The Village That Became a Wilderness

In the winter of 1940, Pastor André Trocmé stood before his congregation in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a small village in the mountains of south-central France, and spoke words that would define their resistance: "We shall resist whenever our adversaries demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the Gospel."

What followed was extraordinary. When the first Jewish refugees arrived fleeing Nazi persecution, the villagers — most of them Huguenot Protestants who remembered their own history of persecution — simply opened their doors. Farmhouses became sanctuaries. Forged identity papers appeared. Children were smuggled through the countryside to safety in Switzerland. Over four years, Le Chambon sheltered an estimated 3,500 Jews, including hundreds of children, right under the occupying regime's nose.

The dragon raged. The Gestapo arrested Pastor Trocmé. They searched homes and interrogated villagers. Yet the network held. God had prepared a place in the wilderness — not a supernatural cave, but a village of ordinary believers who understood that the Most High shelters His people through the hands and homes of the faithful.

Revelation 12 tells us that when the dragon pursued the woman, God had already prepared her place of refuge. Le Chambon reminds us that God's prepared places often look like willing hearts and open doors — quiet, persistent faithfulness in the face of devouring evil, until salvation and the kingdom of our God prevail.