History
The foundation traces its roots to 1754 when two tailors were sent to Suriname as unsupported missionaries. To earn a living they practiced their craft, using their free time for their missionary work.
The business activities of C. Kersten & Co prospered and became one of Surinam's largest commercial enterprises, generating employment and profits.
The profits were used to establish other Moravian Church businesses in the Caribbean and Europe. All the businesses were eventually transferred to the Moravian Church Foundation and are now used to finance church work and social and community projects on several continents.
Read more about this topic: Moravian Church Foundation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)