Pastor Ernst J. Christoffel, born in 1876 in Rheydt/Rhineland, Germany, was CBM’s founder and director for many years. Ernst Christoffel laid the foundations for CBM as a modern organisation working together with Partners to serve persons with disabilities.In 1908, Christoffel set out for Turkey and founded a home in Malatia for blind and otherwise disabled and orphaned children, with the support of only a handful of friends. The mission societies to which he had applied before saw no commission for helping the blind in the Orient.
