Blessing in a box: Woman’s first Christmas gift in Mexico came from KY. Now, she’s giving back
Jennifer Paxtle was 10 years old the first time she ever heard about the state of Kentucky. It also was the first time she had ever received a Christmas gift.
She was a young schoolgirl living in Villa de la Paz, Mexico. A town so small that until recently, it didn’t show up on Google Maps if you were to search for it.
Her mother worked in the fields, and her father was a farmer in the United States, she said. While she admits her family “lacked resources,” she never recalls going without — although she said her mother feels differently.
At Christmastime she and her siblings never received gifts. They would maybe get a piece of candy, but often would celebrate the holiday with a family dinner.
But one year, her uncle took her to the town’s church Christmas event where they were handing out gift boxes to children.
When the box was placed in Paxtle’s young hands, she recalls thinking, “Whoa. this box is heavy.” Inside was a doll, other toys, some toiletry items, and a blue shirt donned with a cross and the state of Kentucky.
One of her family members told her that the place on the shirt was a state in America.
“I wore that T-shirt so many times,” Paxtle, now 28, admitted, laughing.
“But that shirt was God speaking to me about the future — saying, ‘You are going to be here.’”
Paxtle and her family immigrated to Kentucky when she was 13. Her father worked 10 years to save money for the family to join him in America. She and her siblings were interviewed in 2009. Paxtle was getting ready to leave for school early one morning when her mother said they got the call to leave for the US.
She attended Gallatin County High School and graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and master’s degree in teaching. She worked as a teacher and now works as an interpreter.
While she was in college, she saw a video about Operation Christmas Child — an effort to fill shoe boxes with toys and other items and send to remote areas of the world.
She saw the red and green wrapped packages and instantly remembered that it was the same box she had received as a young girl in Mexico.
“Those are the boxes!” she exclaimed, flashing back to her childhood memory.
Paxtle became a member of a Christian group called Christ Focused Career Oriented, an organization that promotes community among unmarried adults aged 18 to 32 in Richmond. The group meets regularly to participate in different activities, such as volunteering, bowling and going to the movies.
The group planned to attend Corinth Christian Church, a small remote church in Madison County, to help pack 150 of the same boxes Paxtle received when she was a young girl.
Shy and reserved, Paxtle never shared her story with the other members of the group. Jim Walters, the group’s mentor, recalled her approaching him and declaring she had something to tell him.
And as she packed parcels with her peers, Paxtle told them how she received one of these boxes as a child in Mexico -- and how she still had the doll she received from Kentucky that long-ago Christmas.
Walters heard her story and said it brought to life what everyone was doing. Suddenly, the significance of sharing gifts with kids they most likely never will meet took on new life.
He relayed her story to the church’s pastor, David Evans, who asked if Paxtle would give her testimony to the church’s 35-member congregation.
“It touched all of our hearts — we still talk about it.” Evans said. “We pack these boxes each year and it made it real. It gave us chills to hear her story, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.”
Paxtle said her experience makes her hopeful and emotional. She grateful for the opportunity to give back to other children.
It’s a blessing, she said.
“At one time, that box changed my life,” she told the Herald-Leader.
“You think you are packing a few toys, but it is more than that. It is so much more to the kids.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2024 at 4:30 AM.
