On December 7, 1959 a young woman Olivia Faletoese Latai at the age of twenty left Samoa with her husband Fekusone Latai on the steamer Tofua, on their way to Papua New Guinea to work as missionaries. She grew up at Malua Seminary where her father taught and where her family lived. She had been teaching for several years at Papauta Girls College, a boarding school established by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in 1892 to groom young Samoan women to become wives of pastors at the Malua Seminary. It was here that she heard tales of missionaries returning from Papua New Guinea that inspired her to become a missionary. Upon meeting a young graduate of Malua Theological College who had the same aspirations they married and left Samoa the following day both excited to embark on their first missionary venture. The young couple were my parents. This was their story and the beginning of mine.
