‘IT’S LIFE JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT!’

We are told that from dust we come and to dust we shall return, which makes Afghanistan close to the origin of all life! Out here dust is a way of life. Having just arrived I was on the ranges carrying out some critical training and trying to adjust from the green lush fields of Lancashire to the brown dust-bowl of the desert which is now my home. The sun shone down on us from its elevated position high in the sky, my body bleeding sweat in a futile effort to cool the core. Its 43 degrees and it is only my fifth day! Lectures persist, relentless like the orange globe above our heads. Water is imbibed frequently, almost incessantly, as the body tries to replenish the litres it has shed in coolant.

Morale is high, training excellent, but the body is exhausted. It takes around two weeks to acclimatise and by day five I am tired just trying to walk around let alone run. The gym is on the back-burner as the ‘back-burner’ makes all thought of physical training sheer madness.

And to top it all, I have a sore throat and a cold. I have left the damp coast of the North West for the arid desert of Afghanistan, and I have caught a cold! Medics explain that it is all part of the adjustment process, a combination of movement from air-conditioning to sun-conditioning supported by a dry and dusty context that coats your membranes and blocks your nasal passages.

Feeling less than my best I try to adjust and prepare for my new role as Joint Force Senior Chaplain, but at present feel totally inadequate. Prayer is required and reliance on Him who is greater than I. No point building my house in the sand – it is the sand that is the problem here! I need a firmer foundation for my ministry if I am to be found up for the task. What was it that the Apostle Paul wrote at such a moment like this…

‘What a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ (Romans 7:24-25)

Padre Cole Maynard