From the 2025 Convention of the Synod
Written by Shane Jurecky, Principal of Peace Lutheran College
In many ways, the Peace Lutheran College story is a microcosm of the wider narrative of Lutheran Education in Queensland. While our history is shorter than most, there is a similar pattern which will be familiar to many of you.
Our story is a story of vision, a story of challenge and a story of hope.
Currently, we are on the eve of the cane cutting season. The narrow-gauge trains hauling recently harvested sugarcane will begin their annual runs to the mills to produce the sweet tastes we enjoy on our dining tables.
Sugarcane, like most plants, has an annual life cycle. It germinates, establishes itself, ripens, and is ultimately harvested. With each step of the cycle comes unique challenges. Sugarcane is a wonderful illustration of Peace’s 30-year journey. It is no coincidence that Jesus himself used the parable of the Sower to tell a story of how the gospel emerges in a challenging world.
Let’s begin our journey with where the seeds for a Lutheran College in Far North Queensland were sown.
Sowing the seeds
Throughout the 1970s, there was increased government funding into education under the Whitlam government. As such, Lutheran congregations began considering the establishment of a local Lutheran school. The Lutheran communities at Hopevale, Coen, Wujal Wujal, Cairns and Atherton were no different, but for different reasons.
Historically, indigenous families from communities sent many of their young people to Brisbane at the Lutheran hostel at Nundah to attend secondary schools when their primary education finished. However, when this facility closed suddenly in 1986, there was a renewed catalyst to explore other options.
At the same time, Trinity Lutheran congregation in Cairns, seeing the benefits of Lutheran schools down south, had dreams of establishing their own primary school to nurture the gospel in their growing congregation and the young families within. In 1988, an investigation committee was established to commence this work.
The LCAQD also saw this as a new opportunity to support the mission and ministry of the church. The various LCAQD agencies, such as Lutheran Education and Lutheran Mission, gave their blessing for a school to be established, with the final approval from District Church Council.
All the conditions for germination were now in place. The light of the Church, the resources of government, and the energy of the people were all working in one direction – the establishment of a school to share the gospel.
Establishment
The early life of a sugarcane plant is tenuous as it commences its growth beyond the surface. Insects, disease, competition and climate conditions can all impact on its development in its infancy.
The early days of a school are no different.
Lots of important decisions, internally and externally, can impact on the growth of a school. The purpose, name, and location of a school can all contribute to shaping its future direction. Deciding these elements were just as fundamental in the establishment of Peace Lutheran College.
This week [27 May to 3 June 2025] is Reconciliation Week, an 8-day celebration of learning, understanding and forgiving between traditional and migrant cultural groups. It culminates this Tuesday in Mabo Day, where we recognise our traditional owners, long standing custodians of the land. For Peace, this isn’t just another week of acknowledgement, but rather something that goes to the heart of who we are and why we are here. In many ways, the birth of Peace was a practical demonstration of what reconciliation can look like.
Our purpose
Firstly, it is connected to our purpose. The Lutheran pioneers of Peace envisaged a multicultural, P-12 boarding school, supported by the Lutheran Church of Australia, local congregations and the Aboriginal communities of Hopevale, Wujal Wujal, and Coen. It was to be open to all students from Queensland, PNG, SE Asia and the wider Pacific Rim. These elements are reflected in our College crest: hills, trees, water.
Our name
Secondly, it motivated our name. “Peace”, as a name of the new College, was deliberately chosen as a daily reminder to this community of its true purpose – to be a place of reconciliation in action for all people – regardless of race. A place informed by the gospel of Jesus, where the values of integrity, excellence, honour and empathy are upheld. A place where we see the awe and wonder of God’s creation. And a place where our gifts and talents can be grown and shaped in the service of others.
Our location
As for our location: when it comes to choosing sites for Lutheran schools, the church and school founders make some interesting choices. Old quarries and gravel pits, the steep slopes of rock-filled hills or hard-to-reach blocks with no main street frontage, seem to be the norm. Peace was no exception. Our chosen site was a place, in many ways, which combined many of these elements together!
However, there is rich theology on where Peace is situated. On one side, we border the local rubbish dump, complete with all the messiness of human existence. But on the other side, we see the rich, tropical mountain rainforest untouched, as God originally intended. Peace, the site of a previous productive cane field, lies in the heart of these two tensions – a very Lutheran place to be.
The land on which Peace now stands has always been a place of meeting, of teaching and learning, of connection and dialogue for the local Djabugay and Yirrganydji peoples. We, as the stewards of this community today, continue this tradition.
It was here that our founding pioneers chose to establish a clear location for a future harvest.
