Honest answers for honest questions.
We all have questions. Questions about our lives. Questions about what is real. Questions about how we should live.
L’Abri is a French word meaning ‘the shelter’. We offer hospitality to people from all backgrounds and nationalities while we search together for honest answers to life’s important questions, believing that Christianity gives us a basis for finding truth for every aspect of life.
History
L’Abri Fellowship began in Switzerland in 1955 when Francis and Edith Schaeffer decided in faith to open their home to be a place where people might find satisfying answers to their questions and practical demonstration of Christian care. It was called L’Abri, the French word for “shelter,” because they sought to provide a shelter from the pressures of a relentlessly secular 20th century.
As time went by, so many people came that others were called to join the Schaeffers in their work, and later more works were established.
L’Abri Australia
Australian L’Abri began in Sydney back in the 1980s following a meeting between Francis Schaeffer and Frank Stootman. Soon after Frank and his wife Heather began hosting people in their home in western Sydney and running a number of L’Abri conferences around Australia. The Stootmans have faithfully received people in their home for around 40 years; and recent years have begun to move towards retirement.
In 2022, following a year and half at English and Dutch L’Abris, Karl and Jenny Pacholke were sent to continue the L’Abri work in Australia, but from their home in Brisbane.
L’Abri in Brisbane, Queensland is in the earlier stages of development. Karl and Jenny in faith now open their home regularly to welcome others, give every honest question an honest answer and look together at the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as the key to life.
