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L'Abri Newsletter, September 2026

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Book Week on C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters: After final discussions

August 14, 2026

Dear L’Abri praying family,

How are you doing in this sweltering summer heat? Perhaps because L'Abri is located deep in the mountains, the weather fortunately cools down after sunset. Now that the term ended, the workers have been enjoying evening walks in the front yard. As we walk to the chorus of crickets, we are reminded of the stories that linger in every corner of L’Abri. From the guest who arrived exhausted but left with a bright smile and a warm hug for us, to the guest who departed heartbreakingly silently, to the members of the ‘Dog Feeding Club’ who diligently set out every evening—new stories have piled up one after another this summer. Although I do not yet know how the anxieties and questions brought by each guest will be woven into God’s grand story of salvation, I am writing this letter with the desire to rejoice, lament, and hope together with our praying family.

“I didn’t know the Gospel applied to this aspect, too,” said one college student. It was truly wonderful to see her eyes sparkle as she realized, for the first time, how her self-management mindset—which she had taken for granted but which had perpetuated a vicious cycle—were based on a distorted view of humanity, and how much they could be transformed and freed with a new identity in Jesus. At L’Abri, we welcome believers, non-believers, and everyone in between. However, even those who have already accepted Jesus as the “Savior” who forgives our sin have areas in which they do not accept Him as “Lord” of all creation and of our lives. Even if we meditate on the Bible and pray every day, we often cling to a life of unfaith in certain areas. Whether it’s money, relationships, social customs, what happens in the bedroom, or what goes on in our phones—in these specific areas, we live completely apart from God. Do you, too, have such a spiritual blind spot?

At times, these blind spots manifest as vague anxiety or doubt. We may feel that such issues are too trivial, too immense, too shameful, or too overwhelming to entrust to God. Thanks to guests who bravely wrestled with their questions and concerns from a Christian perspective, these past few weeks at L’Abri have been wonderfully vibrant. One rushed guest learned to surrender her time to the Lord, while another, drained by the pursuit of early wealth, found clarity on money and work. A guest wearied by impersonal “box-checking” within society and the church reflected on enjoyment and rest, and another burdened by the pressure to be ‘the best outcome’ took time to organize thoughts on human finiteness and interdependence.

One college student realized that the life she truly desired was one of genuine connection—something she deeply yearned for, yet found incredibly difficult. So, after studying for two weeks, she presented an essay titled “How to Have Difficult Conversations” during tea time. It was so honest and insightful that it moved everyone present and gave us all a lot of food for thought. That night, she actually gathered the courage to have a difficult conversation with her loved ones, and the response was far more positive than she had hoped. Overwhelmed with gratitude, both she and her tutor could not stop crying and laughing for quite some time.

A prayer group of engineering students from Yonsei University visited L'Abri for the second time this year. Rather than just stopping at concern over the dangers of media, they analyzed it from a biblical perspective and even developed and presented an app designed to protect their community from media addiction. Following this, they brought dozens of questions and engaged in a lively discussion that we all lost track of time. I applaud their initiative and their support for one another.

When the workers are exhausted, God sometimes provides L’Abri with timely help through others. This summer, we were deeply encouraged and delighted by our long-term guests, whose exceptional consideration for another set a wonderful tone. I also sincerely thank Sungjun and Mira, Junghee and Sori, and Chaeun for their hard work as helpers. Their excellent food, warm hospitality, and constant care for the guests’ needs were deeply moving and gave us strength. I pray that God, who is always at work within us, giving us the desire and the strength to do what pleases him (Philippians 2:13), will remember all those who labored hard this summer, and be with them in an ever more intimate way.

Yet even if we lay our questions before the Lord and find answers from him, the journey that follows is by no means a bed of roses. Our Book Week on C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters made us acutely aware of the pitfalls Christians are so prone to falling into. The book is about a senior demon advising a junior demon on how to tempt humans. It was C.S. Lewis’s timeless insight, the cheerful and brilliant guidance of our group leader In-young Jung a.k.a. the Jolly Beggar (who flew all the way from Vietnam to be with us!), and the honesty and uniqueness of all 19 participants that together created a truly unforgettable memory. At every book meeting, there were guests examining their consciences, asking, “Is this about me?”

To taste the “disinterested” pleasures that the devil cannot invent, we actually tried the “tripe and onions” and cocoa mentioned in Letter XI. The visit from the couple Kim Jong-won and Lee Ji-hye was also meaningful; they blessed us with a soul-stirring violin performance at a mini concert and a lecture titled “Taste and Christianity,” inspired by Letter XVII. On our final night, we freely shared ideas that we wanted to digest and put into practice. There were teenage guests who calmly shared their reflections, someone who wrote an additional chapter of The Screwtape Letters, and another guest who performed gangster rap—a first in Korean L’Abri’s history!

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Sketches (?) of our guests from this summer term and Book Week. People started drawing faces on the board to help international guests memorize Korean names, and it has somehow turned into a cherished space to remember everyone who has passed through L'Abri.

What struck a chord with many people is the “generous conflict illusion” mentioned in Letter XXVI. For example, when someone suggests having tea, we think we are yielding for the other person (“I’m not really interested, but I’ll have it if you want”). However, if the other person also tries to yield to us, we actually get angry—our self-righteous pride is offended because we feel our sacrifice went unappreciated.

Lewis states that Satan’s strategy is to flatten love to a mere form, where we “surrender benefits not that others may be happy in having them but that he may be unselfish in forgoing them.” In essence, the focus is placed on our own unselfish self rather than the other person. Beneath this lies the philosophy of hell: the principles that “one self is not another self,” “[w]hat one gains another loses,” and that “‘[t]o be’ means ‘to be in competition.’” (Letter XVIII).

However, the law of God’s kingdom is entirely different. The principle that “[t]he good of one self is to be the good of another”—that is, the overflowing love of God—binds the world as one. Each person remains distinctly unique, yet we exist in a relationship of mutual dependence, service, and cooperation. Accepting Jesus as Lord, I think, is to abandon our unconscious habits of selfishness and the survival of the fittest. It is to live in union with Him, always fixing our gaze on the One who is the meaning and hope of life.

I am sharing the schedule for the following terms; please pray with us.

I would also like to ask for a few prayers:

I conclude this letter with thanks to Jesus, the Lord of the universe and of us all. “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:8–9). I pray that every moment and every sphere of our lives may become a doxology in itself.

With love,

Haejin

Translated by Ye-jin Ahn

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