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Since its founding in 1841, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Beit Jala has cared for those in greatest need in the surrounding community with kindness, boldness, and love. In the early 1950s, the congregation of approximately 500 persons became aware of the large number of at-risk children in the area (children without parents, from broken families, or in extreme poverty) and began exploring the possibility of opening a home for boys on the church premises. Johannes Ludwig Schneller, a German missionary to Palestine, born in 1820 in Ertsingen, Germany, had founded a number of orphanages and homes for at-risk children in the late nineteenth century (beginning with the Syrian Orphanage).
Schneller's example inspired the congregation to open the Evangelical Lutheran Home for Boys in 1956 in an unused older building on the church grounds. Soon the Home for Boys was caring for sixty boys from Beit Jala and surrounding communities with a small staff and the support of the congregation. Mr. Charlie Azar was the home’s first director.
Word of the high quality of care available at the Evangelical Lutheran Home for Boys spread quickly; soon at-risk boys from all over Palestine came to find their home there. In 1987, a new building was constructed in place of the existing one, and the home became more able to serve its students in a more comfortable and spacious atmosphere. The home has continuously been caring for at-risk boys since its opening in 1956. Prior to the first Intifada in 1987 and the subsequent closures imposed on Palestinian communities by the Israeli military, a number of students from Gaza also lived at the Home.
This information was summarized from the book Memories and Historical Events by Bishop Daoud S. Haddad (p. 374).
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Rev. Jadallah Shihadeh, Director
Evangelical Lutheran Boys Home
P.O.Box 24
Beit Jala, Palestine
via Israel
Telephone: +972-(0)2-274-6931
Fax: +972-(0)2-274-4966
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