It was in 1896, just 100 years ago, that Blessed Arnold Janssen sent his first missionaries to what is now Papua New Guinea (PNG). On 13 August of that year, six Divine World Missionaries arrived at Freidrich Whilhelmshafen (now Madang). Others followed in rapid order, only to have their numbers decimated by disease, tribal warfare, wanton murder and the gruelling conditions of survival in the island's hostile habitat. Still more SVD came and these survivors soldiered on. Then during the Second World War almost all the missionaries were killed.