2011 december faith tab

2 - Ravalli Republic, Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Hamilton A� em� y � God

601 West Main Street

Hamilton Christian AcademyChristmas Program December 15, 6:30

Christmas Eve Service, 6-7pm

Christmas Day Service, 11am-12pm

New Year Eve Service, 6-7pm

New Year Day Sunday Service, 11am-12pm

Story and PhotoS By StaCIE dUCE

for the ravalli republic

STEVENSVILLE – On the first Sunday after Thanksgiving for the last decade or more, musicians who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have hosted a multi-denominational musical fireside to usher in the holiday season.

While the program varies with participants and performances from year to year, the feeling from those in attendance is always the same.

“Now the season has officially begun,” Marcia Prather was heard to say as she left her pew in the chapel of the LDS Church in Stevensville.

Both traditional and contemporary holiday tunes are performed by groups and individuals. Some are peppy and festive, while others are reverent and even haunting. The audience is invited to sing along with some hymns but is encouraged not to applause to preserve the reverence of the chapel and to invoke dramatic interlude between numbers.

The program on Sunday evening, Nov. 27, was introduced by Kevin Griggs, a member of the LDS Lolo Ward. He later directed the “Hallelujah Chorus” as a finale for the evening. He said, “The purpose of this fireside is to turn our hearts to the Savior at this time of year through the medium of music.”

He said that with so many needs in the world both spiritual and temporal, those in attendance were encouraged to enjoy the message of the music and then share it with all they encounter this holiday season.

The program began with a harp solo of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” by Janice Mineer. Then the Stevensville United Methodist Choir sang three holi-day favorites in festive form, “Christmas is Coming,” “Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella,” and “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

“What Child is This” was performed by the Howard family who attend the LDS Church in Hamilton. Mother Deidre Howard played the cello while daugh-ter Kayla accompanied on guitar and sisters Aryn and Serena sang.

Molly Hackett directed a chime choir of the Stevensville United Methodist Church with participants from all ages.

Joan Horsley, a consummate musician who for decades has performed on her violin as well as accompanied vocal performances for LDS choirs, took to the piano to play “The Birthday of a King.” Afterwards, she said it was the first time she has performed a piano solo in 25 years. Next, Horsley comfortably accompanied Judith Koppelman in a contemporary “Peace, Peace, Peace.” Koppelman produced the program this year and last, but has participated regularly for years.

“We have really enjoyed inviting choirs from other churches to participate

The Gift of Music

The Bitterroot members of the LDS Church provided its smaller version of a Mormon Tabernacle Choir including 8-year-old Alana Hill and 9-year-old Shae Flynn at the Christmas fireside.

Ravalli Republic, Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 3

Outdoor Live NativityPresented by

Christ’s Bible ChurchFriday & Saturday, December 16 & 17, 6-7PM

319 S. 5th Street in Hamilton363-3390

Worship the baby born to save the world.

with us,” she said. “And next year, we hope even more join us.”A miniature Mormon Tabernacle Choir took the choir seats

next under the direction of Brenda Griggs and accompanied by Ian Northcott. Steve Seler stepped up for the solo in “Oh Holy Night” and singers as young as 8-year-old Alana Hill and 9-year-old Shae Flynn participated.

Kolton Robbins, a high school senior, mesmerized the audi-ence with his violin solo of “Pachelbel Canon.” He hopes to major in music next year in college and appreciates the oppor-tunities to perform in the community.

The Fadely family, who attend the LDS Church in Stevensville performed several songs. Five of the brothers stood in white shirts and red ties while their mother and sisters waited in the wings.

Later she and daughters Brianna and Abigail joined in for “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Angels from the Realms of Glory.”

The Stevensville LDS Stake Choir, dressed in black, red and white, performed again before being joined by the blue-robed Methodist choir to conclude the evening with a rousing “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Afterwards, musicians and audience members mingled around platters of holiday cookies and punch.

Gretchen Speiss, who has performed with the Methodist choir for 25 years or more, said afterward: “This program is wonderful and always amazing because it’s different every year. We love to participate and then we invite everyone to come to our church for our traditional ‘Hanging of the Greens.’ We have cookies too, but these are always better, I have to say.”

Five of the Fadely brothers of Stevensville performed several numbers during the spiritual musical program.


195 Skalkaho Hwy, Hamilton • 363-4244 • CanyonViewChurch.org

Christmas Eve ServiceDecember 24th • 5:30 & 7:00 PM

OF THE CHRISTIAN & MISSIONARY ALLIANCE

Celebrating the second holiday season in their new location, the staff and resi-dents of the Bitterroot Youth Home have much to be grateful for – especially the generosity and service from many local church congregations.

A warm and safe home could be the best possible gift for a handful of teenag-ers who are living in transition at the facility, but it doesn’t hurt to have a few brightly wrapped presents under the Christmas tree.

