New Guinea college post for Chch minister

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32474, 8 December 1970, Page 25

New Guinea college post for Chch minister

The Rev. A. J. Leadley, minister of the two St Albans Methodist churches in Edgeware Road and Knowles Street for the last three years, will leave New Zealand on January 11 to become a lecturer at the Rarongo Theological College, Rabaul, New Guinea.

Although the appointment is for three years, Mr Leadley said yesterday that he and his wife would remain in New Guinea as long as they were needed.

At the college, which is run by the United Church of Melanesia, Mr Leadley will lecture in basic theology. There are 75 students from New Guinea, Papua, the British Solomon Islands, the Carolines, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the Marshall Islands and the New Hebrides. As more than half of the students are married with

families, however, there are more than 200 people living on the college campus. Another New Zealander on the staff of the college is Sister N. Graves, of Dunedin, who is Dean of Women at the college and a lecturer in English and in church music. There are also two Australians, an Englishman and a Melanesian, who is a part-time lecturer. It is hoped to build up an indigenous staff. Mrs Leadley, a trained occupational therapist, will work among the wives ana families, of the college students. She will teach the women English and basic hygiene and encourage them to develop their native crafts. The new Methodist minister for St Albans will be the Rev. B. Harkness, of Wanganui.