Greeting to the Alumni Get-together  2008 in Niagara Falls

Dear Schneller Alumni,
Warm greetings to you all from your alma mater on the occasion of your yearly get-together in Niagara Falls.
I am glad to report to you that Johann Ludwig Schneller School is heading to the future with confidence and great hope. Thanks to the wonderful leadership of the National Evangelical Church in Beirut, Rev. Dr. Habib Badr, and our board of managers; and thanks to our German partners (EVS and EMS), Swiss partners (Schweizer Verein), and other partners, alumni, and friends, we continue to meet the challenges that confront us, develop our programs, and improve our facilities, in order to provide the best possible care, education, and vocational training to our children.
This is a special year for us, as we are delighted with the recent election of Dr. Baseel Rishmawi to the EVS board in Germany. This is an occasion to further develop the relationship between the Schneller alumni and the EVS board. We are also delighted with the great success of EVS in the establishment of the new foundation: Education for Peace.
As we prepare for the 150th anniversary of Schneller in 2010,  I am happy to announce that we decided to add a new page to our website under the title: Alumni Memoirs. We want this page to be a memory bank of interesting stories, pictures, and information about Schneller Schools in Jerusalem, Khirbet Kanafar, and Amman.
So much was lost because people did not put pen to paper to enable memories to conquer time and become everlasting public knowledge to posterity. We want your emails to enrich our website, in order to transform it to a living record of the wonderful work that was started by Johann Ludwig Schneller almost 150 years ago.
We look forward to contributions from everyone, not only alumni. We welcome contributions from people who dedicated many years of their lives serving in Schneller schools, or those who have first-hand knowledge of the important junctures of their history. We especially urge the Jerusalem alumni to contribute their stories, whether those stories are sad like the last days in Jerusalem, or happy from better days. Relatives of Jerusalem alumni who have written documents of such memories are also encouraged to contribute.
The first years of Schneller schools in Khirbet Kanafar and Amman are also of great interest, and we hope to receive contributions about them too.
If your life was touched or greatly influenced by a person who served in Schneller schools and you want to recognize his/her wonderful work, you can also write to us about him/her.
As you write please remember that this will be a public record about Schneller schools so we urge you to be brief and accurate.
Please spread the word about this new page on our website and help us get contributions. It is our hope that this idea will slowly grow into a very interesting record for all to enjoy. We can all be co-authors of a nice history of our beloved schools that will be preserved to future generations.
When Schneller alumni talk about the wonderful Schneller tradition, many people ask: what is this tradition? It is our hope that this new page on our website will be a living record of our Schneller identity and pride.
Those who have old pictures can either send them as email attachments, or send us copies by mail to our address: Johann Ludwig Schneller School, Khirbet Kanafar, West Bikaa, Lebanon.
We welcome contributions in English, German or Arabic.
Please send your contributions to our email:

Finally, I would like to emphasize that we are looking forward to the time when you will hold your yearly get-together in our guest house here in Khirbet Kanafar. Whether you decide to come next year or you rather wait to have it coincide with the 150th anniversary in 2010 in order to be part of our celebrations, we will always be delighted to have you with us.
We thank you for your wonderful support, and we wish you a very pleasant get-together. May God bless your meetings with fruitfulness and success.  
Sincerely,
Rev. George D. Haddad.
Khirbet Kanafar 11 June 2008