The rainbow never sets

fascinated and would spend long hours just watching him or playing with him. Filus couldn't have thought of a better pet for our children.

Our family loved to go Sundays to the beach at Lasiana. If the Stephens didn't go, we really couldn't go either. There was no motor transport in town at that time and Lasiana was about six kilometers from Kupang, on the road to Tarus. Whenever we borrowed the Synod's Jeep from the Moderator, we would buy the petrol at the only bowser in Kupang, near the market. This petrol was never very clean and so it happened that the carburettor and fuel lead would sometimes clogg up. The Synod chauffeur, Lippus, called the jeep "oto perang", or war car. One day I was to find out why. With the carburettor clogged up, the car would go best at full speed. We were hurtling along the highway from Lasiana, chickens, dogs, pigs and people scuttling to the side, and our car jumping like a kangaroo. Every now and again it would let off a big bang. The boys thought it was terrific fun, but Alison did not. She had trouble holding on to the front seat, as there were no doors on the jeep. What an experience!

As we had no news about the car our Board of Mission had ordered from Japan for us, we would just have to make do with the oto perang. It was still better than walking.

But with Peter's Landrover, life was much easier. I thought that some of the students would benefit from learning how to drive. It would free me from some jobs, if they drove, and so I asked one day who wanted to learn to drive. There were four students who were quite keen, and one day I took them to a more isolated spot to start their driving lessons. Filus was the first one, the others were Mesach (Mes for short) Beeh, Uli Mone and Otniel Kiuk. They all had a practice run and managed quite well with the clutch and the gears. After several lessons, it was Filus' turn to drive and I asked him to reverse and turn into a lane around a corner. Filus had stopped the car properly, put the gear correctly into reverse and was releasing the clutch slowly, as he had been taught. I sat next to him and was observing his foot work, when suddenly the car reversed down the embankment towards the creek, the opposite direction from the lane, nearly toppling the car over, coming to a stop on the edge of the creek. A few centimeters further and we would have landed in the muddy creek. One of the students in the back seat took fright and jumped out, the other two looked rather shaken. So were Filus and I. I just hadn't foreseen that reversing a car, and going around a corner could be so difficult. I still had to learn a lot!

I climbed into the driver's seat, put the car into four-wheel drive and asked the others to push. It was still leaning precariously towards the creek, but someone looked after us that afternoon. I was able to drive the car back on the road. Filus didn't want to drive after that, but Mes had enough courage to continue. Eventually, three of them passed the driving test, Mes first, then Uli, and Filus last. Otniel gave up after the ditch experience.

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