importance of belief

A young Hungarian lieutenant sent one of his reconnaissance units out into the Swiss Alps to complete some training maneuvers. Just as they headed into the mountains, it began to snow. The snow worsened, and the unit quickly became lost. After missing for two days, the lieutenant feared that he had sent the entire unit to their death. Then, miraculously, on the 3rd day the unit returned.

What happened? How did they survive? How did they navigate in the snowstorm? These questions raced through the mind of the lieutenant. One of the men spoke up:

“When the snow started we became lost, and feared we would all die. Then one of us found a map in his pocket…it gave us great hope. We made camp, outlasted the storm, and then used the map to navigate out of the wilderness back to camp. Without the map, we would have never made it off the mountain”

The lieutenant was overjoyed, and asked to see the map that had saved his men. The man gave him the map and the lieutenant looked over it closely. A look of shock came over his face.

What he was holding was not a map of the Alps, but a map of the Pyrenees.