The Village That Became a Fortress

In the winter of 1942, a Jewish woman knocked on the door of the presbytery in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a small village in the mountains of southern France. Pastor André Trocmé's wife Magda opened it, looked at the frightened stranger, and said simply, "Come in." That moment set the course for an entire community.

Over the next three years, the villagers of Le Chambon sheltered roughly 3,500 Jews from Nazi deportation. Farmers hid children in barns. Schoolteachers forged identity papers. When Gestapo officers arrived to search homes, neighbors passed warnings house to house so families could slip into the surrounding forests. Pastor Trocmé never carried a weapon. He carried Scripture and an unshakable conviction that God called his people to be a refuge for the vulnerable.

The Nazis arrested Trocmé. They detained him at an internment camp for weeks. Yet even there, he held fast to the goodness of God, leading worship services among fellow prisoners. When he was released, he went right back to the work of sheltering the hunted.

Nahum declares, "The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him." Le Chambon became a living portrait of that truth — not because danger never came to its doors, but because the people there had already found their own stronghold in the faithfulness of God. They could offer refuge because they knew the Refuge.