Pitanka Mission Station is based in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It is located 26 miles (38 km) from the town of Kainantu on the Kainantu-Okapa Road. It is 7,000 feet above sea level with views of Mt. Michael over 12,000 feet above sea level and Mt. Wilhelm, which is over 15, 000 feet above sea level in the distance. Another view to the north-east is of the Finistere Mountain Range, which is over 12,000 feet above sea level. High country!
Days are often warm during the middle part of the day, but always cold at nights. There can be frosts in the Highlands during July or August .The local people mostly still live in small huts with smoky fires for warmth. Our aim is to provide loving Christian Evangelism and care through our existing primary school and future high school, vocational school and health centre, which are in the pipeline. Born-again, Spirit-filled, trained, committed, Born Again Christian teachers are needed to teach primary and high school as the education department is 150 teachers short in the Eastern Highlands. Many National teachers now want to teach in the towns rather than in the Bush.
The school is the only Christian school for miles and needs to be kept going for the Communities' continued educational development, and last but not least, for outreach spiritually to the children and the community. Many present day pastors of local churches and their wives, as far away as 30 kilometres from Pitanka Mission Station Primary School, are past students of Pitanka School. The School has now been renamed The Margaret Teale Memorial Primary School, by the peoples' request since my mother died on Nov. 16th, 1999. The School was started by my mother, in 1965, and I helped teach for the first three years with a govt. permit. Later on my younger sister & other teachers gave some time to teaching in the school also.
Today students from our school can be found as pastors or pastors' wives, policemen, nurses, medical officers, administrators, a computer expert caring for the maintenance of all the northern banking & business computers in PNG. There are ex students who are now plumbers, carpenters, trained agriculturalists, teachers, headmasters, and many other types of occupations around PNG, and some with businesses in their own villages. |
