Dutch woman looking forward to Sept visit
COVER STORY
From the Netherlands comes this letter by someone whose parents helped build Prenorkwa school in Chimbu
By AUKJE ROELOFSEN-VAN DER GRAAF
Dear people of The National,
A WHILE ago I was looking for information about the Prenorkwa school in Kundiawa.
In September my husband and I hope that a deeply cherished wish will come true and that we will make a ‘back to my roots trip’ to Papua New Guinea.
In the search for traces of my native country, I looked for the Prenorkwa school in Kundiawa. I then found your article about Loretta Damien (Feb 15, 2023), a former student of this school.
Thanks to your article, I was able to find her work email address and contact her. Thanks to your newspaper and her enthusiastic response, I now know that the school that my parents (together with colleagues and students) built in 1965 still exists!
I discovered that the school is growing and flourishing and has an important function for education in the highlands. The house that my parents built for our family on the school grounds is also still there!
I was born on Sept 25, 1965 at Yagaum Rural Lutheran Mission Hospital in Madang. My parents(Lútzen and Mieke van der Graaf) were living and working as missionary teachers in Kundiawa at the time. At the beginning of that year they had been assigned to teach the existing classes in Ega (working together Rev Wilhelm Bergmann) and in the meantime build a new school.
This school had to be built between the airstrip and the bustling Simbu River. The school was named ‘Prenorkwa’ (then spelled Prinorkwa or Pirnorkwa).
In my father’s notes I read that the name would mean ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us’, like the Hebrew word Eben Haëzer in the Bible. I heard from Loretta that it is a word from the Kuman language.
My mother was just pregnant with me when my parents received the assignment. I was born about the same time as the school.
When we booked the trip, I didn’t know that there are still so many tangible things to find in Kundiawa. We booked an organised trip to get to know my native country and the culture of the Papuans.
The only trip organised from the Netherlands is a trip around the Goroka Show, the largest tribal meeting in the world. A unique opportunity to admire so many tribes from PNG. But unfortunately there is no room for your own excursions in the trip programme.
After I discovered that ‘our’ school and house still exist, I was not at peace with that. The tour company then offered to try to take us to Kundiawa on Friday, Sept 13. It will only be possible in stable weather.
Meanwhile, my search continued. Last week I found out that I was baptised by Rev Wilhelm Bergmann. So I did some research on him. I discovered that he is the founder of Kundiawa and that he was given land for the Lutheran mission station at Ega by chief Bongere of Kamaneku on… Sept 13 in 1934! Exactly the same date as the date that the travel organisation has designated as the possibility to take us to Kundiawa.
So now we pray with even more hope and faith that we will actually be brought to Prenorkwa on Sept 13.
Such a special date. Exactly 90 years after Kundiawa was born (and almost 60 years after Prenorkwa school and I were born).
I am still searching and hope to find more about the Yagaum hospital where I was born and about the mission station at Baitabag where my parents lived and worked for a year before being transferred to Kundiawa. I stayed there for the first two weeks of my life before we flew into Kundiawa to our temporary house at Rev Bergmann’s mission station at Ega.
I am very grateful for the article in your newspaper that gave me the decisive clues to finding my parents’ school.
In September we will not only get to know my country of birth in general, but we will visit the places where my roots actually lie and still exist.
We can then meet the people who are now working hard to build further and provide good education.
Akje says: “This photo makes that visible to me. In the photo with my previous email you see my father singing with the Prenorkwa students at the opening of the school. My parents have made music and listened to music all their lives. In education they liked to sing with their students and used music to learn Bible texts, for example.”
The school therefore not only has historical value, but also means a lot for the future of the students.
We look forward to our trip in September with great gratitude.
On Saturday, Sept 7 we will arrive in Port Moresby early in the morning. We will be there all day and have no planned excursions.
On Sunday morning we fly to Mount Hagen and Tari for further introduction to beautiful PNG. The country that my parents loved so dearly and where their hearts have always remained.
The country I have always felt connected to and (through the preparations for) the trip, that connection is growing more and more.
We pray with all our hearts that God will help us get to Kundiawa.
Prenorkwa: ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’ 1 Samuel 7:12 Thank you very much for your help in my search.
P.S: How nice that you want to give the story about Prenorkwa a place in your newspaper. And once again a date with a special meaning is chosen. June 28 is my father’s birthday. He would have been 93 this year, but he passed away last January.
