Numonohi

"Numonohi" is the short name for the New Tribes Mission central administration headquarters in Papua New Guinea. It facilitates the support and coordination of Bible translation, church planting and medical work throughout the Papua New Guinea mainland. The Numonohi center also hosts Numonohi Christian Academy, a mission school which currently educates approximately 170 students from first through twelfth grade. The school itself was started back in the sixties. The center also hosts a store, post office, finance office, printing press, carpentry and mechanical workshops, administration buildings, dorms, and many houses (enough to house just under five hundred people).

Numonohi is a word from the local dialect which is rumored to mean "rubbish land", an appropriate name for land that was not highly valued when it was originally leased to the mission organization years ago. The name stuck, but NTM has transformed this land into a beautiful community over the years. But with the rise of crime in PNG, missionaries have increasingly made easy targets. Due to many incidents over the years a security fence was erected to protect the missionaries and the numerous missionary children who attend the boarding school from the threat of assault, rape and stealing. Before the eight-foot chain-link fence was built it was also not uncommon for warring tribes to assemble on the soccer field and launch their spears and arrows at one another.

Numonohi is situated fifteen kilometers south of Goroka, which is the provincial capitol and where the closest airport is located.