In 1948 the Bible Presbyterian Church, a quasi-fundamentalist evangelical denomination, sent a 36-year-old pastor and his family to Europe to check on the state of the church after World War II. The family settled in Switzerland and worked mostly in child evangelism before coming back to the United States in the early 1950s on furlough. They returned in 1955 and settled down in a village called Huemoz, a small Swiss village about one mile up into the Swiss Alps near Lausanne. At that time their oldest daughter began attending university and would bring her friends back home with her to visit on weekends.
Over time, as those friends came and enjoyed the warmth of their home and the delights of hospitality, they began discussing religion and philosophy with the pastor. In time, these friends brought more friends who brought more friends. And soon this family, the Schaeffers, had students living with them long-term, assisting with the work of the home while also having liberty to study the questions of interest to them and to discuss those studies with Francis Schaeffer, the pastor first sent to Europe seven years before by the BPC.
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