presenting the evidence
Monday, April 16
The thunderous applause of the crowd, the rousing roar of the recruits, the jubilant throwing of caps into the air; the scene marks the end of the first stage in army.
During my time in Tekong, I faced new challenges and learned many lessons --- ones apart from the expected physical challenges and soldiering lessons. Haha, I really never expected to gain anything more than those, to be honest. It's only right that I jot these things down --- to remind myself, in future, of the things I learned in army. More so, as evidence to the fact of which I'm certain --- that my decision to stay here and serve in NS is of God, and is not a waste of my time.
I touched on my growth in understanding and faith in Christ in earlier posts, so I shan't cover that here. Instead, these pertain more to my growth and development of character and as an individual.
First off, being in Bronco Company was a challenging experience in itself, and most of you would probably know that the toughness --- or lack thereof --- certainly wasn't the cause for challenge. Instead, it was the demographics of the people within the platoon, and even the company as a whole, that presented itself as a challenge to me. Dumped in a platoon --- and by extension a section --- with no fellow ACS(I)an at all brought no source of comfort, and I was forced to forge relationships completely from scratch. Naturally, I was disappointed, as those in other companies had people that they knew at least to a decent extent, and could expand their circle of interaction from there. Moreover, the Christians formed a small minority of the people there --- a situation I had never been in before, being in mission schools all my life.
Somewhere down the line though, I knew why God placed me in Bronco, without any friends and without a Christian community that would make it easy to openly pray and worship together. I was forced to carve out my own niche --- pushing myself to make friends while yet holding fast to my personality and character, and being a representative of Christians. Additionally, it was a golden opportunity to be a living testimony of Christ. They were fully aware of what I stood for, and respected that, repeating things like, "Clement will
never swear." I think, in the end, I showed my section that it was possible to be a Christian without being stiff-necked or socially awkward, while still keeping to Christian virtues. It did break the stereotypes that some of them had about Christians.
Secondly, BMT was a period when my personal values were tested. What perfect timing too, just after I had fleshed out
my core values in words. My strength and will to keep to those values were often put to the test. Army is a place where sexually and linguistically crude conversations are commonplace, an environment where such content thrives. What's more, my section happened to have a number of gossipers, and 'bitching sessions' popped up occasionally. It was tempting to join in such conversations. After all, I had once thrived on such conversations as well, further back in time. Had I not had a deep personal conviction of my identity in Christ, I might have well been swayed by the constant bombardment of unwholesome content. The experience thus solidified my conviction of my personal values, and who I wanted to be in Christ.
The thing I learned which I treasure most is this final one: to withhold personal judgement and instead, love unconditionally. There were people whom I and others disliked, and initially, I found myself clearly giving the cold shoulder to one of them. The realisation shook me, and I realised that I'd be feeling miserable if I too found everyone shunning me in the already lonely island of Tekong.
From then on, I made the conscious effort to treat these 'annoying' people with love, responding to them as I would with others, regardless of the disdain I held. It really required thinking in a Godly perspective, choosing to love them as God would. And though it was sometimes tedious and draining, it was truly rewarding. One of them smiled as I talked to him --- no one else would associate themselves with him, other than to bully him. Admittedly, loving unconditionally is something for which there is lots more to learn, but this experience in itself was already a great triumph for me in Christ.
I am no master of words, and words simply cannot effectively express everything I gained throughout this experience. The writing sounds nowhere as good as it did in my head. In any case, if so much could be learned in 9 weeks, who knows how much I'll learn in 9 months! Truly, truly, God will be at work.
AMEN;
3:13 am
