{"id":6536,"date":"2024-12-22T04:17:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T04:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6536"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:31:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:31:55","slug":"christmas-letter-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6536","title":{"rendered":"CHRISTMAS LETTER 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0December 2024<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Dear Friends and Family,<\/p>\n\n\n

Melissa and I wish you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas! We trust 2025 will find you and yours securely in the palm of God\u2019s hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

2024 has been a rollercoaster. On the upside, our family saw two college graduations (Hannah from Olivet and Samuel from Ball State), another trip to Ghana for Steve, a couple of trips to Myrtle Beach and one to New Jersey, some fun house and yard projects, our nephew\u2019s wedding in Milwaukee, and numerous show choir performances with Sarah. On the downside, though, Melissa\u2019s mother has spent the year fighting advanced colon cancer. At this point, Trudy has exhausted all chemo options. All our focus now is on spending as much quality time together as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Melissa and I find ourselves entering a new stage of life. The three oldest kids live and work out of state and the youngest is ready to start her final semester of high school. Getting all six of us together is becoming more difficult, but we were blessed to do it on Easter and Thanksgiving and we will have everyone together for a few days over Christmas, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Here are the updates:<\/p>\n\n\n

Caleb, 23 \u2013 Finished his time at Fort Moore in Georgia and moved to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. He earned his Expert Soldier pin in September and was recently promoted to First Lieutenant. Outside of military life, he is sharing a rental house with a friend, attending a local church small group, and will soon start serving as a \u201cBig Brother\u201d to a local kid.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Hannah, 22 \u2013 Graduated from Olivet in May and moved to Myrtle Beach in August to start her career in interior design with a small firm called iQ Designs. It is her dream job and she is loving her new life and feeling quite blessed. Best of all, she took Ginger with her. \ud83d\ude09\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Samuel, 21 \u2013 Graduated from Ball State University in May and took a third summer to sell books door to door for Southwestern Advantage. In October Samuel moved to Holly Springs, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, where he is sharing a house with some friends from the book field. He has started working with a company that markets, designs, and maintains websites for businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Sarah, 17 (18 in January!) \u2013 Is dancing her way through her senior year. She is in two separate show choirs at Columbus North High School while also performing with a dance troupe in nearby Franklin. She plans to apply to Indiana University to study interior design and ceramics. We know her next semester will fly by with show choir competitions, the school musical, and a spring break youth mission trip to El Salvador.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

In May, Melissa successfully wrapped up her first year back in first grade only to be granted a new and \u201cchallenging\u201d class this fall. It has taken some time, but she is seeing positive advances in behavior and learning. Much of Melissa\u2019s \u201cspare time\u201d, of course, has been spent tending to her mother\u2019s needs. Having a student teacher in class this semester made it a little easier to get away from school when needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

I have been with Mission Resource for three years now and Sardinia Baptist for nearly two \u2013 and I still find both incredibly fulfilling. I was baptized in March, so I am officially an American Baptist now (as well as a child of God!). In August I started a side job teaching English to local adult immigrants two nights a week. A third of my class is Haitian, so that\u2019s fun. Meanwhile, I am making slow but steady progress on my dissertation project – though I don\u2019t foresee finishing the degree before May of 2026 now.<\/p>\n\n\n

Time is flying more quickly with each passing year – while our valuation of good friends and family increases at the same pace. Hopefully, 2025 will bring us opportunities to reconnect face to face with some distant loved ones. And we pray that the New Year brings blessings and life abundant your way!<\/p>\n\n\n

God Bless,<\/p>\n\n\n

Steve, Melissa & the (grown up) Kids<\/p>\n\n\n

P.S. Next summer brings our 25th wedding anniversary!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0December 2024 Dear Friends and Family, Melissa and I wish you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas! We trust 2025 will find you and yours securely in the palm of God\u2019s hand.\u00a0 2024 has been a rollercoaster. On the upside, our family saw two college graduations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536","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=6536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6537,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536\/revisions\/6537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}