Ms. Ruth Ehmann & Rev. Klaus Schmid in JLSS

Rev. Klaus Schmid accompanied by Ms. Ruth Ehmann arrived to JLSS on Friday 20 March 2009. Ms. Ehmann worked in JLSS from 1961 till 1963 and in Theodore Schneller School - Amman from 1972 till 1975. She is an old friend of JLSS and was delighted to visit after all those years. We were all delighted to meet her and learn from her about the early days of JLSS. She was responsible for the kitchen, bakery, and laundry which were then one unit. She told us about the very hard work that had to be done by everybody during that time. She remembered her difficulty learning the Arabic words for the food items and telling them to the driver who used to get the shopping from Zahle once a week. Three Arabic words were very difficult for her to say: THEEN (flour), TEEN (figs), THEENE (local food ingredient which is an extract from sesame seed). Many times when she thought she ordered THEEN (flour) for the bakery she ended up receiving loads of TEEN (figs), and they had to resort to the Arabic teacher the next day to translate the need to return the figs and bring the badly needed flour for the bakery. She requested Rev. Schmid to help her do two things in Lebanon in addition to visiting JLSS: she wanted to visit Beirut, and KHAWAJA Yousef and SIT Lydia Mourad. She was very disappointed in Beirut as she saw that the whole BORJ area (old downtown Beirut) where she used to do her shopping for the kitchen was gone. No more also was the shop of her old friend George next to the Lebanese parliament. Her visit to KHAWAJA Yousef and SIT Lydia was a delight. There were lots of hugs, tears, laughs, and smiles as the old memories and photos were exchanged.
Rev. Klaus Schmid, in addition to looking after Ms. Ehmann, used the opportunity to meet with the director and discuss various issues relating to JLSS. He also went around the different departments to see old friends and follow up on developments in our school. He had to fly to Germany on Tuesday 24 March in order to be back in Germany for the board meeting.
Ms. Ehmann returned to Germany on Friday 27 March after donating a generous grant of 500 Euro towards buying equipment for the Girls Vocational Center which is now in the building where she worked and lived when she was in JLSS.
We sincerely thank Ms. Ehmann and Rev. Schmid for their wonderful visit, and we especially thank Ms. Ehmann for her love of our school, kind generosity, and support.