Impossible Odds: What happened in Brussels in 1993 (a personal account)

This is a story that for whatever reason, I haven't shared on this blog before.  Maybe it's because it's so long and many people might not have the time to read it all?  But it's a good story, I think.  One that might have many marveling at the serendipitous nature of the universe.  Personally, I believe this is a "God thing".  The chances of this happening as they did cannot be calculated.  And yet the elements fell precisely into place, more beautifully than anything that a person could probably come up with on their own.

I shared this story earlier a few days ago on a friend's Facebook post, which was about her daughter happening to run into a former next-door neighbor at the Vatican.   This story is right up there with that.  So here it is.  Enjoy!

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It was the summer of 1993.  July 5th to be exact.  When I was 19 I spent a few weeks visiting a dear friend in Belgium.  Bennie was in med school at the time so one day while she was in class, I was running loose on the streets of Brussels.  We were going to meet up that afternoon to catch a movie.

It was about noon, and I was leaving the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, when these three young people - they couldn't have been out of high school - approached me and tried saying something in French.  All I could do was say "sorry folks but I know very little French, I'm from America."

That got their attention.  It turned out that they were from Russia, from Moscow actually.  And they knew English fairly well.  It was two guys and a young lady.  They told me that they were with a group that was traveling around western Europe, now that Russians could do that sort of thing.

They asked me if I knew where the big square, Grand Place, was.  I told them that I knew exactly where it was and that I could take them right there.  So that's where we headed to.  And we were talking, sharing where we each were from.  And I said that I came from North Carolina.

This excited one of the two guys.  He said he had heard of North Carolina.  He had met some people from North Carolina, even.  They had come to his school a year and a half earlier.  He even had their picture with him.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a Russian Bible.  He said he carried it everywhere with him.  And in the Bible he had a photo of American young people who were missionaries who came to his school.

"This one, she came from North Carolina," he said, pointing to a blond girl of about 16 years old.  "Her name is Christy.  When you go back to North Carolina, say hello to her from me!"

I told him that North Carolina was a fairly large state.  But "I'll tell her if I ever see her."

We were in Grand Place while he was telling me about the girl from North Carolina.  They asked if I knew any place there to eat.  I suggested a pizza restaurant that I had seen a few days earlier.  That's where we went to, and this was the very first time that any of these kids had a chance to eat real pizza.  I bought a large one for all of us, my treat.  It was just so much fun meeting these young people about my age from Russia, and talking with them over pizza.  It was a great experience 🙂 

We were there for an hour and then it was getting to be time for me to go meet Bennie.  I said goodbye to the Russian kids and the guy who asked me to say hello to this Christy person showed me her picture again.  I told him that I'd do my best to find her.

I spent another week in Belgium and Bennie and me had a blast!  We were in Paris for two days and that was an amazing time.  And then sadly we had to say goodbye and I flew back home and spent the next week and a half getting over jet lag (laughing aloud).

It was a long shot, but I decided to try to find Christy from North Carolina.  I spent the next two years leading up to my transfer to Elon looking for her.  And then when the Internet came about I tried finding her through that.  So for five or so years on and off I was looking for this person.  Because I'd promised some Russian kid in Brussels that I would.  And I kept coming up empty.  I'd wondered if the Russian guy had the right location when he told me where Christy was from.

So eventually I gave up on looking for her.

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Now the story jumps to the fall of 2003, a little over ten years after meeting the Russian students...

My wife and I had been visiting churches around where we lived, looking for a place of regular worship.  I came across one that the kids there were washing cars to raise money for a mission trip.  They seemed like a good bunch so we visited their church during Sunday service.  And my wife and I decided we liked the people there a lot and so we made it our place of worship.

The pastor had told me that the church didn't have a website but they had wanted one.  I thought it would be a neat project, and I told him that I'd be glad to help them get that going.  So we set about designing a church website.

I was in the pastor's office one evening, he had stepped outside to do something.  And I found myself looking at the pictures he had on a bookshelf.  Obviously of his family.  There was his wife, and two young men who were obviously his sons.  And there was a young woman who was apparently his daughter.

