Heritage Tour: Switzerland

Switzerland was interesting for so many different reasons!  The first YWAM base is in Switzerland, so we were lucky enough to go and visit that base. It was beautiful!

And it is amazing to think about how many lives have been changed in the base. And how many more lives were changed because those people went out into the world.  That is the cool thing about YWAM, it doesn't stop with the students.  I know someone who received direction from God to go to Albania while it was still a closed country at this base. I know another couple who received a prophetic word about their relationship here at this base.  So many "lifer" YWAMers have gone through this base, and moved onto starting other bases, and other ministries like Mercy Ships. WOW. God obviously has given this building and organization an anointing of his direction.

We visited other significant places like this former hotel where reconciliation talks happened after world war two.  It was led by Christian groups by my understanding, and I think it was French Christians and Germans.  But don't quote me on that one.

One other amazing story from Switzerland is from the time of the Roman Empire.  There were some rebels making an issue in Switzerland, so the Emperor dispatched a legion of troops from Egypt to go deal with the problem. He figured that they could handle it best because they are so far removed that they wouldn't take the rebels side. However, this group of soldiers were Coptic Christians. And when they got to Switzerland, they realized that these rebels were Christians too. So they refused to put down the uprising. They wouldn't kill the Christians rebels.  So to get them to comply, the emperor ordered that every tenth soldier be killed. The group was "decimated"... now you know what that word means.  That happened, but they still wouldn't comply.  So they did it again, and again, and again.... until all 6000 men were dead.   You can read more on wikipedia.

Some people think that there is continued grace over Switzerland because of the blood of those martyrs.  It is a pretty amazing story. (However, we didn't go to the church dedicated to St. Maurice, their leader).

However, we did spend time in Geneva learning about the Protestant Reformation.  And to tell you the truth, all the reformation stuff was the least interesting to me on the tour.  I do find Luther interesting, and I obviously am a protestant, but somehow the way that they went about it isn't as inspiring to me as other stories.  But that didn't stop me from wanting to have my picture taken with four famous reformers!

These are (left to right) Farel, Calvin, Beze, and Knox.  

It was strange in Switzerland to walk into big beautiful Cathedrals built by the Catholic church that are now used as protestant churches.  We found it very strange, and it actually felt different in the space. It was really sad to see how much less respect these churches get than Catholic churches that are still consecrated.  

Although the churches have beautiful organs in Switzerland.

Lastly, we also went to the UN and talked about how we as Christians are called to influence the world and bring God's Kingdom to earth. That it isn't enough to just make sure everyone is saved, God also wants us to reform our societies so they abide by his principles and can actually function better because of it.  And interestingly there was a protest going on when we arrived, so that was quite an experience as well. It was a group that wants sovereignty from Ethiopia I think... 

So from Geneva we drove into southern Germany, and it was very sad that most of the way it was dark so I didn't see nearly enough of the alps. But Germany was quite the adventure...