Physical description

A memoir of 573 pages including photographs.

Publication type

non-fiction

Summary

This book is the memoir of Dr Brian Neldner who dedicated over 40 years of his life supporting refugees around the world through his service with the Lutheran World Service.

After World War II, a mass exodus of refugees from war torn Europe occurred, resulting in the arrival of more than 300,000 people to Bonegilla Migrant Centre near Wodonga, Victoria over a 20 year period.
In 1947, many of the migrants arriving at the Bonegilla Migrant Centre were Lutherans, so the Lutheran pastor in Albury, Rev Dr Bruno Muetzelfeld started visiting the Centre which at times housed more than 1,000 Lutherans. He soon became the full-time Chaplain.
In 1950, the newly-formed Lutheran World Federation decided a base was needed in Australia to help with the resettlement of refugees, and the Lutheran Church’s aid agency was born – Lutheran World Service-Australia with its first headquarters in Albury.

In 1955, Brian Neldner joined the team as a case-work assistant and for the first 5 years of his work lived at Bonegilla in the same basic conditions as the newly arrived people he supported.
This was the beginning of an amazing life of four decades of service to refugees throughout the world. In 1960 he became the head of Lutheran World Service – Australia (LWS-A) In 1964, Dr Neldner moved to Tanzania to head up the new LWS program. The next 40 years of his life included working to assist refugees in places such as Mauritania, India, Ethiopia, the Middle East and making a major contribution to international cooperation regarding support for refugees including the Steering Committee for the Humanitarian Response for the United Nations in Geneva.