“How did you two meet?”
It’s a pretty common question that everyone, who’s part of a couple, usually gets asked. At events, it’s a great, open question that gets a person talking long enough for you to take a sip of your drink and scan the room at a party. For most people, the answer is straightforward and can be condensed into a sentence or two. But for Phil and I, it is a wonderfully loaded question that we love to answer, especially this week, as we mark 25 years of marriage.
“Be strong and courageous.
Joshua 1:9
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged,
for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Our story doesn’t begin anywhere near our homes, or even near where we were living when we met. Our story begins thousands of miles away from those places. Our story begins in Hungary. And, when you think about Hungary, you might guess that we met in Budapest, the country’s capital; but you’d be wrong.
Phil and I met in a little back-alley café, in a little tourist town called Szentendre (pronounced Saantandra), north of Budapest on the Danube River. My travelling partner, Alex, and I, both American women who were volunteering in Bulgaria at the time (she with the American Peace Corp, I with a Lutheran Church), were visiting the sites of Hungary on a week-long holiday. Phil, a Brit, was on holiday in Hungary visiting Katja, a pen-pal he’d met through a Garfield magazine. (In the 80’s and 90’s becoming pen-pals was a way to meet people with similar interests in other countries – kind of like joining a Facebook Group and direct messaging someone from that group.) And, before the thought crosses your mind, let me be clear, Phil and Katja were not more than friends when I met them. I did not steal Phil from her.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
Jeremiah 29:11
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.”
The epitome of a chance meeting
Ours was the epitome of a chance meeting: We happened to be on vacation at the same time from our respective countries, outside of tourist season. During our individual week-long vacations, we happened to visit a particular tourist town on the same particular day, Friday, April 2, 1999. And if the fact that we were a Brit and an American who happened to be visiting the same tourist spot in the same foreign country isn’t chance enough for you, here are a few more chances that make the story a bit more interesting:
Alex and I were not meant to be in Hungary.
We were planning to go to Turkey, but the week before our trip, Kurdish rebels bombed the shopping mall in Istanbul and Alex’s leave from the Peace Corp was rescinded. So, we had to find a different place to go. Because of my business visa, we had to leave the country (I usually got a ride down to the Greek border and just walked across the border and back into Bulgaria to meet my visa requirement.) As volunteers, and recent college graduates, we didn’t have much money, and a flight to Hungary was the cheapest we could find, so that’s where we decided to go after our Turkey plans were cancelled at such short notice.
It wasn’t the first café Alex and I had visited for dinner that evening.
In fact, we only found it by accident. We’d been trying to eat at a different restaurant in town. We’d sat down in the other restaurant for a few minutes and had finally just been given menus (after quite a long wait) when the only other guests in the restaurant came over and asked if we’d already ordered. When we said “no.” they said emphatically, “DON’T!” The service was horrendously bad, and the food wasn’t much better, apparently. Because it wasn’t yet tourist season, there were not many other restaurants still open. Most people visiting the town had just come up for the day and were heading back to Budapest to their homes and hotels, but Alex and I were staying at a local B&B for the night, so we had to find something to eat in town. Quickly deciding that there must be somewhere else open, we put down our menus, thanked the other guests, and left to try to find someplace else for dinner.
It took us quite a long walk and a few closed shops to find the second café, where Phil, Katja, and two other Hungarian friends just happened to be. When we arrived, Alex and I weren’t sure the place was open, but when we stepped in and asked, Phil and his friends saw us and told us to come in and sit with them. The café was a tiny place that maybe had six tables. Since Phil and his friends spoke English, we went ahead and joined them. We were given menus and the Hungarians at the table translated and suggested dishes for us. We had a great meal, great beer, and a lot of fun conversation.
A wonderful conversation
During the evening, I found out more about Phil and Katja, that Phil was from the UK, that he was the oldest of three kids (same as me), that he was Christian (same as me), and that he’d gone to college and had a job as tech support for the international banking sector. (Having never been to the UK, I didn’t realize that “college” didn’t mean the same thing as the American equivalent, but in the end, that didn’t matter.)
It was a couple hours later, around 9pm, and it was time for Phil and his friends to rush to the train station to catch the last train back to Budapest. What a nice evening it had been, but it had come to an end. Phil said, “I’d really like to be able to talk to you again some time, can I have your address?” Two thoughts immediately crossed my mind:
1. He really is a pen-pal collector. How nice that he asked both of us for our addresses. (I assumed he was more interested in Alex – she is very pretty and an extremely interesting, outgoing individual.)
2. I don’t write snail mail to my own mother whom I consider to be my best friend. I’m not going to write to this guy whom I’ve only just met for two hours in a café.
So, I said, do you have an email address? In 1999, email was still new. Most people didn’t have email addresses, so when he said yes, I was pleasantly surprised and was happy to exchange email addresses with him.
Having said our “good-byes,” Alex and I headed back to our B&B and off to bed. I remember saying to her, “Phil was really a nice guy, wasn’t he?” She agreed. The next day, she and I went back to Budapest, back to the airport, back to Bulgaria.
Then, on Sunday morning, after church, I went into the church office to catch up following my week off. Logged into email and, lo and behold, there was an email waiting for me from Phil! I couldn’t believe it! I was so impressed that he’d written. I’d assumed he was just being nice by asking for my contact details, and that he was more interested in Alex, than in me. I figured that I’d maybe get in touch with him in a few days once I was back to work. “…plans to give you hope, and a future.” Indeed!
Only God could have orchestrated that chance meeting in a little back-alley café in a little tourist town in Hungary. Even the best script writer wouldn’t have come up with all the nuances and plot-twists. And only God has kept the resulting love-story going for all the years since.
What about you?
Want to hear another chapter of this true story? We’d love to share it with you.
Let me know which part you want to hear next; these stories have been lived, but haven’t yet been written, so I’ll take your lead in their telling…
- Why Bulgaria?
- From meeting to matrimony
- The early years
- Becoming a UK driver
- The Parkers of Pevensey Road
- The child-barren challenge
- My career as a product manager
- The barker Parkers
- My leg feels funny
- Our dual citizenship story
- Visa? The craziness of politics and paperwork
- What to do during gardening leave
- “Retiring” post-pandemic
- Moving to America
Thanks to https://www.freeworldmaps.net/printable/europe/ for this article’s featured image.
