Say Hello goodbye

Our last night on Nias was pretty exciting. We headed into Teluk Dalam to Herman’s house to have dinner with his family (lobster – he owns some lobster fishing boats, yum!!). His wife Tety was about 2 weeks off her due date, and despite plenty of pleading on our part, we had resigned ourselves to the fact that baby would be staying put until after we left. When we got to their house though, Tety was in a lot of discomfort and was pacing around and couldn’t sit still. We had to go and run a Cell Leader’s meeting, but at the end of the evening we had some frantic phone call from Herman because he needed the car we were using to take Tety to hospital.

We were still a little unsure as to what was exactly going on, as no-one ever actually said that Tety had gone into labour, and also everyone was fussing around with really worried looks on their faces, completely opposite to the reaction you would expect if a baby was on the way!! Anyway, we eventually got a ride home and went to bed full of anticipation as to what the morning would bring.

I woke up that morning about half an hour before I had intended to get up, with that particular feeling of sicky butterflies that I always get when I have to say goodbye to someone or leave somewhere. We still had a bit of packing to do and a car arrived to take our bags to the airport, but not before a wonderful phone call from Herman telling us that Tety has had her baby and it’s a little boy!! Woooooooooo!! Extra special J So we got to meet baby Jessa (named after Jeremy, who missed the birth by going to his friends wedding in Jakarta) on our way to the airport. It was so amazing to actually see the baby but it also made it so much harder to actually get back in the car and drive away. Leaving Nias was very emotional that morning!!