Kay Crowe, program manager for the youth home, said they assist anywhere from 45 to 115 kids ages 10 to 18 during any given year. Some stay for a few days, some for a few months. And this December, Crowe said five and possibly eight teens hope Santa finds them at the Bitterroot Youth Home on Christmas morning.

The First Presbyterian Church in Hamilton as well as the Ladies of St. Francis Catholic Church and members of Canyon View Church have already adopted one child each for Christmas.

“They have commited to be Santa for one child,” said Crowe. “They take his or her wish list and invest $200 to $400 depending on the child’s needs and however much they choose to spend.”

Lone Rock Community Church has also offered to help with general needs of the facility this holiday season. “We have an ongoing list,” said Crowe. “Anything from soup spoons to socks and deodorant are priorities right now, so we’re really grateful they are willing to help us in such a way.”

Crowe said an anonymous donor is helping the kids buy presents for their own family members.

“As a secret Santa, they are offering $50 for each child to shop for others which is a wonderful gesture,” she said. “It’s nice for the kids to receive something but even better for them to give to those they love, so we really appreciate that person for their generosity and perspective.”

Crowe said the Hamilton Booster Club has always been a generous donor to the Bitterroot Youth Home. “I could almost cry every year over all the things they do for the kids.”

From Bronc sweatshirts and blankets to activity passes to high school events, the Booster Club helps foster their involvement in extra-curricular school activities and since the school is within walking distance, it’s really improved their participation and integration. Crowe said the booster club also gives passes to various places in town like the aquatic center and the movie theater so the kids have fun things to do dur-ing the holiday break.

Members of the Corvallis United Methodist Church have been longtime support-ers of the mission of the youth home. From painting the facility to cooking classes and yard work, members of the congregation are always aware of the needs of the nonprofit organization and are willing to lend a hand.

“When we have a project, they have consistently supported our program in all sorts of ways,” Crowe said. “And every year they donate our Thanksgiving dinner – turkey and all the fixings – they’ve been doing that for as long as I have worked here.”

Other community organizations, like the employees of Glaxo-Smith Kline, have

The Gift of a Warm HomeStory and PhotoS By StaCIE dUCEfor the ravalli republic


Blue Christmas: A Service of Comfort & HopeSunday, December 11 at 7:00pm, Memorial Room The Christmas season is upon us – with brightly wrapped packages, parties, Christmas trees, cookies baking, and unending upbeat carols in shops, malls and on the radio. But Christmas time can also be a dif� cult time for the griev-ing, the lonely, the stressed, the uncertain people in our community. Some people long for a time of quiet and comfort in the midst of the busyness and cheer of the season. That is what the Blue Christmas service is all about. This service is a time of prayer and comfort – a time to acknowledge the dif� cul-ties of life and pray with and for one another. It is also a time to discover the hope that Christ’s birth holds for all of us even in the midst of the tough times. Join us for this special service and invite a friend or family member.

Christmas Cantata Sunday, December 18 at 11:00 am Join us as we celebrate the season with the UMAB choir. They are presenting their Christmas Cantata during the 11:00 service. There is no 8:30 worship service on December 18.

Christmas Eve Candlelight Service- Saturday, December 24 at 7pmJoin us on this holy night for a service of candlelight. Hear the Christmas story, sing Christmas hymns and receive Holy Communion.

Christmas Day WorshipSunday, December 25 at 10am Celebrate the day with us at a worship service � lled with Christmas carols. We will have one service only at 10:00am.

United Methodist American Baptist Church211 North 6th Street, Hamilton • 363-2465

regular worship times are 8:30 and 11am on Sunday

also been generous supporters. Crowe said her list of helpful church groups, busi-nesses and individuals is a mile long, but also necessary to continue to operate as a nonprofit organization and serve a serious need for kids in crisis.

“Our community has really had to step up since we moved to our new home,” Crowe said. “There was a lot of work to do to remodel the home for our needs and the response has been wonderful.”

Crowe estimated they spend up to $1,000 per month on groceries to be able to serve warm meals for breakfast and dinner.

“As you can imagine, teenagers eat a lot so we always welcome fresh fruit and vegetables,” Crowe said. “But mealtime is a very important part of our structure. We call it ‘family time’ and we talk about what’s going to happen during the day at break-fast as well as our ‘ups and downs’ of the day at dinnertime.”

The youth home is large enough for boys to have their own rooms with dorm-style bathroom facilities in one wing and the girls to share rooms and bathrooms on the opposite side. The basement is currently unfinished, but plans are in the works to add to the current rec room as well as build a conference room for board meetings, a visitation room with privacy for families, and the ultimate walk-in closet where staff can sort and store the bags of donated clothes items that are constantly given and constantly needed.

