Support Elizabeth Facouseh & St. Nicholas Home for the Aged

I am the Rev. Dr. Martin Otto-Zimmann, former ELCA missionary from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and academic advisor to three pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. I am passionate about peace with justice for the Palestinian people. The combination of the pandemic and the War in Gaza has decimated the local economy in the greater Bethlehem area. I need your help to fund a special project for a family that is dear to me.

Here is Elizabeth's story in the words of her nephew, Joudeh:

Elizabeth Facouseh studied to be a nurse; she started working in a hospital in Jerusalem. She had to get married, and her whole life changed, her husband made her quit he job, and work with him in a touristic souvenir shop. She didn't bear children because her husband had fertility problems. She lived and worked all her life with him to discover after the death of her husband that he left her with nothing, even the house they built together. she lived alone for more than 10 years and then she had to go to a place where she receives proper medical care.

Saint Nicholas Home

A charitable society for the elderly, Saint Nicholas is a civil local non-profit NGO established in 1976 in Bethlehem. The space holds a social decent life for the elders, there are two buildings and a small garden, while the home serve around 50 residents.

The elderly house is in a process of expansion, they bought an adjacent piece of land and should be starting to build on it, a new building, three floors, that include a parking and a laundry, a reception and therapists rooms, clinic and a kitchen, and sleeping rooms on the third.

The fundraising will go to the elderly house as a donation, to support their work and development, In exchange, the home will host Elizabeth for free for the rest of her life.