July 2014 saw the Germanna Foundation celebrate the 300th Jubilee of the first Germanna colonists coming to Virginia.
See the 2014 Germanna Conference/Reunion Brochure.
Can you imagine the courage of those men and women and what fortitude it must have taken to leave their safe and familiar world to become strangers in a strange land?
It must have taken a great leap of faith for those brave souls to step onto the gangplanks of those old wooden ships and then to watch the shores of Europe recede over the horizon, treasuring their last glimpse of home for a lifetime. Surely they were comforted by the Old Testament imagery of being led by God to a promised land.
I wonder if the little German settlements on the frontier had a special memorial service on the Fiftieth Anniversary, their first Jubilee, of landing in America.
Leviticus 25:10 would have given them a model: “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
The colonists’ deeds of daring and sacrifice need to be retold to the world as we move toward our sixth-fold Jubilee, a homecoming of sorts for those descendants who have lived in freedom for 300 years in America.
Help us with the means to do this. Your ideas, volunteer hours, and financial support help the Foundation to gather and channel all our work together for this momentous project.
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