Top award surprises Lutheran priest

A PRIEST was shocked yesterday when told he had been honoured in this year’s Independence awards.
Reverend David Piso, the head bishop of the Gutnius Lutheran Church, has been awarded the title of Chief with the Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu.
He was informed of the news when he was in Wabag town yesterday.
The award was for his services to the church and the community as the head bishop and chaplain in the Australian and Papua New Guinea Defence Forces since the 1970s.
Piso, 66, has three sons and a daughter and has 10 grandchildren.
He comes from the Yanbaran tribe in the Tsak valley of Wapenamanda district in Enga.
He thanked God for the recognition and for choosing him as a church worker.
He said when he was at the Usab High School in Madang, he wanted to become a district administrator.
But he ended up at the Martin Luther seminary in Lae, completed six years of study and graduated with a Bachelor in Theology degree.
He returned as a teacher and chaplain at Saint Paul’s High School in 1973 before joining the Australian army as chaplain in 1974.
Piso said he was the last commissioned officer from Papua New Guinea to be enlisted by the Australian Army as a chaplin.
He said that he served in Moem, Igam, and Goldie army barracks before and after Independence when he retired as a captain to become a church worker.
He was elected acting Bishop of the Gutnius Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea in 1982 and elected as permanent bishop in 1984.