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:
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)