Something about her photo kept making me want to look at her.  She seemed familiar.  Like I knew her from some place.

Wait a sec...

She reminded me of the girl in the photo in the Russian kid's Bible ten years ago in Brussels, Belgium.

I took a long hard look at his daughter's photo on the wall.  And it did indeed look like the girl in the Russian kid's photo.

No.  That wasn't possible.  That was ABSOLUTELY impossible.

When the pastor returned, I told him that I had been admiring his family photos.  And he talked a little about them.  His wife, their two sons, their daughter...

"This sounds weird but I can't help but think that I've seen your daughter before."

I asked the pastor what her name was.

He replied that her name was Christy.

I cannot begin to describe the thoughts that were running through my head when he told me that.

I told the pastor that I wasn't sure if she was the person I had in mind.  I asked him where had she been, maybe our paths had crossed some other way, somehow.

He started telling me that his children had all done mission work.

"Where has Christy been?"

He told me that among other places she had visited Russia for two weeks in the fall of 1991.

My jaw would have hit the floor, had it not been hinged to my skull.

I almost fainted with disbelief.  When I regained my composure I told him the story, about the Russian teenager in Brussels ten years earlier asking me to tell Christy hi when I got back to North Carolina.

"Do you have any pictures of her from about that time?" I asked him.  He said that he did at his house and that I could follow him over there.

We got to his house.  And right up on the wall going up the stairs there was a framed photo of his daughter... wearing the same outfit as the girl in the picture I had seen in Brussels.

All along, the person I had been asked to look for ten years earlier, by a student from Moscow on the streets of Brussels, had been less than fifteen miles from where I'd grown up.

And we had wound up at the church where her father was the pastor.

Some time later, I asked a mathematical genius friend of mine about what were the odds of all of that happening as they did.  She replied that with so many factors to consider, the odds were incalculable.  It simply should not have happened like that, at all.

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A few weeks later after making that discovery, I got to meet Christy.  And at long last I told her "hello" from the Russian kid.  I'm Facebook friends with she and her husband (they share an account).  They've been blessed with a beautiful family and recently became grandparents.

For as long as I live, how I came to know about her and our eventually meeting each other will never stop blowing my mind.  It's a mathematical miracle.  And maybe more than that.  For those of us who believe in God, it really does come across as something that only He could have let come about.

Not the strangest thing to ever happen to me, but it's up there.

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Chris and Bennie's Trans-Atlantic Pecan Pie!

 Last week my good friend Bennie, a physician in Belgium, shared on Facebook a photo of a pecan pie she had made.  It looked magnificent!  I asked her for the recipe for it and she sent it along.  Turned out that it's from a French-language cookbook of American recipes.  Well whatever: I'm still counting it as a recipe from a foreign language book :-P

It looked so decadent that I had to make it, even though I've never baked anything more than brownies before.  And after some cross-oceanic consultation about things like proper temperature (at one time I thought it was going to bake at 800 Fahrenheit... which didn't sound right...) and some finagling with extra ingredients like corn syrup, I think it's safe to say that in light of what friends were raving yesterday at Thanksgiving dinner, we have concocted a masterpiece!

So here is the recipe for Chris and Bennie's Trans-Atlantic Pecan Pie:

Ingredients:

1 9-inch pie crust

3 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

1 cup corn syrup (I use good ol' reliable Karo brand, dark)

1 cup pecans

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (or 150 Celsius for our friends in Europe and abroad).  Whisk together all the ingredients, except the nuts.  Pour into pie crust.  Cover with pecans cut in two lengthwise (Bennie also suggests crushing the pecans).  Bake for 70 minutes.  Let cool at room temperature before placing in refrigerator for setting.  Wait 1 hour before serving (or wrapping in plastic wrap for transport to dinner elsewhere).

