Sabine Ball

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Sabine Ball (born September 9, 1925 in Königsberg i. Pr .; † July 7, 2009 in Dresden ) was a German evangelist and operator of social projects .

Life

Grave of Sabine Ball in the St. Pauli cemetery

Sabine Ball was born as Sabine Koritke in 1925 in Königsberg in East Prussia . In the Second World War , after she had come from Königsberg at the age of 15, she came to Dresden and in February 1945 witnessed the bombing of the city . The family then moved to Düsseldorf , where their father found work with a forwarding company.

She left Germany at the age of 24 and went to live with her aunt in the United States . She found a job as a housemaid, attended evening classes at hotel management school, and then became the manager of the Quarterdeck Yacht Club in Miami Beach . Here she met Clifford Ball, the son of a multimillionaire, and married him. As a millionaire, she lived in Miami , Santa Barbara , Istanbul , Karachi , San Francisco and New York .

After ten years of wealth, the marriage was divorced because of her husband's alcohol problems, among other things, and Sabine Ball moved to California with her two sons . Here she initially sought a connection to the art scene and in 1968 bought a piece of land that she called The Land and on which she invited hippies and drug addicts to live with her. Her goal was to get her off drugs . She traveled to India to learn Buddhism , but soon returned to California.

In the course of the Jesus movement , Sabine Ball became a believing Christian in 1971 and renamed her project The Lord's Land . For many years she was there charitable for young people and at the same time evangelistic among the young people.

After the fall of the Wall , she donated the rest of her fortune to charitable causes and returned to Germany. In a missionary assignment in the still existing GDR , she decided to stay there. In 1992 she came to Dresden-Neustadt . She recognized the plight of the children and adolescents in the time of reunification, some of whom lived on the streets, and in 1993 built a former liquor store with the metabolism e. V. opened a point of contact for children, teenagers and young people with a café (the Café Metabolism ), a second-hand shop and two houses for assisted living.

On November 5, 2005, Sabine Ball handed over the management of stoffwechsel e. V. to co-founder Ralf Knauthe after more than twelve years. The association has 20 full-time and around 60 volunteer employees and reaches around 250 to 280 children and young people in the Dresden districts of Äußere Neustadt, Pieschen, Cotta and Gorbitz every week via various meeting points, creative workshops, a school club and a mobile children's program . The work of metabolism e. V. has since been shown in documentaries by ARD and ZDF , among others .

Sabine Ball died on the morning of July 7th, 2009 in her apartment in Dresden-Neustadt. She had suffered a heart attack and could not be resuscitated by the doctors called. She was buried in the St. Pauli cemetery .

Honors

In 1996, at the suggestion of the Saxon Prime Minister Kurt Biedenkopf , she was offered the Federal Cross of Merit, which she refused because, in her opinion, “only God deserves the merit” and “the children and young people of Neustadt did not understand this award” and she did her work so could have hurt.

In 2000 Sabine Ball received the sponsorship award from the Plansecur Foundation Von Herz zugeigt , which is awarded annually to people for their exceptional social commitment.

In 2003, the former Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker donated the money from the Erich Kästner Prize to the project, which made it possible to set up a new children's and youth center in Dresden-Pieschen .

In 2008, Sabine Ball was selected as one of the six ambassadors for the nationwide poster campaign Alter Creates News by the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth .

On October 5, 2011, the Free Christian School in Darmstadt was given the supplementary name Sabine Ball School . In October 2012 the students of the school performed the premiere of a Sabine Ball musical. This was created in collaboration with the musician Norbert Binder.

Another musical about her life premiered on November 17, 2018 in the Lausitzhalle Hoyerswerda . The author was again Norbert Binder.

In addition, an independent Christian primary school in Berlin-Hellersdorf bears the name Sabine-Ball-Grundschule .

Sabine Ball Foundation

To continue her work, Sabine Ball set up the Sabine Ball Foundation, whose aim is to support socially disadvantaged children and young people.

Quotes

  • She is Mother Teresa of Dresden. ( Herbert Wagner , long-time Lord Mayor of Dresden)
  • An extraordinary woman! I was impressed by your charisma, your optimism and your firm belief. This apparent descent ... is the ascent from a world of appearances into the world of being. ( Christine Weber , former Minister of State for Social Affairs in the Dresden State Chancellery)
  • My best wishes go to the metabolism association in Dresden, the founder Sabine Ball and the exemplary employees. We learn anew from them with gratitude that hopelessness must have no place in the lives of children and young people. (Richard von Weizsäcker)
  • War refugee, millionaire's wife, hippie farm woman, street child grandma - the common thread of her adventurous life is: God's love in a human soul. ( Andreas Malessa , SWR television)

literature

  • Steffen Kern : More than millions. Sabine Ball. Millionaire - Hippie - Mother Teresa of Dresden. Brunnen-Verlag, Giessen 2002, 10th edition 2006, ISBN 3-7655-1812-3 .
  • Roland Werner : Worth more than millions. Sabine Ball, café metabolism and God's found children. Brunnen-Verlag, Giessen 2005, ISBN 3-7655-1897-2 .
  • Martin Schmiedel: Sabine Ball. Encounters and memories. Brunnen Verlag, Giessen 2009, ISBN 978-3-7655-1730-3 .
media
  • Norbert Binder: From millionaire to dishwasher. The adventurous life of Sabine Ball. A radio play. cap! -music, Altensteig 2004, ISBN 3-935699-89-1 , audio CD (speakers: Sabine Ball, Linda Bröker and others)
  • Konrad Schmid (director): Sabine Ball - longing for life. Hänssler-Verlag, 2012, EAN 4010276401988, DVD (main actor: Ralf Knauthe).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sächsische Zeitung Online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.sz-online.de  
  2. ^ Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, accessed on May 29, 2012 ( Memento from January 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Notice on the school website, accessed October 7, 2011
  4. ↑ Remembering a Christian life. echo-online.de, accessed on November 19, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Crazy life on stage . In: Saxon newspaper . November 19, 2018 ( online [accessed November 21, 2018]).
  6. ^ Sabine Ball Elementary School Hellersdorf. (No longer available online.) Www.christburg-campus.de, archived from the original on December 23, 2014 ; accessed on November 15, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.christburg-campus.de
personal data
SURNAME Ball, Sabine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German evangelist and operator of social projects
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Königsberg (Prussia)
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 2009
Place of death Dresden