Psalms 23 in Life

I just came back from Kem PMM SIB Peringkat Sabah (Borneo Evangelism Church Youth Camp Sabah) 2011. The highlight of it, for me, was the 3rd day. It was jungle trekking.

Let me explain what we were going to do.
There ware 16 stations, with different challenges each. Most of the tracks were set up in the jungle. And because it was monsoon season, it rained most of the time.

So we started out at around 10 in the morning. It was fairly easy - AT FIRST.  Before coming to the camp, I didn't know we were doing any sort of outdoor activities, so I just brought  the sort of sneakers that's used for a walk in the mall, not the hiking up steep and slippery hills type. My shoes did not provide much friction, and I fall down easily. I have very bad eyesight (power = 400), provided that it was raining really hard, plus the fog and the mud, I had a really hard time there. As the hours fly by, it got more challenging. It went something like this.

Walk, walk, hike, walk, RAIN, walk, slid, fall, stand, fall, walk, fall, I CAN'T SEE A THING!!

About the last part. Imagine you are in a car, driving in the rain. HARD RAIN. Your wipers are broken, you can't see, and there's traffic behind you. Finally the rain stopped, BUT, there's the fog. You can't see

That was how I felt.

I was walking so slow and keep falling I decided to just slide down a slope or crawl up a miniature hill. Up to one point my mentor wanted to bring me back to church so I could rest. But I thought to myself, if others could do it, so do I, plus I'm the assistant head of the group. And besides, I have Jesus. So I kept going. I prayed most of the time.

For the next few hours it was ok for me.

As daylight was running out at around 6pm, my group was still inside the jungle, with a few more stations the complete.

It started to rain again. GREAT. The sky was getting ever so dark. GREAT. We were in the middle of a rainforest. GREAT.

Besides us, 2 more groups were also stuck there, along with us. In a line, we walked, and walked, and walked. I could not see, literally, and my group's mentor had to lead me, as if I'm blind. I kept falling, my friends later said it was as if I was drunk. Anyways...

 Psalms 23:4
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadows of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me; Your rod and your staff they comfort me."

It was dark, it was foggy, I could not see past my muddy and blurred glasses. I was CLIMBING up the hill, with the bushes and grass as grip, as I could not stand up. So it WAS a valley of shadows for me in some ways. I feared nothing, because Jesus was there with me, I could feel it. I saw some fireflies now and then. And because after raining the sky is usually clear, I could see the billions of stars that God hung up there. God really comforted me.

At last, about 2 hours later, we came back to the church, safe and sound. I had never felt so relieved at the sight of civilization before. ALL PRAISE TO GOD!!