The post office, the packages, and the puzzles

Sarah Beth was pretty excited about the hot cheetos--her favorite--from FBC Allen, Tx.
John John is doing the happy dance over gummi bears from the same package.
Hannah was very pleased with her Reese's peanut butter cup.


Let me be clear: I avoid the post office in Moscow. Have heard nightmare stories, want nothing to do with it, and send my husband to do that most onerous of chores. (Yeah, it's worse than the trash--we have a chute right outside our door.) But in order to pick up packages, one must go to the post office. And if you don't do it quickly, the bigger the chance that the package will just disappear. So, of course, when Marc left Wednesday night, not only did the snow come, but also the package slips. I came home yesterday to find two slips in our box. So Irina and I trudged the mile to the post office, turned in the slip, and brought back two boxes from the Matheny's. Today, I had another slip and no Irina. But I remembered what to do, so I trudged right back to the post office (I'd already pulled my little cart home from school with a big turkey in it, so what was a little more pulling?), filled out the form, showed my passport, and grabbed the package, this time from my parents. I put it in my cart and headed home. Inside the package were all kinds of fun things--drink mixes, pudding mixes, American medicine, t-shirts, weight watchers stuff--something for everyone. But the thing that was most important to me was the collection of wonder word puzzles.

Now, many of you may not know what the wonder word is. It is a puzzle, my favorite, in which you get rid of letters by finding words, and then a word is spelled with what is left over after you've found the words. I love it. It is in the Jacksonville paper every Sunday, and I never missed a puzzle when I lived there. And in the package was a pile of them that my mom had cut out of the paper. With all the other fun stuff in there, why was that my favorite? Because it was thoughtful. Every time my mom cut one of those out, she did it for me. Cathy Matheny filled our Christmas boxes with things for Christmas cookies, because she remembered that last year, I didn't have the stuff to decorate cookies. My sister's Sunday School class from First Baptist, Allen, Texas, filled a box with hot chocolate and hot cheetos, because those are my kids' favorites. It was thoughtful. They didn't just throw any old thing together and expect that we'd be thrilled (we would, by the way, because there is no bad box), but they consciously put things in that we either needed or that would be such a treat for us. They thought about us. And that's why packages are so important to my family.

Now, please know that this is not a guilt trip if you've never sent us--or anybody else--a package overseas. Trust me, I certainly never sent a package overseas to anyone. But when we get a package (or packages--we've gotten five packages in the last ten days!), we know that we are remembered. I can't tell you how important that is. It can be very isolating to be over here, away from the familiar, especially during the Christmas season. Knowing that we are being thought of and prayed for is such an encouragement. So if you have sent us a package, thank you so much. God has used you to minister to us in ways you cannot imagine.

Well, I'd better run. I'm defrosting my freezer, because I cannot get my turkey in there. I'm praying when it's defrosted, Ol' Tom will fit. If not, I'm going to have to hang him in a bag off the balcony window, and that's nothing but classy. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that someone else has let you know how special and important you are to them, and that your freezer will hold your Thanksgiving turkey. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye