A crowd of seasonal workers, mostly from Vanuatu, sit on folding chairs in a dome-shaped gazebo near a mango packing shed.
Every Sunday night, a Pacific Islands-style church service is held at King’s Farms, just outside the Top End regional centre of Katherine.
Workers sing harmonies in different languages and share food, including home-grown cassava.
Sunday church services are held at night so workers can make the most of the cooler picking hours in the morning. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
“We’ve all got needs,” says Mitchael Curtis, a former pastor turned mango farmer.
“Whether you’ve come thousands of kilometres and you’re lonely … or you own a farm and you’ve got to move mangoes, God is the answer.”
Pacific Island workers sing religious harmonies in a mix of languages. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
All about connection
With the picking season in full swing, there are more than 100 seasonal labourers living and working on the farm.
They are in Australia on visas under the Pacific Labour Mobility scheme (PALM).
“Ninety-five per cent of them are Christian,” Mr Curtis says.
“If we can just keep that connection, they seem to be a lot happier.”
Churchgoers fan themselves to stay cool in the subtropical heat. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
The services are non-denominational to cater to the wide range of faiths in the room.
The farm has a long-running relationship with workers from Ambae, an island of Vanuatu that experienced volcanic eruptions in 2017 and 2018.
But there are also people here from Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Solomon Islands.
Some Katherine locals join the church services alongside the Pacific workers. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
“All these people are living a church life at home, 24/7,” Mr Curtis says.
“So when they come to Australia, they feel completely empty.
“The more we can create a similar experience here in Australia … their anxiety and the separation anxiety all begin to come back down, and they feel like this is home.”
Mango farm owner Mitchael Curtis unwraps dinner for the congregation. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
Pickers see the change back home
Charle Aru is the leader of a picking team at King’s Farms.
He and his wife have two young children living with his parents back in Ambae Island.
He says going to church with his crew is an important ritual.
Charle Aru is a senior worker on the farm and is from the island of Ambae, in Vanuatu. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
“Because we were all Christian back home it means a lot. Every Sunday we went to church when we were younger,” he says.
“The Lord is always a provider of everything.
“It helps to keep everyone on the same track and to help everyone that goes through a rough time and to keep everyone on track during the picking.”
Mango picker Batterson Hakua says the church services remind him of home. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
Mr Aru says the money flowing back to his village on Ambae island has been transformative.
“I see big houses going up, Toyota trucks running there. I also see young people smiling because they have money like me.”
Rayson Garae, another Ni-Vanuatu picker, says the money has allowed him to build a house on the island.
The vast majority of Ni-Vanuatu on the farm are Christians. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
Lessons for a troubled visa scheme
King’s Farms thinks its church services could hold lessons for other employers who make use of the troubled PALM visa scheme.
The safety of workers has been in the spotlight.
The non-denominational services cater to a wide variety of Christian faiths. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
There were 64 deaths reported under the scheme in the four years to July, according to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.
Car accidents and medical problems were the most commonly reported reasons for the deaths.
PALM scheme recruiter Anna Berry, a Ni-Vanuatu woman who sources workers for farms including King’s, says the culture shock of moving to Australia is the root cause of many problems.
“In the villages in Vanuatu, all through Vanuatu, we have a chief and we have our churches,” she says.
“So if you take away all that when they land here, then you have a problem.”
PALM scheme recruiter Anna Berry says employers need to do more to keep their Pacific workforce mentally healthy. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
She says employers need to do more to ease the sense of dislocation.
“They’re missing that community,” she says.
“We need Australia … to understand us.”
Mr Curtis helps serve dinner, with watermelons grown on the farm for dessert. (ABC Katherine: James Elton)
Mr Curtis’s sermon draws to a close with some practical prayers.
“Let’s pray for the protection of your families,” he says.
“I couldn’t think of anything worse than something going wrong at home when you’re thousands of kilometres away.
“We’ve got all these beautiful mangoes on the tree.
“And Father, we just pray that those mangoes will hold on to those trees until we can get them picked”.
