The Holy Grail

I don't know what has motivated Luca more in learning chess, whether it is the pure joy of playing the game or the pursuit of a "coppa" (trophy). We have known of his high level of spacial-visual abilities for a couple of years now and are so glad that he can utilize and strengthen those gifts through chess. Last year at school his class had 8 lessons on how to play chess taught by a local chess club instructor.  There was a school tournament in May that you can read about here from Luca's perspective.

Upon his success and subsequent invitation to participate in a chess club, he also competed in a larger scale chess tournament in May (which I never blogged about). Ooops! It was his first time ever to play with a timer which was super nerve wracking and stressful that really threw him for a loop.  Even for me as an observer it got me stressed out as the room was quiet other than this constant *tip-tap-tip-tap* from 25+ games being played at once. It was a great learning experience with many tears and joys along the way, as he won 3 out of 7 games. He SO wanted to win a trophy! I mean really, who wouldn't? Check out the size of those...

Some games he was out in less than 1 minute and others he and his opponent both played their full alloted 15 minutes. The tournament lasted over four hours and was emotionally exhausting for me as I coached and encouraged Luca through each defeat and victory. We were so proud of him for participating with his limited experience. But it definitely served as fuel to the fire for the game.

If you pushed your game to the max time limit all the other players who finished their games would come and watch. No pressure! He won this particular game!

In October, Samuel and Luca both joined the Chess Club in Leinì where they play 4 hours a week. In addition, Luca's fifth grade class is having another 10 chess lessons at school this year. Samuel originally taught Luca how to play the game and is working on his game in order to keep up with his brother. He goes less frequently due to his school homework demands, creating a bit of frustration with Luca's ever growing competence in the game. However, Samuel is doing well too and we are just as proud of him for adding this extra curricular to his schedule this year.



Over the span of the fall term the club conducted an interclub tournament. Luca knew the reward would be a trophy for each level of players, and he was working so hard to achieve his goal of bringing home a trophy. The results were posted each week. He must have gotten confused on the categorization because he thought he was further down the list in ranking. He was so surprised and happy that yesterday his coach Luigi presented him with the 2nd place novice trophy. We have named it "The Holy Grail". Congratulations Luca! His coach said he has made remarkable improvements and expects him to win his school competition.



Now Luca has his eyes set on being one of the top four players of his entire elementary school so that he can compete in a regional elementary school chess tournament in Torino next spring. He not only has to be good at chess but also has to have good conduct at school. More than once he has said he is going to study and get high marks on his tests so he can be chosen to participate and represent his school in the chess tournament. If there is a competition and trophy involved this kid is all over it!

Giving Thanks with Italians

It seems like this entire year has been sprinkled with disappointments time and time again. We have had to cancel more commitments, special time with friends, and conferences meant for refreshment and encouragement for our family almost every time this year all due to the Lord choosing to allow physical suffering of health for my husband. At times it has been exhausting, discouraging and extremely frustrating as you can imagine.

BUT GOD...has used this past year especially to draw us deeper into himself and closer in our marriage, to trust in his unfailing love, to persevere through trials, to become more grateful, and to depend fully on him, not boasting in our strength (for we have none) and seeing how he has made us strong through weakness all because of his amazing GRACE. Life and faith lessons we are so grateful for.

For the first time ever we found ourselves completely absent of American colleagues for the week of Thanksgiving. We made a last minute decision to back out of the All Western European conference with our mission due to Jonathan's health situation. Our teammates departed for Greece without us and what could have left me sad and bitter was by God's grace turned into joy and gladness as we saw the great opportunity to celebrate our special holiday with Italians instead.

We extended a dinner invitation to many of our current and ex Bible study students and were happy that our table was filled with 21 of us in total. Everyone was so excited and honored to share in our special holiday tradition. Thanks to Hollywood, Italians are fascinated and very curious about this feast that includes a whole cooked turkey. I pulled out all the stops to make it an authentic American Thanksgiving feast, which meant I was preparing for over a week doing a little bit each day.

