Above the entrance to Bethanie House a Latin inscription from St John's Gospel reads, 'Lord, the one whom you love is sick', referring to Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead.
And in 2003, when the Legislative Council handed over HK$74.2 million to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts to transform this historic Pok Fu Lam monument back to its former glory, Bethanie was sick and in need of some restorative love.
Yesterday that transformation, like that of Lazarus, was realised with the opening of the BNP Paribas Museum of Bethanie.
Little is known among the wider public of the seminal role the French Mission played in the city's history, and the museum aims to promote greater understanding.
The museum, in the cellar of the former Catholic sanatorium, opens to the public tomorrow.
Bethanie was built in 1875 by the French Mission as a place for priests to recover from the tropical diseases they caught while working as missionaries in Asia.
