Fudge-filled journey of kindness ends in sweet surprise

There wasn't the autumn color in Kentucky I thought there would be. But everything else exceeded expectations — especially the choose-your-own-adventure stories I brought home. 

This one has a 9-year-old girl who loves fudge. Our grand, Bethany — at the back of the shuttle bus to the Ark Encounter — told a man from Ohio to be sure and buy the fudge. Not that Noah packed fudge, although there were displays showing how growing food and cooking and baking were part of Ark life.

The man found Uncle Leroy's Candy Kitchen inside the venue and told them a “little girl” had sent him. The manager wanted to meet her. But there were thousands there that day and the man from the bus never did see her. Nor did he locate her the next day. That's because our family was not there.

It is now two days later — an hour down the Interstate at the Creation Museum, another large and popular attraction. The bus man toured that day and saw the shop manager from the Ark at the museum's Uncle Leroy's. He told him he hadn't seen the “little girl” again. Until he did.

After watching a stage performance on the life of Corrie ten Boom — a Dutch watchmaker sent to the camps by the Nazis in World War II for hiding Jews — we had made our way to the cafeteria. A smiling man in a Bengals jacket came up to us with his story. We said we'd try to find the fudge shop and meet the manager. I told Bethany, “Maybe you'll get a free piece of fudge.” The man, Nick, left, but not for long. He came back and handed Bethany $20 “to buy some fudge.”

Whoa, we weren't expecting this. Now we really had to find that store. In our meanderings, right before closing, there it was. And Rob, the manager, finally met Bethany. He even came around the counter for a photo with the “little girl” who liked his fudge so much she'd sent a new customer his way. She ended up walking away with a gift box of the peanut brittle which she had also recommended.

I hope this story is as heartwarming to read as it was to live it. It was a different kind of “Ark encounter” — one that raised the spirits of everyone involved. It doesn't take much to know why. An enthusiastic girl being herself on the bus, a nice guy from Ohio willing to take her advice, a candy shop manager who wanted to repay her with a kindness and then the unlikely possibility of meeting up again — a generous act from the stranger on the bus — and a visit to the shop where there was a surprise box of her favorite candy waiting.

Good things are happening around me all the time. Sometimes I might be a participant, sometimes a bystander. Other times I know nothing about them. But if I'm really thinking, I can be a creator of the good that's happening and that's a choose-your-own-adventure worthy of repeating anywhere.

Carol Shirk Knapp is the author of "The Preacher's Kid" column.