Christmas Letter 2015

The Belli Family
8439 Huey Road
Hoffman, IL 62250

                                                                                                                                 Christmas, Epiphany 2015-16

Welcome to earth, O noble Guest
Through whom the sinful world is blest!
You came to share my misery
That You might share Your joy with me.

Dear Friends and Family,

Honestly, this letter almost did not happen this year.  If you had asked me six weeks ago, I would have told you, nope, this year, we are not getting Christmas cards out.  Maybe at Easter, which is what I used to do years ago, as Christmas would often become so hectic.  However, this morning, I was sitting in church, singing a song that does not always get sung in its entirety at Christmas.  That is because it is 15 verses long.  But we were singing it during communion, and you can get all 15 verses in during communion.  The stanza I wrote above is the 8^th one, which happened to be the one we ended on.  As I read the words, I was struck by how true these words are.  Jesus came to share our misery, our sorrow, our hurt, our devastation.  He is always there, holding us as we sob in the doctor’s arms, weep on the phone, break yet another dish on the counter.  And then, as the sorrow lifts, He shares our joy, often showing us things we did not see before the sorrow; the grace of a sunrise, the joy of dirty laundry, a laugh that leaves us breathless. 

On October 21^st, our son Gideon was hospitalized for anorexia nervosa.  He stayed in the hospital 12 days.  The days leading up to his hospitalization were days I pray I never have to go through ever again, and days I would never wish on anyone.  Yet through it all, the days before, the hospital days, and these days of continued recovery, God has shared our misery.  He has stood right there with us, and has shown His great love in ways we never could have known had we not walked this road.  So while it was sorrowful and so scary, a part of me is grateful for the suffering.  His grace has been shown sufficient in our weakness. 

The rest of the family has grown as well through this suffering.  Mark and I continue to share a great love for each other which was strengthened through this trial.  He continues to teach 4^th grade at Trinity in Centralia and celebrated teaching 25 years in May of 2015.  We also celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary in July.  Nothing special, I think we took the kids to the movies, but a blessed day. 

Dorothee graduated from Concordia Chicago just two weeks ago.  She now has a B.A. in English with a minor in Theology.  She will be working part time up in Chicago until May, go to Guatemala for a week and then head up to Camp Matz in Waterloo, WI for another summer of interning.  After that, the field is wide open so if you hear of anything, let her know. 

Celia left Concordia Chicago after one semester at the beginning of 2015.  She came home and enrolled at Kaskaskia College, our local community college.  She is doing well and has been such a huge help to me at home, also to Mark at school as she sometimes goes into school to teach art to his class.

Ruth is taking her final exams for the first semester as I write this letter.  Junior year has been challenging, but not as challenging as she had thought.  I pray she tucks that nugget of wisdom away.  Many times in our lives, our anticipated worries are for naught.  She played volleyball again this year, was able to be part of the varsity team and enjoyed starting many games.  She was also inducted into National Honor Society.

Esther steadily works through her assignments at home with determination.  She is learning Latin on her own with the help of an online teacher, knows more grammar than me, continues to play violin and handbells, and keeps the house supplied with brownies and other treats.  She also is a formidable foe in the board games King of Tokyo and Settlers of Catan. 

You have already heard about Gideon, but positively, he is becoming a voracious reader.  I am not sure if it is the disease or the OCD that he has developed, but he is very contentious about his studies, realizing that because of his dyslexia, he has to work a little harder to get results.  He loves to learn new things and often uses books to find those things out.  Athletics has sort of taken a back burner right now, but I am certain he will be out there again come spring.  Stop motion continues to be a real passion for him.  

As you might guess Josiah was also majorly impacted by Gideon’s disease.  His best friend changed in a few short weeks and is slowly coming back.  That is not easy to go through, but the Lord has given him an incredible amount of grace.  He was the one who helped us to see the severity of Gideon’s condition, as he has grown four inches in the last six months.  When we saw the difference in the two of them, when they had always grown together, we knew it was time to check things out.  Josiah continues to love being active, working on stop motion with Legos, and inventing new ways to bug his older sisters.

Your continued prayers are needed as we journey through recovery with Gideon.  Many people have told us that it will take years before he is fully recovered.  We feel extremely blessed and thankful that he is doing as well as he is.  We are confident it is because hundreds are intercessing in prayer on his behalf. 

As we begin to turn the calendar to 2016, we are encouraged that no matter what trials we may face, the Lord will carry us through them all.  Every day is a gift, a bonus, from the Lord and every time we lay down at night, we can thank Him.  Our prayer is that you all can realize that as well. 

May the Lord bless and keep you all.

With much love,

Mark, Karen, Dorothee, Celia, Ruth, Esther, Gideon and Josiah

P.S.  Our pets are still doing well.  Shiner, Yogi, and Aowin have continued to be a source of comfort and great joy to all of us.  If you do not have a pet of your own, consider visiting your local animal shelter and making a difference in an animal’s life.  We are very glad we did. 

