The Danish Missionaries on Mission Since 1880’s
You can find an article by Mrs. Seta Hadeshian, the Associate Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches, in which she talked about the contribution of the Danish Church in restoring life to the “Birds’ Nest” orphanage, which is located in the Lebanese region of Byblos. She also highlighted the most important historical stages that led to its founding and how it was established, as Mrs. Maria Jacobsen worked to manage and develop it in cooperation with the "Near East Relief" organization.
The Near East Relief
The Near East Foundation is a charitable organization, formerly known as the Near East Relief, it was established in 1915 as a result to the atrocities committed against the Armenians and other minority groups in the Ottoman Empire during WWI. The Ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s request for immediate assistance speeded up the process. As the atrocities against the Armenians escalated, The Near East Relief launched a series of fund raising and public awareness campaigns to shed light on the plight of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and to collect funds for relief efforts in the Near East.
From 1915—1930 Near East Relief field workers came to the aid of thousands of refugees by distributing food and clothing, by building orphanages and vocational schools, establishing clinics, hospitals and food distribution centers throughout the Near East.
The Near East relief was instrumental in relocating and sheltering an estimated 132,000 orphans scattered across the region from Tbilisi to Yerevan, Constantinople, Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem. Between the years 1920—1925, the NER had established nineteen orphanages across Lebanon, housing close to 12,000 orphans from Cilicia.
As WWI came to an end and the atrocities died down in 1930, the Near East Relief changed its name to Near East Foundation to signify a shift in the organization’s focus from providing immediate relief to developing long term social, educational, and economic programs for areas of the Middle East, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. Currently housed within Syracuse University in upstate New York, the NEF continues the work of international development in collaboration with the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, the Whitman School of Management, and the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC).
Maria, “Mamma,” Jacobsen (1882—1960)
The history of the Bird’s Nest orphanage is closely intertwined with the history of Maria Jacobsen and her humanitarian work first in Harpoot (Kharpert) and later in Jbeil (Byblos), Lebanon.
Born in 1883 in the small town of Siim, Denmark, Jacobsen was trained earlier for the kind of humanitarian and missionary work that was to characterize the rest of her life. In 1906, after graduating from nursing school, Jacobsen joined the Danish branch of The Women’s Missionary Workers (K.M.A. ; Danish: Kvindelige Missions Arbejdere), which supported Armenian orphans in German orphanages in Mush, Van, Marash and Harpoot (Kharpert), and became a member of K.M.A’s Armenian committee. In Harpoot Jacobsen joined the staff of the American mission and hospital already established by American missionaries. As the atrocities against the Armenians escalated, Jacobsen set herself the task of sheltering and feeding the many orphans who would have surely perished had she not either adopted them or hid them away from the Turkish authorities. In addition to this arduous task, she was also faced with the challenge of running the hospital singlehandedly when the American missionaries left the region after the U.S. entered the war in 1917. By the end of the war, Jacobsen had already taken 3,600 orphans under her wing. In 1919 the Near East Relief took over the care of the orphans, and Jacobsen, now sick with Typhoid, returned to Denmark to recuperate.
After a fund raising stint in the United States, Jacobsen, now prohibited from returning to Turkey, relocated to Beirut, Lebanon where a large number of orphans had already been transferred by the Near East Relief. The orphans Jacobsen was in charge were at first housed in Zouk Michail, but water shortage and other issues forced Jacobsen to find a better home for the children. In 1923, the entire household—children and staff—moved to the house of a Druze prince in Sidon. In 1928 the K.M.A. purchased the orphanage established in 1920 by the Near East Relief in Jbeil (Byblos), giving Maria Jacobsen and her “children” a permanent home.
Jacobsen named the newly acquired orphanage the Birds’ Nest, a home for orphans who, as she explains in her diary, looked like “newly hatched birds,” following her around and chirping “mamma, mamma.” Jacobson died in 1960 and is buried in the courtyard of the orphanage. An English translation of Jacobsen’s experiences in Harpoot, recorded in her diaries, —Maria Jacobsen, Diaries of a Danish Missionary: Harpoot, 1907—1919— was published in 2001 by Gomidas Books.
The Birds’ Nest Orphanage
The Birds’ Nest orphanage was part of a larger network of nineteen orphanages established by the Near East Relief in Lebanon in the early 1920s. Collectively, the orphanages housed close to 12,000 children, 1,200 of whom were initially accommodated at what later became the Birds’ Nest. The number of orphans a the Birds’ Nest, however, rose sharply as the second wave of massacres by Kemalist Nationalists (1920-1923) swept across Cilician Armenia and more orphans were brought to Jbeil (Byblos).
The influx of an increasing number of orphans necessitated the construction of new facilities--dormitories, classrooms, kitchens, libraries, and playgrounds --most of which were built with the help of the orphans themselves. One day a week each class was assigned domestic chores: they worked in the kitchen, the laundry, chopped wood, served in the canteen and mended or sewed clothes. The rest of the week was devoted to school work. Apart from technical or trade related training, most of the children at the orphanage received an elementary and high school education. They learned Armenian, Arabic, French, English, mathematics, science, and literature. They formed theater groups and athletic teams, and published two literary journals, Hosank (Current) and Doun (Home). The school band became so famous that it was often invited to play during national and formal events, as when foreign dignitaries visited the area. Many of the orphans became leading figures in the Armenian contemporary history.
In 1925 when the Near East Relief left the region, the orphanage was shut down and the orphans dispersed. The orphanage was reopened in 1928 when the Danish branch of the Women’s Missionary Workers (KMA: Kvindelige Missions Arbejdere), bought it and installed Maria Jacobsen as its director. Jacobsen and her staff ran the orphanage, now renamed the Birds’ Nest, until Jacobsen’s death in 1960. For ten years thereafter, the orphanage was managed by a succession of directors and supervisors: Maria’s sister, Anna Jacobsen, Magda Sorensen, and Oluf Paaske.
In 1970 following a series of negotiations between Christine Vinde, the chairwoman of the KMA and H.H. Khoren I, the Birds’ Nest came under the jurisdiction of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia with Bishop Nerses Pakhdigian as its director. Since then the function of the Birds’ Nest has changed. Rather than exclusively sheltering orphans, the orphanage now also provides a safe haven for children from impoverished and broken homes as well as for those with special needs.
The mission of the Birds’ Nest has always been to serve the destitute and the needy. We hope to continue this mission in the future with the help of the community.