in the woods with God?
    Mom drove me crazy with her pietistic spin on just about anything. She also drove my sisters and myself crazy by folding the most personal moments of our childhood lives into her talks as further illustrations of God’s hand on us, or to make points about how to raise a family.

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    A s L’Abri grew, it became more formal. Guests were called “students.” Then students had their stay limited to three months, after too many people were being turned away and/or were trying to stay for very long periods. At some point (in the early 1960s), the students were asked to pay a minimal amount per day to stay, whereas at the beginning of the work they were considered houseguests and of course everything was free. If you wanted to stay longer than three months, you could become a “helper” and stay up to six months more. And if you felt led by the Lord (and, more importantly, if Mom and Dad really, really liked you), you could become a “worker.”
    The workers were the permanent staff. Some workers would be elected to become “members.” But the members—who were supposedly our independent board—pretty much did what Mom and Dad wanted. I never knew of a decision the members took during Dad’s lifetime that went against his wishes. And this whole network of people, past students, workers, and friends were all bound together by my mother’s “Family Letters” that she sent out every few months.
    Cynthia was a L’Abri worker when I was a small child. She was in and around the L’Abri work for years. Later, she became a member. Cynthia was also my homeschool tutor for a time.

    Mom didn’t put me in the village school with “all those rough peasant children,” for fear that they would make fun of my polio leg. Besides, Mom wanted me in a Christian environment. So I was homeschooled, but most of the time I did little more than struggle to sound out a page or two of words then head for the forest or village. Out of sight I was also out of mind for whole blessed days at a time.
    Cynthia had “a special heart” for the Chinese, with Japanese and Koreans coming a close second. Her plan was to heed God’s call to her to be a missionary to the “millions of lost souls of the Orient.” Cynthia felt that the Lord was leading her to follow in the tradition of Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China, who grew a pigtail and dressed like a native, the better to “reach out to the lost Chinese.” (He founded the mission my grandparents were in.) Cynthia planned to go