Edith Schaeffer
Edith Rachel Merritt Schaeffer (née Seville) (November 3, 1914 – March 30, 2013) was born in Wenzhou, China to missionary parents with China Inland Mission. She attended Beaver College in Pennsylvania, where she met Francis Schaeffer. According to TheGospelCoalition.org, “on June 26th, 1932, Edith attended a meeting in her liberal Presbyterian church where a Unitarian minister delivered an address on ‘How I know that Jesus is Not the Son of God, and How I Know that the Bible is not the Word of God.’ She was prepared to offer a rebuttal when a young man stood up and said, ‘My name is Francis Schaeffer and I want to say that I know Jesus is the Son of God, and He is also my Savior.’ After Francis delivered his testimony, Edith added a brief apologetic for the truth of the Bible. The two began dating that night and married three years later.”
Thirteen years afterward the Schaeffers and their four children moved to Switzerland to minister to churches struggling against existentialism and theological liberalism.
They opened up their home to those seeking answers to life's difficult questions. By serving them with the love of Christ and holding tea-time round-table-style discussions on the nature of God and the nature of Man, they began a spiritual-philosophy community called L'Abri Fellowship. "L'Abri" is French for 'shelter', and it attracted thousands of traveling young people from all over the world.
Both Francis and Edith wrote numerous books, and Edith’s writings on Biblical womanhood, homemaking, and hospitality earned her a spot in Helen Kooiman Hosier's list of 100 Christian Women Who Changed the Twentieth Century. Her books Affliction and The Tapestry: the Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer won the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.
