Why a new name?
On February 1, 1988, the association "Gefährdetenhilfe e. V." is founded at its first general meeting. Shortly afterwards, it is entered in the register of associations. A short time later, the name was changed to its current form "Gefährdetenhilfe Bad Eilsen e. V.". At the time, the founding of the association was part of a movement in which many different help organizations for the vulnerable were founded. Some decided to choose their location as an addition to the name "Gefährdetenhilfe" (e.g. Gefährdetenhilfe Scheideweg), others opted for a name affix that would further describe the work (e.g. Gefährdetenhilfe Kurswechsel). What they all had in common, however, was the name "Gefährdetenhilfe". And in the years that followed, this name developed into a brand, a description that made it clear what was behind it: family living communities, strong living communities, life changes, the Bible and God, hard work and intensive times of leisure together. The name Gefährdetenhilfe stands for all of this. In the meantime, hundreds of people have gone through the residential communities and have experienced profound changes. Gefährdetenhilfe has left its mark.
As much as we and our friends have become accustomed to this name, we have realized in recent years that a change is necessary. And there are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the regional name "Bad Eilsen" no longer fits. In Germany, we are still represented in Leopoldshöhe (Helpup) and Blomberg. Abroad, we have residential communities in Ukraine, Russia and Georgia. If the official name "only" refers to Bad Eilsen, this no longer reflects what we actually are. Secondly, the name "Gefährdetenhilfe" is a long and complicated word. As I just mentioned, we are active abroad. You can imagine that our friends abroad don't exactly find it easy to pronounce this unwieldy word. In order to continue our international activities, we need a name that can also be pronounced by foreign speakers.
So we set out to look for a new name. It was important to us to find a name that would both reflect our mission and be concise and memorable. The result is the name "ZESO Life e. V.". How did we come up with it? When we read the words of Jesus in Luke 19:10, we realized that this verse conveys exactly what we want to say: "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." Seek and save. This is what our work should reflect. "Seeking" means consciously reaching out to people on the margins of society, pursuing them and offering the possibility of genuine friendship. Just as Jesus did. "Rescue" includes the idea of pointing the way out of hopeless situations by looking to Jesus Christ. The New Testament was originally written in ancient Greek. The term for "seek" is translated as "zeteo", "save" as "sozo". The resulting acronym is "ZESO". The addition of "life" is intended to show that "seek" and "save" lead to real life. And that is what we want to express with our new name: Search - Rescue - Life.
We hope that you like the name and that it soon develops the same appeal as the name "Gefährdetenhilfe Bad Eilsen e. V." did.
Best regards
The staff of ZESO Life e. V.