Keep in mind there is no canned pumpkin or pre-made pie shells or any other time saving short cuts found in the US. But cooking from scratch is what I know, so in reality those things were not missed. I am so thankful I have an extra refrigerator and a deep freezer or else it would not have been possible for me to work ahead, especially when having to cook two turkeys!

I have to share one funny cultural story...everyone wanted to participate by bringing something to the meal, but I found myself in great difficulty trying to assign dishes as every dish is uniquely American.  In the end, someone brought drinks and whipping cream, another a green salad, another cauliflower, another promised clementines but ended up making them into a crostata instead, and another brought a fennel and orange salad along with cookies, even though I assured them all I had dessert covered. I had originally asked for a side dish of green beans, but everyone refused when I proposed the request because you don't eat green beans now. They are "out of season" they told me. However, you can still buy them fresh in the store from a local farmer, so I was really confused. At first I was thinking, "fine I'll make them myself" because who doesn't eat some form of green beans at Thanksgiving? But then I changed my mind as I wondered if they would even be eaten seeing as I would be violating the Italian rule of eating seasonally. Despite our green bean-less side dish, here is what was served...

• 2 - 13lbs. Turkeys
• Stuffing (regular and gluten free versions)
• Gravy
• Mashed Potatoes
• Sweet Potato Casserole
• Apple Sauce
• Cranberry Sauce
• Pomegranate Gelatin
• Green Salad
• Cauliflower
• Fennel and Orange Salad
• Yeast Rolls
• Pumpkin Pie (2)
• Apple Crumble Pie
• Chocolate Muffins
• Clementine Crostata
• Cinnamon Cookies

What a wonderful unexpected opportunity to share of God's goodness and faithfulness with our friends. So thankful Jonathan was feeling well enough to actually enjoy the festivities, share of the historical significance of Thanksgiving prior to the meal and to be able to talk about his faith throughout the night. Truly the evening could not have gone better! And unfortunately, these are the only few pictures I have to share with you from the evening....

The only thing I would change for next time is to serve this meal in the afternoon. Feasting at 8:00 at night is pretty tough on the digestive system. haha! However, I fear that cannot be avoided when entertaining Italians. After our guests departed and clean up was completed at 1:30am I went to bed with a full tummy and full heart!

Thank you God, for your strength, faithful provision for our every need and dear friends.

Happy 12th Emma!

It is always a special joy to celebrate another year of gifted life for our children. They are growing up far too fast and it takes much concerted reflection to note their changes. Sometimes we are just too close to see the subtle changes and then we celebrate another birthday and are dumbfounded as we reflect back to see how much they have grown and matured in a year!

Emma turned 12 years old last week, and she was beyond excited to FINALLY be twelve because she was tired of being eleven. She was pretty indecisive this year on gift ideas, cake ideas and how to celebrate her special day. However, she for sure knew she wanted lasagna and chocolate cake--those were no brainers! Maybe it was in part indecision or maybe it was her increased sensitivity towards others and not wanting to add to anyones work load or expense on her behalf. But it is our greatest joy to lavish good gifts on our children! So with some prodding and encouragement she finally came up with some ideas.

She was abounding in gratitude for all the effort and energy exerted on her behalf to make her day special. Thankfulness just pours out from her mouth continually. It is a beautiful thing and such an example and encouragement to me. I see the Spirit working in her heart and she is growing into such a beautiful young lady that loves others with kindness, patience and empathy. Emma is my right hand helper, partner in crafting and fount of great joy and life in our home. We love her to pieces and could not be more blessed and proud to have her as our daughter! Happy 12th our sweet Emma!

Emma's Mandala cake choice was so much fun to make even though there were SO many colors! She dyed the frosting and instructed me on the color sequence which was a tremendous help! She also choose chocolate cake with cream cheese mint flavoured frosting inside with an Italian buttercream on the outside. Excellent choices my dear!

Emma waited painstakingly long to share and eat her birthday cake with the Bible study group. This collage was created by Sara as she captured the special moment for us.

