Church celebrates 70th anniversary

THE Gutnius Lutheran Church (GLC) of PNG celebrates its 70th anniversary today.
It was on Nov 2, 1948, when a DeHaviland 83 biplane called the Dragon landed at the Wabag airstrip in Enga with American Lutheran missionaries Otto C Hintze Jr, from El Paso, Texas, and Willard Burce, from Eau Claire, Winsconsin. They came from the Lutheran Conference Missouri Synod.
Their journey from the US took them to Sydney and then to Port Moresby and onward to Ampo in Lae, the headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
They were there to learn Tok Pisin and undergo induction training by fellow missionaries, who had been in the country.
They were then flown to the Ega Lutheran establishment in Kerowagi, Chimbu, to witness the baptism of a group of local people on Nov 1, 1948.