BTW, this little boy in the lower right in front of Celia is not ours.  He is the son of the vicar at Trinity Lutheran in Hoffman.  His name is Johannes Steffanson. 

Every day a new start

Okay, so I did not post yesterday or the day before, but here I am today.  Wednesday was a homeschool day away from home.  Esther went to help Celia with babysitting and the boys and I went to Centralia to put up the sign at the Cultural Building for the Bell Choir concert and then went to run at Foundation Park.  Fun!!  They did math in the morning so all in all they have done 5 lessons this week.  We made it through the first week of Writing with Ease, not stressing memorization as much as last year because it made it not fun.  Made it through the first lesson in Latin and so far, so good.  Taking it slower and easier.  Have not heard from Compass Classroom about Esther's Latin.  During worship we chose hymns this week, recited commandments 1-3, worked on psalm 84.  Next week, start the Bible readings and Questions begun last year.  Figure out specific hymns to learn.  Really neat tonight during prayer time Ruth chose Let Our Gladness Have No End to sing.  Have not sung that in YEARS but she remembered when we worked on it before I even taught 1st and 2nd grade at Hoffman.  Amazing the things they remember.  After she jarred my memory, I remembered it too.  Thursday I got called in to work at the library, so the kids did some stuff on their own.  Today we started again.  Boys are cooking on spelling.  Need to start reading a book with them.

Hibiscus

Hibiscus.  Beautiful hibiscus.

Waiting so long for you to finally open.  

Watching the buds.  

Maybe tomorrow.  

No, not yet.

Then finally, so huge, so vibrant.

And every day, another.

Now, I see them.

Not so lovely. 

The first one.

The best.

First Days of School

Thank you, Dwane Thomas, for giving me this idea of blogging about what I want to remember.  I have been trying for four years to keep a record of what we do every day in homeschool.  I usually last for a month, and then pitch it.  Let's see how I do this year.
Yesterday, August 10th, 2015, was our first day of school  This is a record of what we did today and yesterday.  Gideon and Josiah each did Lesson 1 in Teaching Textbooks 7 and Esther did Lessons 1 and 2 in Algebra 1 (Teaching Textbooks)  Esther worked on Unit #18 in Analytical Grammar which has three worksheets and a test this week.  Esther is not reading a book on her own.  Josiah is listening to Eldest (hopefully following along) and reading My Side of the Mountain.  I am reading "Sh, we're writing the Constitution" by Jean Fritz during lunch time.  Gideon is listening to Eragon and reading Tin Tin in America.  Gideon and Josiah and I are working on Week 1 in Winston Grammar - identifying articles and nouns - proving to be more frustrating for the boys as they think they should "know" this.  Explode the Code Book 7 Lesson #1 ci, ce, cy.  Did the correlating Phonics Pathways page today.  Writing with Ease Week 1 Day 1 was yesterday.  Day 2 today.  Hard start but we are persevering.  We are working on Lesson #1 in Latin ( boys and I ) Did 30 minutes each day.  We are listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at night.  We sang Christ be My Leader on Monday, Lamb of God today.  Working on memorizing the first three commandments and their meanings.  Started Psalm 84.  Esther is working on Module #1 in Exploring Creation with Physical Science.  She did an experiment yesterday.  I bought a guide through Rainbow Resource that maps out the days for you.  Working on Vocabulary on Vocabahead.com.  Everyone does 10 minutes.
Started Spelling Power with the boys today.  Ask Mark about starting it with Esther.  Esther will start Latin again when I receive work from Visual Latin.  Typing Web to start soon.  Vision Therapy with me yesterday, on the computer today.  Watched Miss Potter yesterday.  Great movie about Beatrix Potter.  Sad.

One quarter of a century

Twenty-five years may seem like a long time to some people.  I remember when I turned 25, I thought I was really getting older.  Now, after thinking about loving the same man for 25 years, I can honestly say that it has gone by so fast.  Here we are, at my dad's church in Chappaqua, NY.  It is no longer a church, the building is still there, but no one is worshiping there.  Sad.  The church my parents got married in is still in existence, but ours, no.  But the church is not as important as the Lord who is worshiped.  I got married at this church because I wanted my dad to perform the wedding and that was his church.  Mark had visited this church a few times.  We had originally wanted to get married at SonRise, where we met, but I think my dad said it would be easier at home.  So I agreed. We were married on a Sunday, shortly after morning service.  It was a lovely day.  The church was filled with people, most of whom Mark had never met.  But he was such a trooper.  His love for me was evident from the beginning.  And today, well, most people try to do it up on the 25th anniversary. Finances prevented us from doing anything extravagant, but we did spend it with our kids, which we were happy to do as they have enriched our relationship more than anything ever could.  We ate take out pizza and went to a movie, had ice-cream cake, played games and enjoyed each other's company. We missed Dorothee, but were thankful she is safe and happy.
Thank you, Lord, for Mark, for bringing us together, and for all that you have blessed us with over the years.  You get the glory.