Va-cation turned Medi-cation

I know that often people consider a missionary's furlough to be their "vacation", however for us it is still work with the added benefits of seeing family and friends and enjoying comforts like: clothes dryers, babysitters, baseball games, and an abundance of berries! For sure it is a welcomed change in scenery and a wonderful privilege to meet with supporters and share about what God has been doing in us and through our ministry over the past two years. So don't get me wrong, we love our working vacations! On a normal summer furlough for our family, we have most every weekend booked with traveling throughout Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and California, doing our best to connect with as many people as we can in a short window of time. 

When in Michigan our weekdays are initially full with wellness checkups, dental visits (in Indiana) and eye exams for the entire family.

Two trips to Indiana for dental work

During a season of good health for everyone that is a minimum of 15 doctor visits crammed into the front end of our summer. However, this summer gave resemblance to 2008 and 2012, with an exorbitant amount of medical visits.

In total we had 40 doctor visits in 90 days!

Instead of tracking miles traveled to churches, presentations given, different beds slept in and otherwise fun furlough facts, we were logging miles for doctor visits, time spent in waiting rooms, and hospital beds occupied. Thus our vacation turned "medi-cation."

ER Visit

Scope day!

Surgery

To recap our findings concerning Jonathan's health, this is what we learned:

• He does not have any major disease either autoimmune or otherwise that doctors were able to reveal.
• He does have an imbalance of gut flora, which probiotics and prebiotics are helping with.
• He is allergic to almonds and hazelnuts.
• He went through 2 rounds of parasitics to remove a micro-parasite in his gut and still unsure of its elimination since retesting is quite expensive.
• He had a deviated septum and inflamed turbinates that were restricting his breathing and was corrected with surgery in August.
• He does have 3 aortic aneurysms that will be monitored every 6 months to track growth.
• We are waiting on genetics testing results to see if there is an underlying condition giving reason for the development of aneurysms at such a young age.

Hospitals and waiting rooms everywhere in MI were beautiful and clean!

Since our return to Italy we have found and met already with a vascular surgeon which was a huge praise for us. We are waiting for a return call from a homeopathic doctor that will help investigate other allergies and give guidance with diet to hopefully resolve the ongoing gut issues. Our new chiropractor also immediately noted Jonathan's lack of wellness and will be conducting a more thorough exam this next week focusing on the whole body and not just manipulation of the spine.

Our bodies are very complex. Our health is so interconnected with our physical, emotional and spiritual states. It is like unwinding a knotted ball of fishing string. It takes time, patience, different angles and skilled fingers to pull and unravel the complexity of it all. Because the goal is not to indefinitely just mask the symptoms but to find the fundamental problems and fix them if possible. However, we realise too that maybe this is something God has given Jonathan to carry throughout his life and if so, we will trust in Him knowing that his plan is always best.

So many of our friends here in Italy had hard summers too with medical issues, hospitalizations, and loss of family members. Already we have had the chance to empathize, encourage and share of the hope and peace that is within us. Please pray for us as we continue to walk this path towards healing and restoration for Jonathan. We know the Great Physician can do anything!

Back to School (and blogging)

After a long and complicated summer full of unexpected twists and turns, I am finally back on the blog radar and plan to catch you up on our summer furlough in the USA.  There are stories and memories I want to remember so will be posting them as I have time over the coming weeks.

Where are we now?

Well, the Lord has graciously allowed us to return to our home in Italy. We arrived only 10 days ago and have been busy trying to get resettled as soon as possible.  The house always requires much attention after being closed up for three months. This time mould set up shop in our basement rooms, garage and even inside our vehicle. Yuck! So after putting clean linens on the beds and stocking the fridge that was first priority on the cleaning list.

Just five days prior to the start of school on September 12, we received notice that all the schools in Caselle would have reduced hours for the entire month. That means that Samuel and Emma are home at noon each day--a reduction of 10 hours per week. And Luca is done at 12:30--a reduction of 4 hours for his week.

Why, you may ask?

