By World War II Enga had been very roughly mapped by the government, but a permanent government presence was not established in most of the district until the late 1950s. Lutheran missionaries from the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in the United States, as well as Roman Catholic missionaries, were permitted to establish stations beginning in 1949. Both established primary schools and the Lutherans a high school. Although the Gutnius Lutheran Church that developed from the Lutheran efforts has strong links to the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, it has become associated with the more mainstream Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea, sharing clerical training at a college in Lae, Morobe Province.