The congregation of Mt Hagen’s Good Shepard Lutheran Church celebrated their 25th Jubilee anniversary, this week.
It was started by the Morobe people, who travelled up to settle in Western Highlands Province in the colonial days.
Today it is one of the six congregations of Mt Hagen City circuit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Good Shepard Lutheran Church was settled at a place called Mopa, on December 8, 1991.
Mopa used to be an association called, Morobe People’s Association, which started in 1974.
It eventually turned into Mopa settlement, where people, mostly Morobeens, are settled in Mt Hagen.
The Catholic Church was the first to be brought into Western Highlands Province in 1933.
Then came the Lutheran Church in 1935, by the Ko-te people from Finschafen in Morobe Province.Those evangelists did not go back, but settled in Mt Hagen.
Many of the pioneers died, but they still have their children and grandchildren who then got married to Western Highlanders.
Sunday December 11 marked the 25 years of Good Shepard Lutheran Church, settled at Mopa.
Most of its congregation are generations of the Lutheran Missionaries in Morobe Province, who brought Christianity to Western Highlands Province.