Let's just say it is WAY complicated and the Italians understand just enough to roll their eyes and shake their heads about the absurdity of the regulations every time I ask. Bottom line, there is a point system which determines a teacher's placement on a national level. The government then regulates where there is a need and places the teachers, kind of like the military. However, it seems the points were determined only the week before school started and therefore the government needs more time to organise themselves, making schools and students wait for teachers to relocate themselves to their new positions. There are new school reforms and regulations that were put into place by Renzi but logic and organisation are lacking. I don't understand. Please don't ask me questions. We are just happy for three weeks of half days!!

Here are my fantastic and brilliant children on their first day of school

Luca (5th), Emma (7th), Samuel (8th)

School is off to a good start even if slow. We are thankful that the kids have all maintained their primary teachers so will only see changes in their electives. This year will conclude the final chapter of our elementary school days. *Cue teardrops* Samuel will be our "guinea pig" as he will be the first to conclude the middle school years and brave the selection process of high school. *gulp*

Also new to Samuel's school calendar this year is an online course through The Potter's School. He is taking English 101 and began his class on Tuesday. It is a live class with both teacher and student interaction that meets once a week. He enjoyed his first class and even found the homework rather fun! Despite his insistence that he already knows English grammar, we think this will better prepare him for his future and he might just be surprised how much he actually will learn! After all, he wants to be a writer for goodness sake!

Join the club, Emma

Emma held out joining the eyeglass family club until June 2016. Her brothers gave her a huge "welcome to the family" cheer (as if she didn't count prior) when her hunch of needing glasses was confirmed by the ophthalmologist. She is most definitely delighted that she can now see leaves on trees and that she will not have such a hard time seeing the board at school. She looks adorable!

When life is turned upside down

These past three weeks since our arrival stateside have been anything but what we imagined or prepared for this summer.

Flashbacks from 2008 when Samuel was diagnosed with SVT and was in PICU for one week with subsequent ablation surgery, and 2012 when doctors found a mass in my breast which then led to surgical removal have not escaped our thoughts as yet another four years have passed and once again we are faced with a serious and uncertain diagnosis, this time for Jonathan.

For two years Jonathan has been struggling more intensely with his health, sometimes to the point of debilitation. We have carried on the best we could trying to adjust diet, supplement and self diagnose when little direction or help was received from doctors in our host country. Every test always came back with shining colors, which led our colleague to joke that "Jonathan is the healthiest sick person she knows." Abdominal pain has become that background noise in his life, sometimes screaming in combination with extreme weakness and fatigue. It has been a long and weary two years for us as a family both physically and emotionally.

His pain continued to the point that in less than a week after our arrival in the US he was in the Emergency Room for severe abdominal pain and weakness. The ER doctor apologised for the long wait we had to endure, and I thought that maybe he was trying to provide some comical relief, because Jonathan was admitted in the amount of time it took me to park the car and was seen by the doctor within 45 minutes! (Earlier this year Jonathan went to the ER in Italy and when he arrived he was 8th on the list, after 7 hours of waiting he had moved to 10th place. He left and never received care.)

A CT scan was ordered which revealed that Jonathan has an abdominal aortic aneurysm along with several other spots of dilation. We were in shock especially after the doctor assumed this finding was known to us as it was present in a CT scan from two years ago. However, his primary doctor never told him and only alluded to a small abnormality but that it was nothing to worry about. It was a lot to swallow and certainly turned our world upside down. We are thankful the aneurysm size did not require emergent surgery and that he was released to come home, but still we have been sitting with this news for two weeks now and don't really have a clear picture yet of all that it means since we are still waiting for his vascular surgeon appointment.

In three weeks we have had 22 medical visits between the five of us. Nine of those have been for Jonathan. Needless to say it hasn't been all that relaxing or fun. However, we are beyond grateful to be near family during this time, to have their love and support accessible in tangible ways and to be able to address all these issues in a medical system we know and that speaks English. These few factors alone remove a tremendous layer of stress from our lives. 

God is good ALL the time! None of this was a surprise to him. When life is turned upside down it only allows us to see him more clearly. His plan through trials in life are so that we might more fully understand WHO he is. These weeks have been a tremendous growing time as a family. Our kids have fears for their dad, wondering if this means we can't go to California or return to Italy as planned and it has been good to shed tears together and direct them towards Christ. I love how God always places timely words of encouragement, songs and scriptures in front of us that minister in a mighty way. 