“Some kids arrive with nothing,” Crowe said. “So we gather everything they need from toiletries to clothing to new packages of socks and underwear. When they leave, a nice group of ladies from one church sews bags for them to take their stuff with them. They also make quilts for the kids to have on their beds and take with them when they go. The kids are always amazed and absolutely love those quilts.”

A donation bin is currently set up at Ford’s Department Store in Hamilton for the holiday season so generous shoppers can conveniently donate new socks and under-wear for the youth home.

“We also collect things for kids turning 18 as they transition into their own apart-ment,” said Crowe. “So we put every donation to good use.”

She said several church groups have invited the youth to some of their holiday activities and they are really looking forward to the events. She also said she hopes community members will share some of their family traditions or holiday stories with the youth home so that the kids can learn more about bonding activities that they may not have experienced previously.

“We have fantastic people in our community,” Crowe said. “Ten of them serve on our advisory board and are hardworking, dedicated and wonderful. I absolutely adore our board. We honestly could not do what we do for the kids as a non-profit without them.”

For more information on how you can assist the Bitterroot Youth Home with its mission to help kids in crisis, please contact Kay Crowe at 363-0619. Donations can be delivered on Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon.


Please come and join us for a candlelight service e e

TUUUUU

Raffi Walsh and his family will be spending an extended holiday season in Baja, Mexico, relishing the relaxing summer they missed, a Christmas they never expected to have together and a miracle they appreciate every day.

Seven years ago, Raffi was diagnosed with a brain tumor and has spent most of his childhood working through the complications. Last autumn, he took a severe turn for the worst and by December, the family packed up for Seattle to meet with specialists who offered few options and little hope. They celebrated Christmas as if it would be their last together. Even their hospice nurse predicted only a month until his little body would give out.

Raffi’s parents made funeral arrangements and wrestled with the choice to insert a feeding tube knowing it would prolong his life. They worried about the quality of his existence and the possible pain he was enduring but couldn’t communicate.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sing, dance, ride his bike or make everyone laugh like he used to. He couldn’t walk down Hamilton’s Main Street from his parents’ shop to run errands. He couldn’t even sleep through the night without seizures. But he could communicate with his eyes and his lovable countenance still earned him new friends at Daly School.

When it got to the point that he couldn’t even lift his hand to point at a chart, his parents, teachers and therapists all used a system of communicat-ing that helped him make choices by holding out two hands and assigning an option of what to do with each hand. Raffi used his eyes to look at the hand that represented his wishes and most of the time it avoided frustrations.

By summer, his downhill slide continued and he was homebound and semi-conscious. The Walshes teamed up with Aspen Hospice which provided invaluable services and equipment.

“When you’re in that situation, you just feel so overwhelmed,” said his mother Mimi. “Many offered to help, but hospice has so many resources … one of which was to administer medication to help Raffi sleep through the night, which meant we all got better sleep and that made a huge difference. I wouldn’t wait as long next time to call hospice because of how important their support was to us as a family.”

The Walshes also received a call from Debbie Ashmore of Daly School who offered her help even though school was not in session.

“We weren’t prepared for Debbie’s rapid response team,” said Mimi. “Suddenly we had 16 people coming to the house and helping. We knew it was time to let others say goodbye, but I was shocked at the number of peo-ple who came. I thought people would be hesitant to come and see a dying child, but they loved him. It was a pretty intense time.”

One person from school visited every day in the summer for hours on end, stroking his hair and holding him. “The love that he felt from Kari Goligoski, one of the paras from school, was amazing,” Mimi said. “She brought such a strong emotional charge that got him through the roughest of times.” Other friends, like the Seiferts of Hamilton spent hours with the family, even bringing their newborn baby to lie next to Raffi which brought him a lot of peace.

Mimi said she could tell Raffi was really happy having more people around

The Gift of Life Story and PhotoS By StaCIE dUCEfor the ravalli republic


Please join us for our Christmas celebration!Friday, December 24th, Christmas Eve

6pm - St. Philip (Darby) / 10pm - St. Francis

Saturday, December 25th, Christmas Day9am - St. Francis / 11am - St. Francis

St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church411 S. 5th Street, Hamilton

St. Philip Benizi Catholic Mission312 Miles Street, Darby

him and alleviated the stress of two wor-ried parents constantly at his side.

“We were able to not only love him and hold him, but sit back and watch others do that which was so amaz-ing,” she said. “Although he couldn’t respond, he still loved being held, you could tell that,” Mimi said. “We knew he was in there somewhere.”

Healing watersBefore Raffi’s health declined so

dramatically, his parents had promised a hot springs tour around the state because he absolutely loved the warm water. They only made it to Fairmont for one night before realizing they needed to stay closer to home and be vigilant in keeping him hydrated.

But wanting to keep their promise, the went to Lost Trail Hot Springs as often as possible which proved to be an arduous trek with all his gear. Mimi said the hour walking him in and out was worth it to watch him float in the warm water so peacefully.

