By Adventist Review staff

Ninety-seven students have been baptized in Papua New Guinea after their Seventh-day Adventist school offered a year of Bible studies, the South Pacific Adventist Record reported Wednesday.

The students from the Kama Adventist Primary School, located in the South Pacific nation’s Eastern Highlands Province, were 12 to 16 years old.

“This is an historic moment for Adventist education, especially at the primary school level, and we praise God for this,” said Yoba Dame, associate education secretary for the Adventist Church’s Papua New Guinea Union Mission, according to the Adventist Record.

Dame said the union mission has been implementing an evangelism program with Adventist schools “and we are pleased to see an overwhelming result at Kama Adventist Primary.”

The effort started at the Kama school at the beginning of the school year in early 2015 when teachers decided to place a special emphasis on knowing and experiencing Christ in Bible study classes. Near the end of the year, the school held Week of Prayer meetings, and 97 students requested baptism.

“It was an emotional moment for parents as they witnessed their young children making their stand for God,” the Adventist Church’s local magazine, The Centurion, reported. “Some students came from non-Adventist backgrounds and faced challenges getting their parents to agree to their decision to be baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”

The school, located in Goroka, the capital of the Eastern Highlands Province, has 22 teachers instructing more than 1,000 students from across the country and from various denominations.