Yesterday afternoon, Bishop of Townsville Timothy Harris received an anonymous text message: “Wheels up, the Bali 5 are on their way back to Australia.”

The bishop, who became an advocate for the family of Bali Nine drug mule Scott Rush after the group was arrested in 2005, immediately phoned Rush’s father Lee, who later confirmed the news.

“I said, ‘Lee, isn’t this wonderful’.”

It has been almost 20 years since the Bali Nine were caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia. Rush is among the five remaining members of the group who have returned to Australia as free men after the Indonesian government agreed to commute the rest of their life sentences.

Harris said Rush’s family was stunned, “but happily so”.

“They’re taking this in their stride,” Harris said of Rush’s parents Lee and Christine. “They’ve been hoping for this for a long, long time and I don’t think they ever thought it was going to happen.”

He said Rush’s parents were already turning their minds to how they would help their son integrate back into Australian society.

“The nightmare in some ways isn’t over,” he said. “They’re under no illusions as to what they themselves will need to do. They’re still trying to work that out because here’s your lost son – to use a biblical image – who’s come home and here they are with outstretched arms ready to hug their lost son who … has come back.

“It’s important that people in Australia … understand that this is not going to be easy. How do you reintegrate someone … into an environment that’s changed, because you yourself have changed, he’s changed, the parents have changed, the family’s changed, Australia’s changed.”

The bishop said it was not clear when Lee and Christine would be able to see their son in the flesh, but said he had offered to pay for their plane tickets from Brisbane to the Northern Territory.