CHAPTER 30

Long service leave, 1987

Many weeks of planning for our long service leave came to fruition in 1987. Alison and I had taken four months leave, one month of annual leave, and three months long service leave. I also wanted to study the church in China, as not much about it was known in church circles. The group of our Theological Table Talk at Canberra gave me the task to present a paper on it at one of the meetings in Spring.

Our visitors left us in April, one by one. Mother made the start, then Mutter. Margaret too left for overseas. We were to catch up with her in Poland. Then came our turn on 15 May 1987. James took us to the airport, and we felt rather sorry for him, for he was the only one of the family left in Canberra. In spite of the predicted fog, the sun was shining that morning, and we took it as a good omen for our long journey ahead. We knew we were in God's hands.

We stayed the first night at Bali, at Dhyana Pura, (The Place of Meditation), which belonged to the church. Alison had never seen it and was most impressed with the set of buildings, in simple Balinese style, all thatch roof. Each unit was comfortably furnished and the bathroom at the back had no exterior wall. For privacy there was a high wall around the courtyard.

We had confirmed our flight to Kupang with GARUDA the next day, but when we arrived at the airport we were told that the flight had been cancelled. Quite upset about it, we went to the office and were told that there were just the two of us and an American booked to go to Kupang, so they had just cancelled it. But just as they had announced the cancellation, a GARUDA employee barged into the office and exploded in our presence: "What are you doing to us! We have a funeral to attend to at Kupang. There are ten of us, you can't just cancel the flight."

With that our cancelled flight was put back on schedule, a pilot was found and with only half an hour's delay we arrived safely at Kupang. The welcome there was overwhelming. Mes Beeh and his wife Thres were there with their two boys. We were going to stay at their place. Then Filus, Sem Nitti with his wife, Zacha and another former student with their families, all came to make us feel we were coming 'home' again after 14-1/2 years. Mes and Thres had vacated their bedroom for us and had moved together with their boys. Their hospitality was absolutely wonderful. We saw how

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