By Tom Hearn, Waibene (Thursday Island)
When Pastor Pedro Stephen talks about healing, he does not begin with hospitals or health systems. He starts with family, faith, and a way of life that has held the Torres Strait together for hundreds of generations.
“I have seen our people respond to every kind of crisis, not because a policy told them to, but because family demanded it,” he says, sitting quietly at his home on Thursday Island. “Before government programs and health departments, it was the church and our kinship that carried us through.”
A proud Ugaramle man and a descendant of the Magaram tribe from Mer, Pastor Pedro also carries ancestral links to Mabuyag through the Wagadagum clan. His winds are the Sager – Southeast and Koki – Northwest, and like his ancestors who served their people in times of conflict, his own service spans the Navy, the pulpit, and the halls of government. For more than forty years, he has walked in both worlds, a man of policy and prayer.
But for Pastor Pedro, the most valid form of leadership begins on the mat, not in a meeting room. “The church was never meant to be an organisation,” he says. “It is a living organism. It breathes with the community. It listens, it responds, it feels.”
To understand what he means, one must return to a pivotal moment in Torres Strait history, the Coming of the Light in 1871. When the London Missionary Society arrived at Erub, they brought with them not only Christianity but a new social order. Islanders embraced the message of peace and forgiveness, translating it through their own laws of kinship and care. Over time, every island raised its own church, each a sign of how faith and culture had intertwined.
“When you look across the islands,” Pastor Pedro says, “you will see a church on every one. That is not a coincidence. It is because faith became a way of surviving colonisation. It gave our people strength and structure. It gave us hope when the old world was changing too fast.”
The earliest missions were followed by government stations at Somerset, then Waibene, where colonial officials and church leaders shaped the emerging social fabric of the Strait. While many policies of that time were harsh and paternal, the Torres Strait people found ways to weave their own meaning into the systems imposed upon them. The church, for all its complexities, became a meeting ground, a space where the sacred and the everyday could coexist.
He recalls the Torres Model of Care, a community-driven framework born from the minds and hearts of Elders such as Uncle Philip Mills in the early 90’s. Uncle Phillip designed a system where health began with connection. It gave shape to local self-determination and health sovereignty. Families were at the center, supported by churches, councils, and kinship. But once that model was dismantled, he says, “the bridge between health and community collapsed.”
“Queensland Health moved from a bottom-up to a top-down approach,” Pastor Pedro explains. “They started looking for answers from above instead of from within. You cannot see the holes in the roof from standing on top. You must look up from underneath, from the people.”
For him, the church remains the region’s quiet backbone, the first responder when tragedy strikes, whether it is a suicide, a death, or a community crisis. “When something happens, the church doors open, and the people come,” he says. “They come to sing, to pray, to listen. They come to sit and be present.”
This is where aftercare begins, he says, not with clinical forms but with presence. “Aftercare is not an afterthought. It is everything. It starts when families come together to care, and it continues as they grow through grief.”
In the Torres Strait, this care has always had a name: Buway, the kinship and knowledge system that governs duty, respect, and relationship. When someone passes, the Maragit, the in-law families, stand beside the bereaved, cooking, organising, and holding space. “We do not have a word for suicide,” Pastor Pedro says. But we have many words for care.”
Uncle Gabriel Bani, a respected cultural advisor and fellow member of the Aftercare Steering Committee, echoes this. “Buway is not just a cultural system,” he says. “It is our living law. It tells us who we belong to and how we carry one another through grief and healing. Presence is medicine. When we return to these ways, trust begins to grow again.”
Pastor Pedro sees a deep parallel between Buway and the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. “That story shows us what care really means,” he reflects, “It was not the priest or the Levite who stopped to help the wounded man. It was the one seen as an outsider, someone from another community, from another family, who showed mercy without being asked. That is the spirit of Buway. It reminds us that care is everyone’s responsibility, not just the work of leaders or services. True community means seeing one another’s pain and responding with compassion. That is what the church should look like – a place where everyone has a part in caring, where people stop, see, and help.”
He believes that for the Aftercare consultations now underway across the five island clusters of Zenadth Kes, led by Wakai Waian Healing, the churches must again take their place as co-architects of recovery. These consultations are gathering community voices to shape a culturally grounded approach to grief, loss, and suicide prevention – guided by culture, kinship, and faith. “The work of healing belongs to everyone, government, clinic, and congregation, but it must be guided by our cultural law and our faith in Christ. Both light the path forward.”
“In every village there is a pastor, an aunty, an Uncle, a youth leader, people who already know how to care,” he says. “We just need to connect them, give them support, and walk with them. That is how trust returns.”
This idea forms the heart of what Pastor Pedro calls ‘marketplace ministry’. It is not about standing behind a pulpit but standing in the places where people live, work, and gather, the council yard, the jetty, the store, the classroom, and the home.
“Marketplace ministry is community development in action,” he says. “Every island has its own small group of people who meet regularly to listen, pray, and help families through hard times. They are often the bridge between community and clinic.”
In this vision, Aftercare becomes local, practical, and grounded in culture. Each island’s small group would be guided by Elders and churches but supported by health partners like Wakai Waian Healing and TCHHS. They would meet regularly, provide gentle early help, and ensure that no one sits alone during grief, loss, or distress. It is a return to what the Torres Strait has always known: healing starts where people gather.
From the earliest missionary days to now, the church has been at the heart of community life. Pastor Pedro sees a path forward for health sovereignty through faith and community, where church, culture, kinship, and care unite as one system. The marketplace ministry is not a new idea. It is a remembering. It is Buway reborn in the church, through Apasin and through love.
“If we can walk together again,” he says softly, “then our people will heal. Because that is what Buway teaches us, to hold each other, to never leave anyone behind.”
As Wakai Waian Healing continues its Aftercare consultations across the five island clusters, Elders such as Pastor Pedro and Uncle Gabriel Bani are helping to ensure that the voice of the church, and the values of Buway, are not lost in translation. “We must bring everyone back to the same table,” Pastor Pedro says. “Government, clinic, pastor, aunty, uncle, we are all in the same boat, steering through the same storm. Healing will come when we row together.”