The Belli Family
8439 Huey Road
Hoffman, IL 62250
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.
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 8th 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
21st, 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 4th grade at
Trinity in Centralia and celebrated teaching 25 years in May of 2015. We also celebrated our 25th
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
