Young Germans on exchange trip

Lae News, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday August 07th, 2012

By GABRIEL LAHOC
SEVEN young Germans are in Lae as members of a youth exchange programme of the Lutheran churches in Germany and Papua New Guinea.
The group, led by Caro­line Richter, has spent a week already with their host families and has another two weeks in which they will learn more about the church and their Papua New Guinean families.
Richter, a youth worker from Saxony, Germany said some of their aims in the programme were to look at local and imported church resources, gender issues particularly in the roles and expectations of women the church’s organisation and structure.
Each member of the visiting contingent has a question to which he or she has to find the answers to from different members of the church and the public.
Members of the group were fascinated about the multi-cultural background of PNG.
“It’s more like an inter-cultural learning, we are different groups of people from different backgrounds but we have one church and one God and the more we learn about others we also learn about ourselves,” Richter said.
They visited Ramu sugar, Buimo jail, Angau Memorial Hospital and will visit historical sites of Simbang in Finsh­hafen, Salamaua, Bulolo and the Hidden Valley mine site before leaving for home.
e at the end of this month.
Reports and reSalume Tiopili are two members of the Lae city circuit youth who visited Germany last year on a similar arrangement and are now part of the hosts.
The visitors and the local youths will compile a report and make recommendations to the church at the conclusion of their visit.