Hi everyone, I really should be doing my essay but there's been this unsettling feeling so maybe I just need to post this out and I can finally focus on my essay.

As I think about the guys ording (sorry mark, you'll get a post soon too), there’s so much to be grateful for, seriously. I thank God for seeing each and everyone of you through 22 months of NS, for keeping you safe all those months. Especially when you guys went off for overseas exercises: Taiwan, Wallaby, Brunei, Thailand. For keeping you guys safe at all your live firings, as you roughed it out in the jungles around Singapore, for blessing all of you with decent health. Even for the injuries– Sim with his hand – that God was still ever faithful.

I thank God for giving each of you the grace to remain faithful to him, for the times where you remembered to pray even when you were tired,for the times you gave glory to God through your actions. Even for the times NS took you far away from God, I thank God for his graces in bringing you back. I thank God for the people you have met, encountered, befriended and bonded with in each situation you have found yourself in, I thank God for keeping you strong as you had friends and buddies to keep you going and for allowing you to find Him in the people you met. I thank God for your families, that they have remained a source of strength and support. I thank God for giving you the graces to still serve in ministry – for camps, outreaches, sessions etc. For allowing you to rush back to church whenever you were needed, for giving you the chance to come back on Sundays to church, tuesdays for bibles, random days of the week for camp briefings and spiritual preps and even random suppers on friday nights. I thank God for still giving you that strength to serve, even as you struggled with army. this is affirmation worthy, so yes praise God for you guys :)

I thank God for watching over you, for empowering you, for being there for you in your times of desperation and helplessness. I thank God for giving you wisdom, right judgement and compassion – that you have been Christ to the people you have met. I thank God for letting you have the experiences you have had – for allowing you to mature in your own ways (boys become men, haha).

I still rmbr the first two weeks of confinement – how you missed Sunday mass and LOG sessions and how much you missed church. I rmbr you going for your first live firing, first SIT test, first field camp and your first bookout – the many stories you had to tell. haha I rmbr the times you moved on from course to course, camp to camp. I rmbr the times you werent around because of duties, field camps, exercises, range, overseas missions, ndp.. the list goes on. how 22 months have gone by so quickly and how much God has been a part of it. How it has been possible only with God's strength and graces. So praise God, and congrats on ord-ing :)

love, jess.