By: Patricia Francis Good     

My sister-in-law, Diana Francis, joined the Navy Reserves to earn enough money to live out a childhood dream.  I’m sure she never imaged that decision would lead her to serving in Kuwait.  As probably every reservist must believe, Diana never thought she would be activated.  But she received her orders to go overseas in the summer of 2008 and was deployed to Kuwait in October.  She learned to drive a truck, shoot a gun, and take orders.  In the middle of the night while still in training in the United States, she was given orders to get ready to deploy.  All she could tell my brother, John was that the plane was leaving for Iceland and from there, she didn’t know.

She arrived in Kuwait in mid October.  We thought she might be assigned a nice, comfortable job in an office.  But that was not to be.  She was assigned out to a special unit.  We don’t know exactly what she was doing because she was not allowed to tell us.  But, we do know that whatever she was doing it was dangerous.  She told her family she was not scared because she felt the Navy had trained her well for the task at hand. She and the others in her unit worked 10-12 hour a day, with little time off.  She wrote us that we had no idea what brave sailors are doing for our country and how honored she was to serve alongside these heroes.

Closer to the Christmas holidays, Diana wrote and asked if I would bake some homemade cookies for her unit.  She said the food was really bad and anything would be appreciated.  I promised I would do that.  I called all the women in our family, shopped for ingredients in bulk, pulled recipes, and visited my local UPS store for a great big box and packing materials.

On a Saturday in early December of that year, I turned on Christmas music, fired up the ovens and placed cooling racks on the tables.  The Francis family women arrived with ingredients & recipes of their own and we started cooking.  We were a force to be reckoned with.  Some whipped up cookie dough; others took their turns at the cook top stirring toasted nuts, fudge and peanut brittle. My nephew wrote messages on the outside of the box saying … “Merry Christmas” & “Thank You for What You Are Doing”.  Very large sacks of flour and sugar were dipped into several times, leaving powdery white trails all across the kitchen floor, but we didn’t care, we were on a mission of our own.  After four hours we had produced 40 pounds of goodies to send to Diana and her unit.  Not to waste any time and to keep my promise, we lifted the heavy box into my Minnie Cooper convertible for the trip to the UPS Store.  I got there before they closed and learned that in order to have this box arrive before Christmas, it would have to go priority mail by the U.S. Post Office. No problem. I paid the extra fees and heaved a sigh of huge relief that the box was on its way.  I had kept my promise.

I emailed Diana the good news that the box was on its way to her.  I even described the items we had sent – chocolate chip cookies, Snickerdoodles, spiced pecans, peanut brittle, fudge, flavored cheese crackers. The box was sent by priority mail so that meant it should arrive in 5 days.  She told everybody in her unit about “the box” that was coming.  For sailors serving far away in a foreign land, I understand a box from home has great importance, and so they looked forward to the arrival of the box with great anticipation.

Five days passed and Diana informed me that she had not received the box. Two days after I had sent the box, I smoked venison jerky and had shipped that as well.  The venison jerky arrived and was enjoyed by the men who took excursions outside the base on long field trips.  But, still Diana reported that the big box had not arrived.

As the time passed and it was getting closer to two weeks, I got worried. I drove back to my UPS Store.  With my receipt in hand they looked up the tracking code on the United States Postal Service website.  The search result said: There is no record of this item.  I was horrified. As tears formed in my eyes, I told the UPS man, “You don’t understand. There are Navy sailors counting on getting this box. They are far away in a foreign country and won’t be going home for Christmas, so this box means they are getting a little home brought to them. It can’t be lost!”  When I told the UPS man that the jerky package had already been delivered, he was even surer that the big box might be lost.  The woman next in line put her arm around me and comforted me.  She said her son had been in Vietnam and she knew how much they counted on packages from home, and said she hoped the box would still be delivered. 

I left the UPS store knowing that it was totally out of my hands and that I had let Diana down.  I called my sister Kate.  Through my tears I told her what had happened.  I asked her if we could send up a “Box” prayer and if she could ask everyone she knew to do the same.   Next, I called my sister Janet and asked her to pray as well.  She agreed. When I arrived at the Humane Society where I work, I told several people about the lost box and asked if they too would help me in the only way I knew might help… pray a little box prayer!

By the end of the day, I realized that it wouldn’t do any good to call the post office or go to the post office.  With all the overload of holiday packages now being processed, my box was just one of many that probably didn’t get scanned into the system. I would have to just hope and pray that the box was on its way to Kuwait.  I was so sad that day that it was hard to work.  I knew the sailors would be so disappointed and I didn’t want to let them down.  Regardless of the fact that I did what I could to get a box of homemade goodies to them before Christmas, the fact remained – the post office had no record of it.  I continued to pray my little box prayer.

That night was our office Christmas Party.  I wasn’t looking forward to going with such a heavy heart.  I got ready for the party and decided to check my email before I left home.  There was an email from Diana… it read, “I got a call that I received a big box today so I’m sure it’s the goodies.”  I immediately called my sisters to tell them the good news…the box prayers worked!  In the next few days, Diana wrote to say that she had re-packaged all the goodies into individual packages and attached the Christmas cards that we had included for each person in her unit. She wrote that they LOVED the cookies and goodies.  She got lots of hugs for providing some wonderful, homemade holiday goodies.

Of all the Christmas blessings I am thankful for this year, I am most thankful for the box that made its way to Kuwait to those brave sailors, far away from home.  May God bless & keep them safe and sound until they return to their families back here in the United States.

Diana & the truck she drove in Kuwait

Best Shortbread Cookies

Prep: 15 minutes  Cook: 30 minutes  Yield: 20 cookies  Level: Easy

Ingredients:

• 3/4 pound (3 & 1/2 sticks) unsalted (Irish is best) butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract (Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla extract)
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose Gold Medal flour
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for one hour or overnight.
3. Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a cookie cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet with on parchment paper (optional) and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature on wire racks.

INSPIRATION: