The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hope in Ramallah was founded in 1954. Graduates of the Schneller Lutheran School and of the Lutheran School of Talitha Kumi who resided in Ramallah requested that a Lutheran church be established there. Also living in Ramallah were Lutherans who had taken refuge there after the war in 1948-49. Thirty-eight families were charter members of the congregation. The sp
ecific request for a Lutheran church in Ramallah was made of the heads of the church in Jerusalem. Daoud Haddad, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem (later to become the first Bishop of the ELCJHL), came for two years to conduct worship services on Sunday afternoons. These services were held first in the Ramallah Quaker meeting house, and then in St. Bassem Nijim was called to serve the new Lutheran congregation in 1956, a house was rented to be a center for religious services and parish activities. The congregation was already raising money to build a new church building and a parsonage. The hope for a Lutheran school was also primary in the minds of the people.
