110804-0013 - Sendai Christian Orphanage

Japanese elementary school students studying arithmetics in a classroom at Sendai Christian Orphanage (仙台基督教育児院) in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. The orphanage was set up in response to the famine of 1905 (Meiji 38).

The Methodist Episcopal missionary Frances E. Phelps, an American from Des Moines who arrived in Japan in 1889 (Meiji 22), initially assisted 7 abandoned children who were starving, one of them a little boy found in the snow at her home. Thanks to many donations from within Japan and abroad, an orphanage with initially about 270 children was started on February 27, 1906 (Meiji 39).

The organization still exists today (社会福祉法人仙台キリスト教育児院).