page_title: Malahang Mission Station, Lae
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Malahang Mission Station, Lae / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the old children's prison at Malahang Mission Station, Lae, Morobe Province. Lutheran Church to the right of the photo. Photo taken 30 January 2014
context_page_description: The Malahang Mission Station is a Lutheran filial station situated in Malahang, Morobe Province in Papua New Guinea now under the auspices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea. The Mission station is located on Busu Road, Malahang opposite the Malahang Industrial Area.
context_section_description: On 12 July 1886, a German missionary, Johann Flierl, a pioneer missionary for the Southern Australian Lutheran Synod and the Neuendettelsau Mission Society, sailed to Simbang in Finschhafen, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland.  
  The Synod and the Mission Society sought to bring the "undiluted conviction" of the historical Lutheran confession to Australia and New Guinea. The German colony in Australia, similar to the German Lutheran colony in Missouri (US), had left Prussia in 1838 and the 1840s to escape "unionism," the movement toward uniformity of organisation and worship imposed upon them by the state. Wilhelm Löhe, a pastor at Neuendettelsau in Germany, brought a similar ideology to the Neuendettelsau Mission Society. The mission society provided clergy and religious education for Lutheran settlements in Missouri, Iowa and Ohio, Australia, and anywhere else "free thinking" Lutherans had settled.
  Flierl sailed from the Cooper Creek mission in South Australia towards German New Guinea stopping at Queensland to establish the Cape Bedford Mission and Elim Mission. 
  At the time two groups of Germans inhabited Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. The largest group were the entrepreneurs, plantation owners, officials of the German New Guinea Company, and government functionaires living in Finschhafen and Madang, and at plantations along the coast.  They viewed groups they encountered, differently than did the evangelical Lutherans at Finschhafen, Sattelberg, and the filial mission statements along the coast. Flierl however, saw them as children of God. For him, it was necessary to bring all children of God to the understanding of salvation and petitioned the Synod in Australia frequently for new missionaries, and in 1899, it sent Christian Keysser. 
  The Ampo Lutheran Church is located a few kilometres from the Malahang Mission. According to The Adelaide Advertiser (21 October 1929), Personals Section;
  Pastor (Gottfried) Schmutterer is on his way to join the Lutheran Mission in New Guinea, arrived by the German steamer Oder on Sunday.  He will conduct a six-week tour in South Australia before proceeding to New Guinea with his wife.  Pastor Schmutterer has spent 8 years at the mission previously but forced to abandon the work three years ago owing to ill-health
  During World War II all missionaries left the area, and many mission stations, churches, schools and hospitals were damaged. In spite of this, the indigenous church leaders and local Christians stood firm in the work of the church. After the war the Lutheran churches in Australia and North America were asked to help reconstruct the church in Papua New Guinea, working together as the Lutheran Mission New Guinea.
  In 1956 expatriate missionaries and indigenous church leaders gathered and formed the present indigenous church. At the time of its founding the church was called Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Guinea and its founding bishop was an expatriate missionary from the American Lutheran Church. The first indigenous bishop was elected in 1973. In 1975, on the eve of the country's independence, the name of the church was changed to Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea.
  In 1977 the church was officially declared autonomous and another local Lutheran church organised by the Australian Lutheran Mission joined with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea.
caption: Photo of the old children's "prison". Lutheran Church to the left of the photo. Photo taken 30 January 2014
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