A recent post on A Holy Experience by Ann Voskamp was so meaningful to me and I would encourage you to read it here. The following section inspired by Daniel 3:16-20 jumped off the screen and into my heart as I read this the weekend Jonathan came home from the ER.

Even if He doesn't do what we beg, we are still His beloved. 

Even if He doesn't, He still is. 

Even if He doesn't do what we will, His will is still right and His heart is still good and the people of God will not waver. 

Real prayer has eyes on Christ, not the crisis. 

Even if He doesn't--He does give enough--Himself. 

Even if He doesn't--He does still love us. 

"If He doesn't--I will still believe. Still believe--in Him." 

Another moment this week was when one of our children was expressing to a friend via text how they feel they keep losing hope about the situation and how they are frustrated that their faith is weak. (Yes, I read my kids' text messages and they know it.) That same day as I was waiting for Jonathan during his colonoscopy and endoscopy procedures, I read this post. Wow! The timeliness was from the Lord and served to greatly encourage this child that "it’s not the strength of our faith that gives us hope; it’s the strength of Jesus’s faith."

We continue to trust and believe in God's perfect plan for our family. No matter the diagnosis we want to glorify God in all things--in the wait, in the pain, in the unknown--because He is worthy!

Here are two songs that our family loves to belt out in the car these days...Thanks for praying for our family as we come to mind!

Good Good Father - Chris Tomlin
Trust in You - Lauren Daigle

Another School Year in the Books

Incredible how quickly this past year flew! We now have an 8th, 7th and 5th grader! The Lord has been so good to our children and allowing them not only to advance year to year in school with their second language, but to be truly excelling at the top of their classes. We are so proud of the hard work each of them dedicate to their studies and their perseverance, diligence, and the testimony they maintain in an environment that is counter cultural to their faith. It is NO easy task, but time and again their teachers commend us and them for their studies and more importantly their unique comportment.

June 9, 2016 - Last day of School

Final grades were given out at the middle school right before we left for the USA. We will be gone for the third year in a row when Luca's grades are given out at the end of June. Funny how we don't even has his final grades for 3rd grade either. I went in September to pick them up and the school institute office said they would not be unaccessible for another year since they needed to input them into the computer system. REALLY?! So hopefully when we return in a few months we'll know the final outcome for Luca's 3rd and 4th grade results. 

All of the kids competed earlier this year in the XVII Italian Edition of Kangaroo Math. This is an International competition that focuses on logical combination and not just knowledge of math facts and formulas. You can read more here.

The testing in Italy begins at the 4th grade level and is open to anyone who wants to participate. Luca heard two words, MATH + COMPETITION, and he was all in! Here are his test results, which are even more impressive since he had to understand the questions in Italian first and was competing against 5th graders too.

Ecolier Test (4th and 5th)

Local School Institute: 16 out of 82

National: 2,130 out of 9,737

Emma was also up against 7th graders for her test category. She certainly held her own as well!

Benjamin Test (6th and 7th) - Emma

Local School Institute: 24 out of 80

National: 13,177 out of 27,715

Samuel did exceptionally well considering he spent 20 minutes on the Ecolier test before realizing he was doing the wrong test. 🙈 He ran out of time and didn't complete two questions and still placed 3rd! We all had a good laugh over it! As a top place winner he received a board game at the assembly on the last day of school.

Benjamin Test (6th and 7th) - Samuel

Local School Institute: 3 out of 80

National: 4,200 out of 27,715

This summer Samuel is required to start researching high schools so he can make a decision of where to go after 8th grade. Application and registration begins in January 2017. However, I think it is clear that he might be headed to a "Scientifico" high school that focuses on math and sciences. I feel a guest blog post coming on the process and complication of choosing a high school. Samuel is our guinea pig and we most certainly will be learning together!

Congratulations Samuel, Emma and Luca on another school year down in the books! We love you dearly and are so very proud of you!!

