At the same time, the Harbon family of Lorking Street, Parkes, answered an advertisement enquiring about becoming an AFS host family.

Lesley Harbon said it was less than one month later, at the end of January, 1992, when a shy, young Indonesian girl came to live with them in Parkes for the year.

“None of us really knew what kind of friendships would blossom, nor what experiences we would share, but here we are, 25 years later, and the friendships are closer than ever,” Lesley said.

Adim spent 1992 in Year 11 at Parkes High School, then returned to Kudus, her home town in Central Java, Indonesia, to complete Years 11 and 12.

She then graduated cum laude with two undergraduate degrees at two prestigious Indonesian universities, married, had two children, and set up her own bilingual pre-school.

“I learned so much about early childhood pedagogy when I would walk up to the Parkes and District Occasional Childcare Centre near the police station, to wait with my three-year-old host sister, Yolanda, for Lesley to pick us up,” Adim recalls.

“It seemed to me that experiential play, songs, rhymes, language development exercises, and so on were so important in these early years.

“I learned so much from the wonderful staff at the Centre.”

So setting up her own bilingual pre-school in Kudus, Pelita Nusantara (meaning Under-Fives from the Archipelago) came naturally to her.

Pelita Nusantara has now been established for 15 years, and has a continual waiting list for placement, so successful is the early childhood curriculum there.

Adim, the Director and Manager, has since graduated with a postgraduate Masters in Education Management and Leadership from the Indonesian University of Education in Bandung, West Java.

Adim’s own daughter, Askiya Listiorini (Lilis), is now the same age as when Adim lived in Australia for a year.

Adim wanted Lilis to experience Australia too – so together with Lilis (17 years) and William (15 years), Adim spent the week prior to Christmas 2017, in Sydney where the Harbon family now live.

Both families visited Parkes to catch up with long-time friends (Lesley taught at Parkes Public and Paul was a geologist with Geopeko).

Adim met her long-time school friends Donna Searl-Lyndford, Annette Moss and Robert MacGregor at the home of another school friend Angela (nee Shallvey, parents Bill and Evelyn), and visited her old school and memorable places around Parkes.