The rainbow never sets

at Kupang. Lou Staisch, the manager, told us, however, that no ship was expected in the near future. We just would have to wait. It was not so bad, as long as we stayed in the Stephens' house, which was fully equipped with fridge and furniture. But when we were to move into the new house in Oesapa in July, what were we to do then? Through our regular visits to the new Theological School, which was being built by Hans Jung, an engineer from Germany, we had seen our house grow in stages, and we were already looking forward to moving in there. Then I was called to the Synod office one day: "The Oppelaars are going to move into the house in Oesapa where you were going to go. Unless your mission board can pay enough money to build another house for you on the complex, you cannot live there."

We were quite taken aback with that news. Why suddenly this change of mind? Was GMIT unhappy with our performance? Hans Jung assured us that it had nothing to do with GMIT. The decision had been taken by the Dutch church, who held the purse strings for the total project.

I reported this to our Mission Board, and also passed on GMIT's request for more funds to build a house for us on the same complex. I couldn't recommend this request to our Board, as the latter had paid for a house for Colville Crowe in SoE, the first missionary from our church, more than ten years ago. If GMIT needed a house for us in Kupang now, they could sell the one in SoE and buy another one in Kupang. If this was not feasible, I suggested that we could rent a house somewhere.

GMIT eventually decided to put us up in the Oppelaars' house in Oeba, which actually belonged to Dr. Abineno, a former Moderator of GMIT and now a lecturer at the Theological Seminary in Jakarta. This house was near the Synod Office in Jalan Merdeka, the main road leading out of Kupang towards Tarus and then into the inland. The Oppelaars also had four children, slightly older than ours, so there would be no problem with space.

*

The Oppelaars went on leave early in July 1970. The Stephens were expected back at the same time. We moved out of Jalan Tugu on 1 July, and moved straight to Oeba into the house of the Oppelaars. We had ordered some furniture from a carpenter prior to that, and it was a wonderful feeling to be in 'our' house which we could arrange with our furniture as we liked. All that was missing was our sea luggage, which still hadn't arrived. We heard through Peter that it was to be shipped to Singapore first, and then to Kupang. As Frank Lee, the friend I had played tennis with in Sydney, lived in Singapore, I asked him to help us with the transhipment.

Unfortunately, we also had to return Peter's car, and since our car from

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