Chess Tournament 4th grade

Hi! This is Luca here! So on Monday, the 9th of May 2016 there was a Chess Tournament (I think you all know how to play chess) for all the 4th grade classes of the two elementary schools in Caselle: Colodi and Rodari, which is my school. The good news will be at the end of this post--so hang in there!

The four best players of each class were chosen to enter the Tournament--but most of all you had to be really good at not fighting. Those kids were Me (first of the class), Gabriele (second of the class), Matteo (third of the class) and finally Lorenzo (fourth of the class).

We got to skip class which I really wanted to do and it was fun there. Guess what? I won all the games but I won't tell you which place I got yet! So basically I had the most wins for my team and I'm still undefeated and my name is the queen killer (I made it up myself) because every one falls into my queen trap. I got 5 wins, Matteo got 3 wins, Lorenzo got 2 wins and Gabriele got 1 win! I forgot to tell you you should be impressed when I got 5 wins because I went against all the 1st place players of each class and when I went against my first competitor I was like "I'm not going to win this game" but my teacher said "don't get agitated or else you'll move your pieces too fast without even thinking and then you'll lose".  So I stayed calm and that's how I won all 5! So now here are the results: My team got 3rd place out of 6 and for singles I got 3rd PLACE out of 24 players (I should of got 1st place)! ....One more thing is that I didn't like recopying more stuff for school that I missed.                                                                                                                      

I got a special invitation to play chess at the Chess Club of Leinì or at Ciriè for two lessons

see ya next blog post!

Acquario di Genova

Hey everyone! This is Emma guest posting! Right now I will be taking time sharing with you about my field trip to the Acquario di Genova, I went with my class and the other two 6th grade classes in my school. The trip took place on Friday, 29th April. I just couldn't wait to return to this awesome aquarium for the second time.

The drive was about 3 hours and the whole time I was just chatting with my friends that I was sitting next to. The bus was really cool and it had two floors and since I get car sick all the time, I sat on the second floor in the very front. It felt like I was driving!!

Crossing over the Ligurian mountains

Vercelli's rice fields

Anyways, about the aquarium. The trip was meant for us to learn more English because the tour was in English. Actually, I was quite impressed on how well they spoke! What I didn't enjoy about the tour guide is that she was rushing the tour and said we couldn't take pictures because she had to explain (sigh).

But, you know what I did? I just went on and took pictures anyway, because even though our professors said we would see the aquarium again in the afternoon, I just knew that we wouldn't have had time to revisit it again (And in the end, we never revisited the whole aquarium again!!!) So, please don't be surprised if I took only a few pictures.

The explanations of the tour guides were superficial, but interesting. What kept distracting me was that most of my classmates were asking me: "What did she say? Could you translate that for me?" It gets really annoying after awhile, but I just kindly kept translating what the tour guide was saying. 

Then around 2 we ate lunch and after that I was playing with my friends and enjoying the sea breeze and seagulls singing (because we ate "on the roof" of the aquarium, which I call "oversized balcony" and it was by the port).

Then we went gift shopping. I got a really resistant bookmark with dolphins on it and two postcards with a seal and two dolphins. Everything in the shop was SUPER expensive!!! Example: you usually buy postcards for 50 cents, but the ones in the souvenir shop costed 1 euro and 20 cents. Crazy huh?!

I just can't BELIEVE I haven't said anything about a single animal!! And you all know I'm an extreme animal lover! So, about the animals (I will post pictures don't worry). We saw animals like manatees (they were so cute and fat), seals, LOTS of fish (big and ugly, and small and cute), snakes, frogs, crocodiles, sea turtles, eels, dolphins, sharks and so much more! My favourites were the dolphins and touching rays (don't worry, they were not sting rays). 

I'm DEEPLY sorry that I've just been talking. Hopefully I didn't make you bored, but up up and away,  here come the pictures!!!

The most adorable dolphins ever

Sea horses

My favourite fish of the aquarium

Jellyfish

I call these "Glass hugging jellyfish"

Of course, we all know Nemo...

... and Dori

Catfish

Fat manatees!

Sharks

Sleeping seal

Poisonous fish 

Sea turtle

Ugly huh?!

Same goes for this one

Snakes... my mom's favourite ;)