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Equal Justice: The Legend of Herkenbald

Law, we are told even in fifth grade, is something that applies to all without respect to wealth or status.  And then a few years later the same notion gets drilled into our mushy skulls during civics class as high school freshmen.  It's a noble ideal, and we like to think that the world follows America's example as a model of how under the rule of law, there are none deemed greater than others.  Rich or poor, celebrity or obscure, politically affluent or peanut gallery... it doesn't matter.  Here we are all equally accounted and equally accountable.

And it is all a damnable fantasy and we all know it.  Even if we don't talk about it.

I suppose the current situation with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is in my mind tonight.  As of this writing some former classmate during the early Eighties is alleging that Kavanaugh did something, or other, whatever.  She's due to testify before the Senate next week.  It's already grounds enough, however dubious, to have a number of elected officials and many commentators in the media demanding that Kavanaugh withdraw himself as a nominee.

Huh.  Funny.  I remember many of these same people insisting in 1998 that President Bill Clinton's sexcapades were inconsequential.  That his "character didn't matter".  That it was all "sex lies" whatever that is supposed to be.  If it didn't affect his performance as President of the United States then it shouldn't be on the radar.

These same people went down to the mat tooth and claw to fight for Bill Clinton.  Now they demand that Brett Kavanaugh be stricken from consideration for the Supreme Court.  All on the word of an individual whose integrity has been questioned by her peers and students, and is now found to be an anti-Trump activist at least at some point recently.

Maybe it's just me, but a semen-stained dress is a lot more incriminating than high school gossip from thirty-five years ago.  That a heap of Kavanaugh's former fellow adolescents are now vouching has been made out of whole cloth circa September 2018.

Don't even get me started on the obscene double-standard in regard to the allegations of foreign interfence on Trump's behalf in the last election and the uranium sale that we know happened with the blessing of Hillary Clinton.  One is fast becoming an unsubstantiated scandal that has lost all meaning for most Americans.  The other supplied nuclear material to those who would do harm to this country.

But, none of those particulars are really germane to this post.  I'm discussing the greater tragedy across our system of justice.  Namely, that justice is not impartial.  It plays favorites.  It has become a commodity for sale to those with pull.  And it's not supposed to be this way.

Which brings us to the legend of Herkenbald.

It was something introduced to me when I was in Belgium many years ago.  And ever since I've thought that it's a tale well worth telling to students here.  It should especially be shared in law schools, and in police academies, and with anyone who takes it upon himself or herself to become involved in the judicial process at any level.  It is, in my mind, the perfect parable of incorruptible justice.

So, what is the legend?

Herkenbald is said to have lived around 1020.  That is when he was a judge serving the people of Brussels, anyway.  And he was renowned far and wide for the wisdom of his decisions.  He was also famous... or infamous... for how serious he took his duties.  Everyone, no matter their station, was beneath the same shadow of immutable law.

And then came the day when Herkenbald, after many years of faithful service to his people, was very old and taken with grave illness.  He was moved to a bed in the hospital, to wait for the end.  And yet, he insisted that he be allowed to carry out the task appointed him long before.

Toward the end, Herkenbald heard a commotion outside of his room.  With hesitance, the great magistrate was told that his own nephew had taken a maiden against her will and committed rape.  Herkenbald commanded his subordinates to bring his nephew to his bedside.

However, the subordinates disobeyed, and took measures to hide the nephew.  And for whatever dumb reason, five days later the nephew came to the hospital on his own and entered Herkenbald's room.

Herkenbald was friendly and kind to his nephew.  He was very glad to see the young man, here at the end of his own days.  He bid his nephew to come and sit beside him.

And that's when Herkenbald grabbed the youth, held him with all his remaining strength as he pulled out a concealed dagger, and slit his own nephew's throat wide open.

His nephew's body collapsed to the floor.  The act discovered even as Herkenbald's breathing grew shallow, the bishop was summoned to hear his confession and to deliver last rites.  But Herkenbald refused to confess to the murder of his nephew.  It was not murder at all, the judge told the bishop.  It was the administration of justice.  His nephew had raped a woman and thus forfeited his life.  The law was without question in the matter.  A crime had been committed and punishment must be meted out.  And that is what Herkenbald had done.

