After the occupation of France and Belgium by the Germans it was my privilege to return to Belgium, there to visit my wife’s folks and the Saints there. You know they are organized. There is a Belgium District, and there I had the privilege to talk to our district president, Brother Devignez. He was one of the Saints who left the City of Liege at the onslaught, to seek refuge in France, and while upon the highway in Belgium they were stranded and witnessed an aerial attack by Stuka dive bombers. Brother Devignez said to me: “I have never seen anything like it. Blood was as thick on the streets as water on a rainy day,” and he testified to me that he knew that the Lord blessed him as well as his companions. When I reached Liege I heard some criticism about the good shepherd leaving the flock. Some of the brethren and sisters who had decided to remain censured the decision of this brother to leave as a refugee, yet he had spoken of it ofttimes before the war had overtaken Belgium and had invited all who wanted to, to join the party. I couldn’t help thinking how much better this man was fitted to lead the Saints after he came back from such an experience, knowing, as he did that the Lord had spared his life – that the whole party got back safely, including a ten-months-old baby; that among this party was another brother who, in the face of death, had gone into a field to milk a cow so that the ten-months-old baby would be fed.

– Gaston Chappuis, April Conference 1943

[photo is of Paul Joseph Devignez, shortly after the war]