Liebenzell USA was started in 1941, but its foundation was built decades earlier at the close of the 19th century.
Liebenzell Mission International was founded in 1899 by German Pastor Heinrich Coerper at the request of then well-known British missionary pioneer James Hudson Taylor, who wanted to start a branch of his China Inland Mission in Germany.
After Taylor’s death in 1905, Liebenzell continued as an affiliate of the China Inland Mission and eventually became an independent German mission agency.
As Liebenzell grew, it expanded into the islands of the Asia Pacific and other nations.
It began developing in America in 1939, when a married missionary couple from Germany, Henry D. and Anna R. Zimmerman, were visiting missionary friends in New Jersey. For two years, they had attempted to make their way back to their original mission field in China and to Germany where their daughters were going to school. They were delayed several times when they got word that Japan was at war with China, and ultimately, they could not go back to war-torn Europe.
But their work had to go on. When they realized this, they prayed for two weeks for the mountain-top land with a main house that had been part of the premises of large getaway hotels in the vicinity. With $50 in his pocket, Zimmerman purchased the down payment for what became their new Mission House on Schooley’s Mountain, incorporated in December of 1941 – “Mission Home Eben-Ezer.” The dedication for the mission home took place on July 19, 1942.
To make it up the mountain, they needed a car. The first vehicle for the new mission was a used 1932 Model Ford Automobile gifted by friends from Newark, New Jersey.
When World War II ended, detrimental to Germany, German missionaries needed a refuge. Schooley’s Mountain was that safe haven. German missionary families stayed in the Emmaus Farm House, and all of their children who attended high school here graduated on the honor roll.
Throughout the 1940s, they raised funds to continue evangelism to unreached areas and continue the legacy of the mission, expanded the Schooley’s Mountain property for missionaries, training, and guest services, and developed their focus on humanitarian aid, education, evangelism, and discipleship locally and globally.
Since then, Liebenzell USA has gone from New Jersey to the nations, sending humanitarian aid and medicine to our community and countries in need, providing education by building schools and teaching life skills to people in vulnerable villages, evangelizing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and discipling and encouraging others to spread the Good News of the Bible.
Today, Liebenzell USA supports more than 70 missionaries in over 13 countries around the world.
Because of the groundwork our faithful founders laid down – following the prayerful plans led by God – Liebenzell USA continues to offer a beautiful and historic retreat center to church groups, schools, and the public for rest and respite. Three of Liebenzell USA’s guest houses are on the National and State Registers of Historic Places.