Last July 26, Mimi and an entourage again made a trek to the healing water at Lost Trail. On the way home, Raffi

Raffi Walsh with his favorite teacher, Kari Goligoski, who spent countless hours with him at home last summer when he was on death’s door.


slumped over in exhaustion. He hadn’t spoken conversationally in 10 months and his parents felt as if the end was imminent.

When they got home, Mimi carried him to his bed where he slept deeply for about five minutes and then woke with a start.

“He just sat up and started talking,” Mimi said. “And there he was, we had our kid back. It was like the dream was so bad, we had to change it before we got to the end of it.”

Mimi ran outside to the hospice employee who was helping with some yardwork and called her husband to her side. Raffi spoke and when asked if there was anything in the world he wanted to do, his response was to go to Kmart and buy a toy.

“Within 10 minutes we were at Kmart and I was using the video on my phone to film him,” Mimi said. “Honestly, we thought it was a quick rally that sometimes happens right before the end. We thought we’d make the most of it and remember it forever.”

While he was shopping he ran into friends from school who had never heard him speak.

“So when he said hello, it really shocked them,” Mimi said. “One little girl literally jumped back in surprise and then told her mom in amazement, ‘Raffi is talking.’”

His recovery wasn’t just momentary and within a few days, Raffi was able to sit up, chew, swallow and operate his remote control car. Within a week, he was trying to get up and walk. After three weeks, he was walking and riding his tricycle.

“It was amazing because it had been so painful and so difficult to watch that slide,” Mimi said. “He’d plateau and then have another precipitous dive. He just fell apart piece by piece for 10 months and then he miraculously got most of it back over the course of a few days. We don’t really have an explanation. There’s nothing that shows up in imaging and testing to clearly under-stand why he turned around and why he pulled out of it.”

She said that those who work at the hot springs were “blown away,” because one week Raffi was being carried in and the next time he came walking by himself. As a result, they offered a gift that he could come anytime for no charge at all.

The gift of relationshipsOne of the biggest concerns for Pete and Mimi was resolved when they

were able to ask Raffi what he was experiencing those 10 months. Was he in pain? What did he remember?

“Most of what he said had to do with relationships,” Mimi said. “He knew we were sad and that made him sad. He told us he was worried about others … it wasn’t about him. He just felt taken care of and that everything was OK.

And so it had to be OK with us.”Pete added, “We look at things so differently now. You’d think dying would

be the worst, but really knowing he was in pain would have been worse … We’ve had discussions with Raffi and we’ll have more confidence next time. We know he was very content being held and that’s what he really wants.”

Mimi said, “We were doing our very best and he knew that. Having gone through it, when the time does come again, we’re all going to be in better shape. And we know we can call hospice. They really did offer us so much

more that we expected. We thought there was only one way out of hospice, but that’s not always the case. And now despite our very rough patch, our hearts are tied together with a big bow.”

“Every day we just take what we’ve got for that day and boy, there’s a lot of varia-tion from day to day but that’s normal for a kid with a complex set of issues,” Mimi said. “Raffi goes to school full-time. He’s a happy little guy. They are doing such a great job in compensating for what’s really important, which for him are the social interactions with other kids. Long-term educational plans don’t make sense for Raffi. So now we just try make every day as enjoyable as we can for him because we’re still face-to-face with the inevitable.”

“I believe Raffi has changed the commu-nity,” she said. “He’s not just ours, he belongs to the community. Look at the kids at school and in the Keystone after-school program. Often, kids with Raffi’s issues are often teased or mistreated, but that’s just not true here and that speaks volumes about the adults involved and how they can pull the kids in to Raffi’s world and help them understand a kid as different as him.”

As for the Christmas holiday, Mimi said she hopes it’s “a really great time to be together. We’ll miss our friends but I think we need to get away from here and decompress and have some time on the beach.”

Raffi has been researching on the school computer how to have a Christmas without snow and is content to realize that Santa still pulls his sleigh to warm places.

Looking back on the last year, Pete sum-marized, “I can’t say it was enjoyable, but the only part of it that was enjoyable was realizing

how many people love our son. I’m a better father because I put myself and my feelings aside and only focused on Raffi. Sometimes we’d be down and feeling sorry for ourselves, but now we have better perspective and realize there are so many people in the world who are so much worse off than we are. Raffi is going to have a good death, there are kids dying every day that don’t have a good death but he knows he’s loved and that’s all that matters.”

Mimi added, “It really keeps you in the moment because that’s all you’ve got.”

Striking a pose, Raffi and his vibrant personality has captured the hearts of his family, friends, teachers and the whole Hamilton community. He spent 10 months unable to speak during a decline in his health due to a brain tumor but developed many other modes of communicating his love and appreciation.

2011 december faith tab

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