God really works in marvelous ways. Not that i didn't know that, but over the past few days He jus sent me a couple of reminders to drive home the point.

it started with guard duty on monday night. i was standing at our camp's main gate doing sentry duty with one of my men, and i was thinking: it's only been a couple of minutes..more than an hour to the end of our shift! arrggh.. within minutes of that thought, someone in a truck drove up and offered us a couple of VANILLA CREAM buns, which we gratefully accepted (albeit on the pretence of being initially reluctant to accept such generosity at first).

then a devious thought came into my head: drats, i should have remembered to bring my water bottle; i'm practically dehydrating out here. the next thing we knew, a warrant officer who had only previously lectured us on road safety rode up on his motorcycle, and gave us two ICE-COLD cans of SOFT DRINK!! can u believe that?? simply incredible.. i mean, in all my six months plus doing guard here i'd never before been so fortunate, and here i did not see one, but TWO leprechauns on the same day!

then came tuesday..the real whammy. recently i'd been running a little low on finances. dad's been having trouble, and though jen's working jea's still dependant on us and so we've gotta help out. i had made the mistake (depending on which way u look at it) of calling up one of my fellow commanders, asking him if i could buy his duty from him. (it's an "under-the-table" practice, probably carried out throughout this entire organisation, to "exchange" regimental duties - COS, Guard duty, CDS and PDS duties - for a small token sum. of course this "small token sum", mostly in the form of cash, is substantial enough to convince the "buyer" that the extra trouble of doing someone else's duty is really worthwhile)

anyway, getting back to the point. i told him - perhaps a little in desperation - that i really needed the money cos he actually wanted to "sell" his duty to someone else, adding a little bit about my predicament at home for goos measure. what happened next completely astounded me: not only did he sell me his duty, but he even passed word around of 'one of our colleagues' needing financial help. pretty soon the proverbial hat was being passed around, and by the end of the day i soon found out of the generosity of some of the people i had previously held in, shall i say, a 'not exactly high' esteem. this, of course, made me feel ashamed and embarrassed, to a degree more than which i know how to put into words.

i'm making a personal vow to treat their generosity as a loan (albeit a long term, interest-free one) and as soon as i can i'll pay them back, but really the point i'm trying to emphasise is how grateful and touched i am for their kindness and selfless generosity, for by their actions i have been given the honour of witnessing what the human spirit - and the grace of God - is truly capable of.

raneth hopped off at 8:50 pm