January 22nd, 2010 by Kim

So here is our family’s Christmas story. I was hesitant to share it until now. I pray I can communicate it correctly.

Because of the financial situation we are in,  I sat down to think and plan for Christmas and made out a very modest budget for our family. Because things are so much cheaper in the States and because online shopping is so much easier than shopping here, I decided it would be best to order all our gifts from the US and have them mailed here.

It was fun to shop online, and even more fun to take advantage of the incredible deals offered at Thanksgiving. I let the kids buy gifts for each other online as well. I was so happy with the products and prices, and it confirmed to me this was the right thing to do.

By December 4th, my mom had received all the packages, unpacked everything, then repacked it for overseas mailing. On December 5th she mailed the first box, express mail (7-9 days) to Slovakia. December 7th she mailed the second box (2 smaller boxes were more economical than 1 large). From that day we began praying for these boxes. Everyday we prayed for them to get here safely, without taxes or trouble. Sometimes the kids would ask, “what if they don’t come” and I would reply in confidence, “don’t think that way, let’s believe God will do this”.

I was determined, as the days drew closer, I would make no back-up plan. To me a back-up plan didn’t show faith. We continued to pray, with confidence.

On December 23 (the last day for mail delivery ) when the package didn’t arrive, I was more devastated than the kids. I prayed and prayed, asking God to give me wisdom and understand for myself, so I could explain it to the kids.

We had a family meeting that evening and all agreed that God could have gotten this box to us on time. Next we asked ourselves why do we think He did it this way. Emili (our oldest) spoke immediately and said, “probably He wanted us to focus more on Jesus and not getting gifts for ourselves”.

Tearfully, I agreed with her and it didn’t take long for the others to agree as well. So from that moment, we decided to forget about the boxes (which we figured probably had gone to someone who needed them more than us) and focus more on Jesus. We had a beautiful Christmas, celebrating through our advent traditions, visiting with friends and lots of food 🙂 It was perfect. We really could not have ask for a more meaningful time.

I avoided posting about the boxes not arriving. I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for us or even worse, give money to buy last minute gifts. I just felt God wanted me to be quiet on this. The kids were not fully without gifts. Special friends here gave them wonderful gifts that they loved. And there was 1 big gift in hand that was given to us back in the summer, but we had waited to give it until Christmas – a Nintendo Wii!!! So, this was way more than enough.

And then one day, around the 30th of December, as we were leaving for Poland to celebrate New Year’s with our close friends, guess what? The package came! Yep it sure did. We opened it with joy and were thrilled with each gift. But I’m sure the timing wasn’t a mistake. Our hope is that our perspective was changed for ever – to focus on the real meaning of Christmas.