Lutherans 75
p. 61 · Read in the full issue
Years in NG
The Lutheran Church is celebrating its 15th anniversary of mission work in New Guinea.
The Lutheran Bishop of New Guinea, the Rev. Dr. John Kuder, of New York, said in Lae in July that the first Lutheran missionary to come to New Guinea, then known as Kaiser Wilhelm Land, was Dr.
John Flierl, who founded the church’s first mission station at Simbang, near Finschhafen, in July, 1886.
The aim of missionary activity is establishment of an indigenous church. In New Guinea this end came nearer realisation when in 1956 the Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Guinea was founded at Simbang.
The baptised membership now numbers approximately a quarter of a million natives, served by more than 100 native clergy and about 1,300 evan gelists and 900 teachers.