{"id":3710,"date":"2014-01-02T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T16:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3710"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"welcoming-the-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3710","title":{"rendered":"WELCOMING THE NEW YEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have not finished my “Christmas Inside Out – Part 2” yet, and it’s already a new year, so I will pause momentarily here to post some pictures from the\u00a0tail end of 2013 and front end of 2014\u00a0as I and my family wish YOU a Happy New Year.\u00a0 That’s “Bon Ane!” in Creole, and January 1st is a big holiday here.\u00a0 Not only does it kick off a new year, it marks Haitian Independence Day.New Year’s Eve\u00a0afternoon, Melissa and Angie got all the girls from both families together for hair styling and nail polishing time – the whole spa treatment!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The nail polish came courtesy of a Christmas care package from friends in Indiana.\u00a0 Thanks, Celestia!Around 6:00 we took some finger foods next door to the Bundy’s house to add to theirs and we all chowed down with the beautiful ladies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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I think the party was supposed to end around 9:00, but the kids started playing some card games and the adults started working on a puzzle and we broke out “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and the next thing you knew it was midnight.\u00a0 A very enjoyable way to send off the old year.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We couldn’t believe all the kids managed to keep their eyes open past midnight – and even more shocked the next\u00a0morning when not one of them was out of bed before 9:00 am.\u00a0 That NEVER has happened before in family history\u00a0and seems especially rare here when the sun and heat and roosters aren’t at all conducive to sleeping in.New Year’s\u00a0morning, then, once everyone did finally start to move, we got to be part of an impromptu pool party with a couple of other missionary families at the Villa Cana, a beautiful retreat center right next door here.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Back home, I helped Melissa roll out some Christmas cookies and then managed to sneak in a nap, waking up to find Johnny, Ruysdael and Mikenn here to bring us back to Johnny’s house.\u00a0 His mother had invited us over to have some soup joumou – pumpkin soup – the traditional dish for January 1st.\u00a0\u00a0Before the revolution\/slave revolt\u00a0which formed Haiti as the first black republic, the\u00a0French masters never allowed their slaves\u00a0to eat the pumpkin soup the French \u00a0served to their own families.\u00a0 And so the soup became a poignant symbol of freedom and independence.\u00a0 Over the last few years, we had been in the habit of joining Kate and Storly Michel for pumpkin soup at their home in Columbus, Indiana on January 1st.\u00a0 We missed being with them this year, but how fun and meaningful it was to be with Johnny and his family instead!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The walk up to Johnny’s house in the late afternoon sun.<\/p>\n\n\n

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This little bandstand across from the house was part of the New Year’s Eve celebration apparently.\u00a0 Ruysdael said something about children using it to perform songs.<\/p>\n\n\n

Hannah and Sarah outside Johnny’s front door.<\/p>\n\n\n

Inside, the table was set beautifully.\u00a0 In the center of the table was the big pot of Soup Joumou and beside it a basket of cassava bread.\u00a0 We brought the Christmas cookies in the foreground to share with the family.<\/p>\n\n\n

After dinner, we went outside to see\u00a0Johnny’s puppies – these puppies would be cute anywhere, so they were far and away the cutest we’ve seen in Haiti.\u00a0 By the way, that’s Johnny’s mom standing over the brown and white puppy – she quickly moved out of range once she saw my camera pointed her direction!\u00a0 Johnny is by the momma dog and his twin brother, John, is in the doorway.<\/p>\n\n\n

If I remember correctly, the white one’s name is “Cappy”.<\/p>\n\n\n

And the brown and white one’s name is “Puppy”.<\/p>\n\n\n

And Johnny said – IN FRONT OF ALL FOUR KIDS! – that\u00a0WE should\u00a0TAKE ONE HOME\u00a0with us.\u00a0 My immediate reaction was to say “No Thanks!” but you should have seen the sad eyes and heard the begging that Johnny’s offer provoked!And Melissa is apparently not going to be a strong ally to me in standing against adding another pet to our family!\u00a0 She has no resistance when it comes to puppy cuteness.\u00a0 But my understanding was that the Christmas bunnies were supposed to satisfy the pet desire.\u00a0 Fortunately, these puppies were not quite old enough to be weaned from their mamma, so I was not forced to choose between being the bad guy or waving the white flag of surrender in that moment.\u00a0 But Melissa reminded me that Sarah’s birthday is in two weeks … So the new year might hold a new addition to our family.\u00a0 As they say here: “Bondye konnen!” “God knows!”That aside, Melissa and I have at least two big hopes\u00a0for 2014 – 1) That the Lord provides\u00a0for our\u00a0family to continue working in Haiti without interruption.\u00a0And 2) That our path would cross\u00a0your path\u00a0–\u00a0our place or yours\u00a0– sometime in the coming year!Bondye konnen!Happy New Year from the Grosses.\u00a0 May God bless you, your family and your God-given ministry\u00a0throughout 2014!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not finished my “Christmas Inside Out – Part 2” yet, and it’s already a new year, so I will pause momentarily here to post some pictures from the\u00a0tail end of 2013 and front end of 2014\u00a0as I and my family wish YOU a Happy New Year.\u00a0 That’s “Bon Ane!” in Creole, and January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3729,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions\/3729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}