VOICES IN THE DESERT
Pierre Durand stood casually leaning against the doorpost of his small home watching his children playing in the snow. They will need to come indoors soon or they will catch a cold he thought absently to himself, smiling as they launched snowballs at each other, ducking and squealing all at once. He heard soft footsteps behind him and tilted his head around just a fraction as his wife came to stand beside him.
“They will need to come in soon,” she said softly echoing his thoughts.
“Yes,” Pierre agreed.
There was a long, heavy pause before his wife spoke. “What will you do Pierre?” she asked gently.
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you remember that night Anne?” he finally asked turning to look her squarely in the eyes. She nodded meeting his gaze unflinchingly.
“I remember,” she said quietly.
Pierre’s mind melted away from the present which was punctuated with the excited shrieks of his children and tumbled back through time to take hold of a different scene, punctuated by equally loud shrieks. But unlike those of his children, the shrieks from his past were filled with terror. A palpable, visceral terror that had permeated the entire room. He had been 19 and officiating a secret Huguenot worship service when the soldiers had broken the door down and entered the house.
Every Huguenot family had a fully rehearsed emergency plan for such eventualities. The Durand emergency plan was thoroughly ingrained in Pierre’s mind and had spurred him to action in the panic that ensued. He had stumbled out into the cold night, running as though his life depended on it, and it had.
It was only later, when he had paused for rest, that he had thought about his family. When the panic had faded into a low distant thrum of fear, he had begun to wonder what had happened to his parents and his sister. He had hidden in the forest that night and then made his way home at daybreak only to find soldiers occupying the small dwelling. It was in that moment that he decided to leave. There was no place for him here in France. France did not want the gospel. France did not want men like him. He would be hunted like an animal, hunted and killed and for what? His thoughts had come fast and thick and irrational.
He crossed the Rhone that night and made his way to the home of Jacques Roger, a well known Huguenot pastor. He would need letters of recommendation to get settled comfortably in Geneva.
