Bethlehem, New Zealand

The town of Bethlehem in New Zealand, formerly independent, today a suburb ( German: suburban ) of the city of Tauranga represents the suburb is dominated by a large, modern, out blank on discerning shopping center, through a preferred of the middle and upper social class residential area and through numerous demanding educational institutions.

Became known the place all over the world but especially by the return of Christmas mail with the postmark of Bethlehem for the annual Christmas season.

Geography

The suburb is located about 5 km west of the city of Tauranga and is connected directly to the State Highway 2, which separates the residential area of ​​the mall.

Population

Bethlehem is now divided administratively in Bethlehem and Bethlehem East. The two censuses of 2001 and 2006 show the extreme growth of the church from 1996. Were living in the two districts, in 1996 1,428 and 474 inhabitants, were there in 2001 in Bethlehem 1773 inhabitants and with an increase of 371.5 % in Bethlehem East has 2,235 inhabitants. The population figures should be up to 2006 by 41.5 % and 38.3% rise again to 2,517 or 3,090 inhabitants.

Lived in Bethlehem East in 2001 for one share of 94.9 % Europeans, 4.2% Māori and 4.1% Asians, the proportion of Europeans moved in just 5 years to 78.6 % in favor of other ethnic groups, were able to record a share of now 16.6% ( 0.3 % in 2001) of its own. The proportions of Māori and Asians in the period were doing approximately the same. The increase of 5,533 % people of other ethnic backgrounds can be

History

Naming

The history of the former Bethlehem village dates back to the early 1840s. Roman Catholic missionaries came to the area around Tauranga and missionary work successfully on all local Māori tribes. The Māori were very devout and named under the influence of missionaries individual iwi ( tribes ) their Pā (villages ) around and gave them biblical names. Thus arose Bethlehem, Canaan, Judea and Ephraim. The latter exists today also and is a suburb of Tauranga.

Proven mentioned in writing to the town of Bethlehem was founded in 1846 in the records of the Bishop Viard, who visited in the year Tauranga and on February 21, 1846 the following noted: " I go to bless the chapel at Bethlehem " ( German: I go to the Chapel to bless in Bethlehem. ). He did this after Māori had secured a damaged boat and returned to Pākehā. At his ceremony, the Māori progressed. He therefore wrote further: "Excellent tribe, who are willing to support the priest who taken care of Their souls" ( German: Excellent tribe, who are willing to support the priest, who takes care of their souls. ).

His records show the influence of the church at this time in this region on the Māori already had and that they had become very Christian. The town of Bethlehem was called by the Māori in their translation Peterehema.

Bethlehem School

The first school in the area around Bethlehem was the Te Wairoa School, founded in 1883, which was later renamed in Paeroa Native School and in 1940 was named Bethlehem School. The school was once located between the villages and Wairoa Wairoa River at Bethlehem and was located in an old disused sawmill. Born in Liverpool, New South Wales 1842 John William Duffus, who was interested in the care and education for Māori, her first teacher. The school, which was requested by the chief of the Ngāti Kahu Māori and Ngāti Hangarau Hapu then for some time, became the flagship piece of Education for Māori.

Was made possible by the school's foundation in 1867 adopted Native School Act, which introduced a national government- controlled school system for Primary Schools for Māori. Despite the lack of compulsory education in 1879 already 57 Native Schools were founded, mostly in the north and east of the North Island.

Bethlehem postmark

In the run up to Christmas each year is a small paper and office supply store in Bethlehem Schopping Center official to the Christmas post office in Bethlehem, gets some official stamp of the New Zealand Post, committed some volunteers and are thousands of postcards and letters that have been sent to Bethlehem in New Zealand a Bethlehem postmark and send them back again. The cards and letters from all over the world, including Germany. Even from New Zealand come people come all the way to the coveted stamp to get for Christmas. Mostly people come with up to a hundred cards and letters in order to have them stamped. And there is no postage meter that could perform this work. All cards and letters are still hand stamped. 2008 should have been about 15,000 shipments were handled, and the trend is upward, as the same amount in 2009 was already reached on 17 December.

1987 was still Ilma Shergold in the local post office and brought the special stamp on. She had done the year already for the twentieth time this particular service. However, with increasing popularity wanted to post this expensive service no longer accept and today only her stamp are available, and transports the postcards and letters at no additional cost once in both directions, once New Zealand and back.

Educational institutions

There is a campus in Bethlehem Christian educational institutions, all of which are led by the Christian Education Trust. The Trust was established in 1986 to provide high quality education with a Christian background for students of all ages. The school system was started with the Bethlehem College in 1988. It followed the 1989 Bethlehem College Kindergarten, 1992, the International School Bethlehem, Bethlehem Tertiary Institute in 1993 and in 2004 the establishment of First Class Education and Care

Local development

The development of a place according to Western notions seems to have only used quite late. Narrated is that only in the 1930s, the first shop was opened in the town, which suggests that the settlement has been long dominated by Māori. Also in 1956 a town hall was built. The place itself was dominated by the farm economy. Exotic crops, tobacco and later Kiwis were grown.

Bethlehem Town Centre

On 20 October 2007, the first section of the outdoor shopping center was opened in Bethlehem. Since Bethlehem possessed more about no old center has grown and has the strong population growth in recent decades not face any corresponding purchase infrastructure, the planners have embarked on, to combine the two, community center and shopping area. The name Bethlehem Town Centre of the open shopping center was not taken into account. From a community center or city center is not much to see. The city of Tauranga seems to be located not keen Bethlehem to give their own identity. Under pressure from the city, finally, the Information Panel " Bethlehem Information Centre " for tourists from the local Lions Club on 19 October 2007 was dismantled.