Susan Dik stared at the customs exit at Honolulu International Airport yesterday, eagerly awaiting her husband's arrival.

"I was up all night checking the flights," she said.

After a week of traveling across the Middle East and Asia, Kapi'olani Community College professor Ibrahim Dik was finally arriving in Honolulu. He had been trapped in Lebanon after Israeli military started bombing the country in mid-July.

"OK, he's got to be coming soon," said Susan Dik, after some passengers from her husband's flight exited customs.

Less than a minute later, she yelled, "There he is!"

She ran to embrace him.

The couple's reunion stopped traffic at the airport as onlookers were startled by the homecoming party.

Dik was not only greeted by his wife, but by a neighbor and several longtime friends who came with lei.

He arrived wearing a Hawaiian canoe-paddling T-shirt and jeans, and had one carry-on bag.

"Home, finally," he said.

Dik, 62, was one of two Hawai'i residents visiting their families in Lebanon when the conflict struck and they were forced to flee.

Dik and his wife went to Lebanon on May 26 to visit his family, something the couple has been doing for the past 10 years. Susan Dik left for a fellowship in Malaysia about two weeks before the bombing started.

"This has definitely been a difficult separation," she said.

Dik said his scariest moments came when he made a three-hour drive from Roum, the town he grew up in, to a relative's house in Beirut for evacuation.

He decided to make the trip on Lebanon's targeted roadways only after Israel announced a 48-hour cease-fire. On his way to Beirut, he said he saw a lot of buildings blown to pieces.

"Lebanon was doing such a great job improving their infrastructure," he said. "(The people) had good families and businesses. Now they live in shambles."

Dik continues to worry for his family's safety. Even though he has not suffered physically, the images on television and the destruction he saw up close will be embedded in his mind for a long time.

"Some (television footage) was so gory that it would be impossible to show in America," he said.

For him, the experience has changed his views on economics.

"We waste a lot of resources on war," he said. "(The world's resources) can be put to better use."

He hopes that the two countries will come to an agreement soon and will be able to live in peace.

Politics and economics aside, Dik is just happy to be home and with his wife, whom he hasn't seen for six weeks. The St. Louis Heights couple met while in college at the University of Hawai'i- Manoa and have been married for 25 years. They are both professors at Kapi'olani Community College and will report to work on Tuesday.

"It's good to be in the same area with him," Susan Dik said. "It felt like lightning striking when I saw him."

The couple left the airport yesterday waving goodbye to friends, smiling and walking hand-in-hand.

Reach Brittany Yap at byap@honoluluadvertiser.com.