At the Waterfall
Mrs. Thelma Jenkins

When I arrived at the waterfall on a cool morning in August, I was rather dismayed to see a couple of small blue tents on the grass above and a boy sitting in a hair, apparently listening to a radio. I rather thought that camping was not allowed and wished they were not there. However, I decided to ignore their presence, and sat with my back to them and my feet in the falling water. After a short while, I saw a grey wagtail flitting about on the rocks below me. Not having seen one for some time, I quickly removed my glasses and delightedly watched the bird through my binoculars.

He only remained a few moments and then went swooping over my heard. Deciding that I would follow him further up stream, I stood up and heard an ominous "plop" in the water. I had forgotten that I had thoughtlessly put my glasses (new vari-focals, costing about £180) on my lap. I watched in dismay as they slid gently into the waterfall.

Although I felt that it was quite hopeless, I knelt down in the water, to see if there was the faintest possibility that they had caught on the ledge where my feet were resting but of course, they were not there. At this point, the boy who was listening to the radio and the older man who was with him came to see what I was doing. When I explained, the older man said, "Oh this boy will go and look for them. He doesn’t mind how wet he gets". The boy, who was very tall, stripped off his sweater and shoes, and began paddling in the foot of the waterfall, feeling with his bare feet for my glasses. All the time, I was praying inwardly, "Oh Lord, please let him find them- please let him find them!" although it really seemed that it was asking for an impossibility. After searching with his feet for several minutes, the boy (I never did know his name) triumphantly lifted my precious glasses out of the water. The Lord had answered my almost impossible request.

As I thought over this experience I learned some very valuable lessons. The first was that the very people I had been "displeased" about had been provided by the Lord to answer my nearly impossible prayer. He had placed His answer there, before I did my careless act. "Before they call, I will answer..." (Isaiah 65 verse 24). Also, I was rather humbled to find that they were not just campers, and the boy was not listening to the radio, but they were both part of a Duke of Edinburgh Award activity, and they were using a "walkie-talkie" to direct some boys over the distant mountain. How easily we can build up our own ideas and prejudices - and how wrong we can be!

How grateful I was, not only to the men who came to my help, but to the Lord for placing them there - because, being rather a cool day, there were not people bathing or paddling, and literally no one else that could have helped me.