Outraged, the bishop refused the final sacraments to Herkenbald.  The legend says that just as the bishop was storming out of the room, Herkenbald called out to him.  Then Herkenbald blew the high clergyman a holy raspberry: upon his tongue was the sacramental Host.  He had been given communion by the highest of all judges.  And then, his tasks fulfilled and a proverbial "up yours!" to the Bishop of Brussels, Herkenbald died.

Now if that's not a hardcore myth to convey to apprentice practitioners of the law and to veteran judges and constables alike, then by all rights it should be.  The legend of Herkenbald is the perfect morality tale about the law.  It is an admonition to judges and to politicians and to all who would hold sacred the rule of law in a society.  It is a reminder that though man and his schemes are inescapably fallen, there is an incorruptibility that must be striven toward without favor.

That photo is a depiction of Herkenbald slaying his nephew.  The statue itself decorates one of the churches in Brussels.

Maybe there needs to be a sculpture of Herkenbald in the United States Capitol Building.  Perhaps in the Rotunda, where every member of the House and Senate might see it.  And in the United States Supreme Court Building.  And in every courthouse in America.  And in law school textbooks.

After all, Lady Justice carries a blade.  Herkenbald actually used his.

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Photos of those Belgians!

All two regular readers of this blog know that last week I hosted four friends from Belgium in my home. We had quite a number of interesting adventures while they were here... and things got so wild we even had to dial 911! So to memorialize the fun times I thought I'd post a few pics from the past few days.

This is Bennie. She and I have been friends since 1992, when we first met while she was tagging along with family that was visiting from out of state (she used to be an exchange student with them). We hit it off so well that the following summer I visited her in Belgium... and that was my first time ever outside of America! We've hooked up quite a few times over the years. Here she is in the kitchen, making a special Belgian dinner...

What was Bennie and her family cooking up? Well, first there were these stuffed peppers and tomatoes...

And then for dessert, there was this chocolate mousse (made with real Belgian chocolate!)...

I'd thought that I'd gotten a photo of Bennie's stepson Gaetan, but apparently not. He does show up quite often in the camcorder footage though (so there is evidence that he actually exists :-). This photo is of his sister Fleur. And as you can see like any typical fourteen-year old girl, Fleur enjoys using Facebook to keep in touch with her friends (that's what she's doing on one of my computers, and incidentally this is one of the VERY rare occasions that you will EVER see my video editing room... and yeah it's a spare bedroom too :-P). The only thing really different is that when Fleur is on Facebook, she's doing it in French! How kewl is that?!

And finally, here is a picture of Bennie and her husband Eric. Yes, THAT Eric! The same Eric who told us last Thursday around 3:30 in the afternoon that he was going for a walk... and didn't come back. At 7 p.m. I had to call 911 because we had no idea where he was, Eric speaks no English, he was in unknown territory and this was the first time he had ever been overseas (or even on a plane trip for that matter). Around 7:30 a Rockingham County Sheriff's Department car pulled into my driveway and a deputy that I've known for years told me "he's walking up the road!" James didn't speak French and Eric didn't speak English but James told him "Chris Knight?" and Eric smiled and nodded. Turned out Eric walked to the end of the road I'm on toward thick woods, kept walking and ended up going more than six miles, then turned down a road he recognized from earlier that day and walked back along U.S. 158, stopping to get a Coca-Cola from a nearby store. When Bennie and I found him he was sans shirt and grinning like nobody's business. All told that was around FIFTEEN MILES that Eric walked through Terra Incognita without getting shot for trespassing, sunk in quicksand or held hostage by drug dealers. Someday I'm going to bring Eric (and Bennie to translate for him) to talk to our Boy Scout troop, 'cuz this guy definitely set a new standard for hiking in Rockingham County!

Anyway, here he is along with Bennie, sitting on the front steps of Speedwell Presbyterian Church near Reidsville...

'Twas quite a good time, with an old friend and some new ones. Lord willing I'll get to reciprocate and get back to Belgium sooner than later. It really is a sweet lil' country, and as you can see it breeds some rather hardy folks (not to mention being the home of Belgian chocolate, the Smurfs and Tintin, and the saxaphone).

