By Adrienne Foster Potter
I
was excited. We were moving to Libya, far away in North Africa, and I was going
to see exotic new places. I would drive across the United States with my family
and fly in an airplane to a country very different from ours. I was sure I
would be safe, well-fed, and secure, as long as I was with my family. My
brothers and sisters and I couldn't see any drawbacks. It was simply another of
those adventures we had come to expect and enjoy. It was 1960 and my father had
just received his Air Force transfer papers instructing him to report to
Wheelus Air Force Base in Tripoli, Libya, far from the base in Ogden, Utah
where he was then stationed. My mother was not at all happy. Libya was not
particularly friendly to the US, it was a desert country, dry and barren, it
lacked the luxuries and conveniences of the more developed countries, she was
expecting her twelfth child, and the holiday season was approaching.
Four
years of living near family and friends and enjoying holidays with them were
coming to an end. Furthermore, we would have to pay for our own move and
although my father was well-paid as an Air Force Major the needs of his large
family left little for unplanned expenses. With worried resignation Mom did
what she had already done a half-dozen times and began the packing and other
preparations, this time including passports, physicals, and immunizations for
fourteen. The nurses good-naturedly refilled the lollipop jar after all the
shots were done.
Mom
arranged to have our car and furniture shipped on a boat after we reached the
Air Base in South Carolina, from where we would fly to Libyavia the Azores. One
morning, with friends, relatives, and the grandparents giving tearful
farewells, we climbed into our station wagon, filled inside and top side with
all the luggage it could carry, and set off across the country. At every town
people gaped in wonder and counted the heads inside our car. We were used to it
and waved and smiled back.
After
a short stay at the Base in South Carolina we were loaded into a troop
transporter with other members of the military and their families and all our
combined luggage, and flown up and away, over the sparkling seas to the Azores,
then on to Tripoli, Libya. The Air Force was ready for us at Wheelus and had
placed an entire empty barracks at our disposal as we awaited the arrival of
our furniture. We spun round and round on military swivel chairs, ran down the
shiny corridors and skidded in our socks, drew sheets and sheets of military
stick figures, and shadowed the bemused custodian, all in contrast to the
discipline and shine usually found there.
However,
my father showed us how to make our beds so you could bounce a dime on the
blankets. Impressed, we struggled to achieve that effect every morning and I
finally succeeded on our last day.
We
were assigned to off-base housing since there was nothing on the base big
enough for us. It was a V-shaped villa with a courtyard in front and a patio in
back, surrounded by dirt and high stucco walls with broken glass on the top to
ward off thieves. None of this was reassuring to my mother, but she proceeded
to move us in. We had purchased special cabinets for the kitchen since
cupboards were not part of the Libyan culture, and these had arrived with the
rest of our furniture and our station wagon.
Unfortunately,
all the expenses had left us with no money except for groceries, and Christmas
was around the corner. Then my mother became very ill, possibly from the stress
of the long move combined with her pregnancy and was taken to the base
hospital.
I
needed new shoes but there was no money to buy them. I remember classmates at
my new school pointing out the holes in them and asking through their giggles,
"Why don't you get new shoes?" I was embarrassed and so I said,
"My father is fighting in a war, and he can't buy them now, but he will as
soon as he gets back."
This
transformed me into a brave supporter of foreign causes and resulted in
admiration rather than ridicule. I forgot about my shoes as I ran around the
playground with my new-found friends and lived out imagined adventures.
To
my parents and older brothers and sisters it must have seemed that this would
be a bleak Christmas, but I was unaware of any of that. My older sisters cared
for me and the younger children while my mother was in the hospital and though
I missed her, I was fed, clothed, and happy in my child's world of daydreams
and play. It never occurred to my seven-year-old mind that this was a difficult
time, and I looked forward to Christmas just as I had in the States. In a large
family, gifts and extras appear only on birthdays and Christmas and so my
mother had always saved year-round to make these holidays special but this year
that money had been used for the transfer.
Perhaps
she remembered the Christmas days of the depression when she received nothing
but a pair of underwear and a bit of candy, and so she was very sad in her
hospital bed as she hurried to complete the hand-sewn gifts she had begun at
home. One of her main joys in life as she moved about the country with her
husband and large brood was that her children were never hungry as she had
been, and though we didn't have a lot of clothes we never had to wear dresses
made of gunny sacks, as she had. Food and clothing were purchased at the
Commissary and the Base Exchange at military prices, lower than wholesale, and
housing was reasonable, so we children were happy.
However,
finding themselves almost penniless in a strange land far away from home and
help, with my mother hospitalized, must have been difficult for my father and
older siblings.
Then
we were invited to a Christmas party for the Officer's children. Though our
large family nearly outnumbered the other attendees, we each received a gift
and a visit with Santa, but someone must have noticed my shoes, our worn
clothes, and the absence of my mother.
Later
Dad received a phone call from the President of the Officer's Wives Club who
sponsored the party. "We have quite a few gifts left over since several
families were transferred back home last month," she told him. "I was
wondering if you'd be interested in purchasing them. I could let you have the
whole set for $25 if you can come and pick them up because you'd be doing us a
favor, you know." Dad told her he would talk to his wife about it and call
her back the next day.
Where
was he going to get $25? The only money left was for groceries and that didn't
even include a Christmas dinner. He went to the hospital and sadly confided in
my mother the charitable offering that they would have to turn down, but my
mother had been praying about our predicament and she saw this as an answer.
"Tell her yes," she told him. "If we trust in the Lord, I know
he'll come through." Dad trusted his wife's faith, so he called the woman
back and accepted the offer gratefully.
That
night we prayed as a family, though I didn't really understand what we were
praying about. A few days later another answer came. An envelope from our sweet
little grandmother back in Utah had somehow made the long journey across the
Atlantic to our far-away villa in Libya in time for Christmas, addressed to
Major and Mrs. Foster and "all the little angles."
Spelling
was not her forte, but gift-giving was. In the envelope were Christmas cards
for everyone in the family, and in those cards was money. Two dollars for each
child and the new baby, and five dollars each for Mom and Dad. Thirty-four
dollars! Enough to buy the whole set of left-over gifts and a fine Christmas
dinner besides. Dad confiscated all the money, explaining that he needed to
borrow it but that he would make it up to us. I didn’t mind. There wasn't any
place to spend those dollars anyway. He didn’t tell the older kids what it was
for.
The
best surprise came on Christmas Eve when Dad brought Mom home from the
hospital. We had planned to spend an empty Christmas without her, but she
wasn’t about to miss it. On Christmas morning she was delighted as we happily
unwrapped gift after gift of cameras, dolls, portable radios, cars, trucks,
games, sports equipment, and other things that we couldn't imagine would be
found in the deserts of Libya. We younger kids accepted these events without question,
but the older kids were bewildered. Dad explained, and so ended the story of
the far-away Christmas that we now tell year after year to new generations of
"little angles."
And
I got some sturdy new shoes as soon as Dad got his next paycheck which I
proudly showed off at school when the holidays were over.
As time has passed, we've
realized that those gifts were not all leftovers from the little Christmas
party. There were far too many. Someone took the time to buy more gifts and
used the "leftovers" reasoning to protect my father's pride in caring
for his family. I have no doubt that whether or not we had produced the
requested $25 those gifts were marked for us. We learned that the Lord watches
over all his children, no matter how far from home they may be, and that
charity can happen anywhere, anytime, even when it is least expected.
