It was Girls’ Camp at Cooper’s Beach Youth Camp  time again, and as usual, I was one of the leaders along with Carole. For most of the Girls’ Camps we had no problem with boys pestering the girls at all, but the occasional one  with a group of stroppy older girls could cause a problem or two if they tried to get down to the beach on their own.

This particular camp was like this. Where the problem lay was in the fact that there was a group of boys from the Motor Camp opposite who either knew some of them or else just thought they would be fair game for a bit of fun. The girls played up to them and we began to wonder just what we were going to do.

The boys would stand on the bridge and jeer and make cat calls to them and then the girls would go all silly  and squeal and laugh in reply. Anyone would think that none of them had ever seen a boy before!!!

At our morning prayer time, one of the younger leaders prayed that the problem would cease. With my usual lack of faith, I couldn’t see how it would.  But we prayed, and then rang our husbands and asked them to make it a matter of prayer at the Assembly prayer meeting that night.

The day passed reasonably quietly and then the girls began to pester for a walk along the beach after tea. I felt we were asking for trouble but Carole agreed as long as they stayed in a group together. The boys saw us head down the track under the bridge, and made their plans accordingly. When we came back, there they were all lined up on the bridge, waving sticks and making rude remarks  as we passed underneath. (This was probably at the very time the Prayer meeting was going on).

But those girls just carried on quite oblivious to their presence above them, chattering and laughing among themselves and totally ignoring those cheeky boys.  It was amazing! The boys’ fun went completely flat!

We couldn’t help agreeing that those boys were completely invisible to the girls…. the Lord had shut their eyes and they didn’t even see them! In fact, we asked one of them later about the incident and they said, ”What boys?”

    Another incident that happened at a Girls’ Camp  was that some  boys were snooping around outside  the dormitories as the girls were going to bed. The leaders would  check the grounds but never actually caught them. One night, the lights had gone out and the girls were settled down for the night, when there was  the crash of breaking glass. Someone had thrown a rock through one of the windows!

Normally it didn’t take much to make the girls all react to a noise  after dark like a mob of frightened cattle, but this time no-one woke up but Carole’s daughter.  Carole was able to shush her up while we were cleaning the bits of glass up.

We felt that this too was a miracle. What stories would have gone home to the parents if the girls had woken up!! We felt that we should report the matter to the Police so it didn’t seem that we were being negligent of the girls’ welfare, so we did this. They came and took statements from us, but as far as the girls were concerned, they weren’t  aware of a thing.