Bennie, Eric, Gaetan and Fleur, thanks for stopping by. Y'all come back now, y'hear?!? :-)

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"It's so hard to say goodbye..."

Well, Bennie, Eric, Gaetan and Fleur just left a short while ago. For most of the past week I have been host to four friends from Belgium: one that I have known since 1992 and her wonderful lil' family that we have had the pleasure of meeting for the first time.

And already, I'm missing 'em.

It's been a long time since I've known such a fun and action-packed last few days. Eric's incredibly bold hike through the Rockingham County wilderness yesterday, has truly inspired me. Dude only speaks French, and yet he took off on a fifteen-mile trek through woods and landscape that he had never seen before. Lord willing I'm going to get to bring him back just so I can get him to talk to our Boy Scout troop here, 'cuz he set a whole new standard for outdoorsmanship here :-)

And I made sure that Bennie left the recipes for all those exquisitely delicious Belgian dishes that she and her family made last night.

Oh yeah, I also learned something: that the Star Wars movies are perfectly suited for just about every language that you can think of! Not only do they translate well even for dubbing, but it's remarkably easy to follow along even if you don't know the language being spoken :-)

Well, anyhoo... they're on the road again, heading along on their tour of the United States. But Lord willing, we shall meet again and sooner than later ;-)

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Tonight's Belgian Drama: Mousse and Missing Person!

So Bennie, Eric and the kids insisted on making a Belgian dish tonight for dinner, so we went out this morning and got groceries from the local Wal-Mart (I also made sure that Bennie and crew leave town with a bottle of Short Sugar's barbecue sauce). Dinner was stuffed peppers, some kind of neatly cooked stuffed tomato which defies easy description, and potatoes and it was all awesomely delicious!!

But around 3:30 this afternoon, Eric went for a walk. And didn't come back.

Long story short, we had to call 911 and have Rockingham County Sheriff's Department look for him. A short while later a deputy that I've known for many years pulled into my driveway and said that he'd found Eric walking further up the road...

Turned out that the dude went for a walk awright. He walked more than five miles east through the woods, then hiked down a road he recognized from earlier today and headed back along U.S. 158.

All in all that was around FIFTEEN MILES that Eric - a Belgian citizen who speaks only French and extremely little English - walked through strange terrain in a foreign land, and arrived right back home ('cept for about 1/5th of a mile's drive that Bennie and I gave him on the return leg).

Are these folks from Belgium a hardy breed, or what?? :-)

Anyhoo, we are currently eating Belgian chocolate mousse (yummy!) and watching Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in French (not subtitles, real French dubbing, thank goodness for DVD technology). I speak very little French, but as it's a Star Wars movie I understand it perfectly anyway :-P

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First full day with the Belgian Contingent

We went all over Raleigh, then came back and enjoyed a good dinner at Cafe 99 in Reidsville (and treated our guests to a karaoke rendition of "Hey Jude"... with terrific accompaniment by Justin and Haley :-).

That's just what comes to mind most right now. The whole day was well documented with still and video cameras.

Lord only knows what we'll do tomorrow but having four guests from Belgium in tow has been quite an interesting, enlightening and at times hilarious experience :-)

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The Belgians have arrived!!!

Four of the coolest people you can imagine, led by a girl who is very much like a dear sister, have come from the far land of Belgium and will be staying with me for the next several days.

Expect photos of whatever shenanigans we can come up with to appear on this blog soon!

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Bodybuilding championship canceled after competitors flee from drug testers

Over in Belgium, that country's bodybuilding championship has been canceled after drug testing officials showed up... which caused all the competitors to split the scene.

A doping official says bodybuilders just grabbed their gear and ran off when he came into the room.

"I have never seen anything like it and hope never to see anything like it again," doping official Hans Cooman said Monday.

Twenty bodybuilders were entered in the weekend competition.

Cooman says the sport has a history of doping "and this incident didn't do its reputation any good."

According to the article at Breitbart.com, three-fourths of all the entrants at last year's event tested positive for drug use.

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