Just a few months before ord..we had to go for training in Brunei. Needless to say we expected nothing but jungle, jungle, and more jungle. Well we werent wrong, but we missed out one place, the swamp. Now for most people a swamp is the place you find in pasir ris park, where you enter on boardwalks, and see cute mudskippers dance on the mud. Not so in Brunei. The excercise was simple..go into the swamp, find the end point (500metres away) and get out. It should take no more than half a day. So in everyone went, in high hopes of making it out quickly and going back to camp to enjoy the canteen.

We were dropped by boat to the edge of the swamp. Several teams of about 8 people. Now the first thing one would be thinking as you step in is "WHAT THE $%^^" Had i not vowed to not swear, I would have filled in those symbols. Sharp edged stems protruding from putrid, sulphurous smelling black mud, thorn studded plants blocking your every movement. Just 500 metres of this..thats what i told myself. Grabbing a parang, we hacked through the tangled mess. My friend sank into the mud at one point, requiring 2 of us to pull him out. I was remarkably in high spirits, and we had a feeling we were almost through. Till someone started feeling nausea from the smell, and could hardly continue. What did my officer do? He thought it best to send some of us further up while the rest waited. They discovered a huge water body, which my officer felt we could not cross with my friend in that condition. And so begin our troubles. After communicating back and forth with the seriously incompetent conducting staff, we were told to find a another way out, by heading west.

Heeding this wonderful advice, and in our own state of wanting to get out, we did.And we got lost. Totally lost.A map is useless when you dont know where you are. We could only head further and further on, following the sounds of what we thought to be boats from our camp.The day wore on, it poured.The sun came out.So did the sandflies.Literally in clouds.And bit by bit that strength i had in the morning drained away.The vegetation got thicker, and parangs couldnt cut much.We simply threw our bodies down onto the plants. Or crawled on all fours.At some point my officer asked me to climb a tree.Wonderful, though risking falling and getting impaled, at least i could possibly see a path. But there was none, everything in my view, all around, was more thorny plants.

By now it was getting dark, some of the team started shouting at one another. I kept my mind by listening to my signal set, following some other drama going on with another team.Then i prayed, that we would get out before the sun set. There was no way we could spend a night inside this hell. And get out we did, we made it to a river. Just as the sun set on the horizon. Beautiful, id never seen a nicer sunset. Then it dawned on us as we waited for the extraction boat. What if they made us stay the night inside? We were told before that if we didnt finish we would have to. But surely not in this case? We were trying to get someone sick out.We had, in actuality walked 5km out of the area of operation, 10 times the original distance, through virgin swamp. Surely..
But we were wrong. The conducting major had sent word that we were to be put back at our start point..To spend the night, and to continue again in the morning.And something about not enough mileage. I could already hear talk from my team about live rounds, (which we were given to shoot crocs), malingering, and all sorts of things a desperate person can think of. 3 people "abandoned the team" on medical reasons. Even i wanted to, saying i had a headache. I prayed again,that we would not be made to go back in. But we did. On that dreary saturday night, as my other friends watched soccer and ate at the canteen, the remaining 5 of us, were seated in the boat again.Heading back to the beginning. Crestfallen, with faces looking like we;d just fought a war, we sat in silence, as the hum of the motor echoed about the river.If at anytime I had doubts with God, it was then.

But God knows what a person can go through. He heard my prayer alright, but in His grace he answered it in his own way. The boat seeemed to be taking a long time.Should it? The start point wasnt that far off..When it finally stopped, another boat came alongside, and in it, my S2. My officer talked with him, pointing out where we made it to until our friend fell sick.Who knew, the S2 had allowed us to be brought to another place to spend the night.A survival site used by the JCC people. Muddy yes, but it wasnt infested with thorns. I wasnt really feeling much better then, yet how foolish was I to doubt that God wouldnt see us through the night. My officer had for some reason brought a groundsheet. Now we could lie down. The people who left our team gave us their remaining food, and we found we had more biscuits than we could eat.Even better, 4 pieces of solid fuel. None of us had intended to bring much food, we expected to have been out by afternoon. But there we were, with more than enough. Some managed to sleep despite the sand flies, I sat awake with my friend, burning little pieces of the fuel, the warmth of the flame providing some solace from the dampness and cold.

The night passed surprisingly quick.As God had brought us light in those little pieces of fuel, so too did He by the coming of daylight. I could feel renewed strength as the day broke. We made it back in a few hours, euphoric, exhausted,covered in hundreds of sandfly bites, and im not sure about the others, grateful.


God is always with us, to the deepest depths of the ocean, there is not anywhere you can go where he is not with you.

"Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)