An old book from an old box in Pennsylvania is breathing new life into a Christian hospital in Israel by sitting on a shelf in Ohio.

Robert and Nancy Martin went to Israel in 1965 to serve Nazareth Hospital and the surrounding predominantly Arab community. Through Mennonite Board of Missions (now Mennonite Mission Network), they served 18 years across three terms through 1995 at the hospital and Nazareth Academic School of Nursing, as detailed in the 2020 book Together in Galilee (Masthof Press).

The couple gave significant leadership, with Robert Martin serving as the hospital’s medical director from 1987 to 1995, while Nancy Martin oversaw the nursing school and ensured the school’s long-term viability by gaining accreditation with the Israeli government.

After her death in 2019, Nazareth Project Inc. established The Nancy Martin Memorial Scholarship Fund to support lower-income ­nursing stu­dents with $500 to $1,000 ­scholarships.

Robert Martin was going through a box of family heirlooms last year when he discovered an old hymnal — an Ausbund — that had been passed down in his family. The Ausbund is the oldest Anabaptist hymnal, still in use by Amish today.

He knew his copy was old, and he knew it was rare. But he did not know how old or how rare.

Martin sought advice from Mennonite Life (formerly Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society) and Muddy Creek Farm Library in Lancaster County, who determined his fourth edition dates to around 1650 and is quite rare due to the persecutions of the time. Only a handful of this edition are known to exist.

He felt the best thing to do with such a unique piece of history would be to sell it to an Anabaptist institution for preservation and send the proceeds to Nazareth Project to enrich Nancy’s scholarship fund.

Their passion was for the people in Nazareth, and he reasoned there was no greater honor than to use a piece of his family’s story to help other families in Galilee.

Nazareth Project supports the hospital and nursing school from its base in Lancaster, Pa. Project director Howard Good made a connection with the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Ohio. The center’s collection of historic Anabaptist books is considered by many to be second in size only to Muddy Creek’s. In 2015 the center built a special facility that includes a climate-controled, UV-resistant vault.

Martin and his new bride, Midge Crystle, were married in December. She volunteered as a nursing instructor at the hospital in 1993 and 1995, served as Nazareth Project’s executive director for 12 years and now sits on its board. They visited Ohio Jan. 13-14 with Good and Naz­areth Project staff member Kevin Bradford to exchange the Ausbund for a $12,000 contribution, $10,000 of which was designated for the scholarship fund.

Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center director Marcus Yoder and archivist Adam Hershberger concluded this particular Ausbund is Category 16, Edition 2, making it a valuable addition to the collection.