The ripening
To the outside observer, growing sugarcane from the establishment phase to harvesting just seems like a lot of waiting around. The ripening process takes the most amount of time – with very little seeming to change day by day. The expression of “watching grass grow” reflects the speed of change. But the reality is there is a lot going on below the surface and only with the value of hindsight can you see the growth that has taken place.
Over the past 30 years, the fields of sugarcane have been cleared. Emerging in its place has been buildings of all manner of shapes and purposes. Classrooms, boarding facilities, science labs, ovals, administration buildings, a performing arts centre, car parks and gardens. The grounds of the college are a testimony of the hard work and countless hours from volunteers in shaping the learning environment.
The din of tractors and cane cutters has been replaced by the foot traffic and voices of students.
It is also during the ripening phase that the final harvest of sugarcane can be suspectable to elements beyond its control. Cyclones, droughts, ravenous insects and diseases can prevent the cane from reaching its potential.
This has also been true for Peace. Throughout its past 30-year history, it has weathered periods of financial instability, changing cultural expectations, fluctuating enrolments and fractured relationships as it has slowly, but surely, emerged.
A growing disconnection between Hopevale, Wujal Wujal, other Cape York communities and the College appeared. Cultural norms and traditions, the complexity of tribal rivalries brought to school, and the transition into a different culture’s ‘way of working’ were unexpected challenges. When an enrolment was no longer possible for the wellbeing of College community, and the young person had to return home, this caused shame and hurt back in those communities. Phrases such as “I thought this was our school” or “Why have you not supported our community?” could be heard. This pain struck a nerve on why the College was founded.
At other times, the ongoing financial viability of the college has been at risk. New competitors in the marketplace, parental discontent with the College’s direction or the personalities within it, critical incidents which have caused families to question their involvement – these have all played their part in the evolving life of the College, as they do in all Lutheran schools, even to this day.
However, it is during these moments of doubt and despair, hurt and pain that the power of Christ’s love swells. We are reminded that we live in a broken world in need of a saviour – one who comforts, forgives, and restores. It is he that continually walks with us, providing grace and mercy.
Peace has also been a place of bounty and plenty. A place where the conditions were perfect for growth.
Saturday working bees, P&F markets and special celebrations created a tightknit, parochial community, fiercely loyal and committed to its ideals of multiculturalism, connection and religious expression. New infrastructure projects were built to cater for growing demand for Christian education and innovative curriculum initiatives. International enrolments increased, fostering deep and long-lasting connections with Lutheran PNG families seeking educational opportunities for their children. Changes to government funding have injected millions of dollars into capital projects, grants to support and sustain transition programs for indigenous students, and increased investment to support students with learning needs.
Peace has, and continues to be, truly blessed.
The harvest
So what of the harvest? What is the final product over these many years?
Sugarcane, like most raw materials, gains in value after the harvest. When it enters the mill and is processed and transformed into something new. But the heart of the product – sucrose – remains. Sugar, molasses, rum or ethanol are just some of the products of the original sugarcane. These products not only fuel the body for action or power industry but also enhance the flavours of life and can bring great joy to those who partake.
In many ways, the fruits of our labours as Lutheran educators is similar. After many years, we send our young people out into the world. They are shaped by their worldly experiences into something new. They become doctors or lawyers, entrepreneurs or teachers, mechanics or farmers. They drive innovation and change. They achieve and celebrate.
But there is a part of their Lutheran school experience – their sucrose – which remains as part of their core. It may not have an outward expression of church language or be something that is recognisable in a traditional Sunday pew – but it is there. It is Christ working in them and through them.
What is this ‘sucrose’ for our students?
It’s an understanding that they are a part of something much bigger than themselves. They feel a need to serve their neighbour, regardless of the colour of their skin or the place where they were born, not for self, because of what Jesus has done for them. They recognise that their self-worth is not based on what others think but a reassurance that they are made in the image of God. They have heard God speak to them through his word and have seen his actions in chapels, devotions and Christian Studies lessons, as well as in the lives of their peers and teachers. They have the confidence and resilience to navigates life’s troubles, knowing that this life is temporary. They have heard the good news proclaimed.
In closing, I’m reminded by something my father-in-law, a retired farmer, has often said. He would say, regardless of what you produce, whether it be sugarcane or milk, cattle or cereal, the harvest is not the most important thing – it’s when the grain is in the silo, the product sold, and the money is in the bank account! That’s when you know if your harvest has been a success.
On this side of eternity, we don’t know the true impact of what Peace, or any other Lutheran school for that matter, might be on the lives of our young people and their families.
What we do know is it is Jesus who is with us and for us. Because of his promise, we have the confidence that he will still be walking alongside us in the cane fields, now and long after we are gone. He will continue to call us home – here in Far North Queensland, as he does in the rest of Queensland and the wider world.
Thank you and God bless.
