The Gift That Sparked a Purpose: How International Pen Pals Changed The Course of My Life

A small gift box sent overseas sparked a two-year pen pal relationship that led to learning Russian and a lifelong passion for cross-cultural living. Rachel Duggins shares her purposeful giving story and the impact of simple gifts in The Joffa Journals.

Somewhere in a scrapbook or box is the original letter. It's tucked away in a storage unit that I rarely frequent. A letter I wrote in early middle school, introducing myself and a pet fish named Bozo.

In the same storage space is a small plastic tub filled with overseas airmail envelopes and letters written on graph paper with blue or black ballpoint pens; memories from the past. I couldn't save them all, there were years worth of letters.

I was beginning middle school when my family and I went to help package boxes at a local warehouse. Companies had donated thousands of goods to gift students in the former Soviet Union. Toothpaste, notebooks, pens. Each gift box received an assortment. At the end of the night we had accomplished a lot. But one thing was missing: they wanted a personal letter to go in each box.

The next morning, before our homeschool studies began, my parents sat my siblings and I down at the table to each write a letter. Mine was simple: name, age, and pets (that's where Bozo the fish came in). I signed it "your friend." Little did I know the ramifications of those two words to kids across the ocean.

My dad took our letters to work and copied them 1000 times. They ended up all over Russia and Ukraine. Life resumed and I thought nothing of it—until the first letter arrived 6 months later. And then another. And another. For over two years we received letters from more than 20 kids thanking us for the gifts; gifts we hadn't really given, just helped pack with love.

The kids in the letters intrigued me and I wanted to write back. Some of the notes were in English; some were in Russian. Google Translate wasn't around back then, but books were available. My mom special-ordered a Russian/English dictionary from the local bookstore. I taught myself the Russian alphabet (4 alphabets really) and started translating the letters.

Writing back was tricky. I remember thinking the Russian word for "the" was horribly long. It took me a while to figure out that Russian has no articles; I was copying an explanation of an article from the Russian dictionary. My initial attempts were pretty awful, but my new friends were very forgiving.

We wrote back and forth through middle school and high school: Yulya, Kate, Maria, Adam, Nadia, Alexie, Olga, and others. We shared photos, candy bar wrappers, friendship bracelets, and coins. I met two of them in person when they came to America.

It's amazing how a gift—one put together by many different people—can have an impact. My self-centered, monocultural world was turned upside down by a gift and letter. Neither item was for me, but through giving I received amazing gifts of friendship I never expected. My friends from the other side of the globe shared their culture, language, lives, and dreams. They were part of my journey to living cross-culturally in adulthood and starting a small business in a foreign country that I now call home. The physical evidence may be tucked away in storage, but the implications of the gift are part of my daily life.

Rachel Duggins, director of Teze Handcrafts, lives in the Republic of Georgia with her husband and 2 daughters. When she’s not working with the Teze artisans or homeschooling her girls, Rachel enjoys reading historical fiction with a cat on her lap. In place of letters to penpals, Rachel frequently voice messages with friends around the world.