I delight in remembering people who have made a difference in my life, the lives of others, and in the Body of Christ. I have written several tributes to missionaries and evangelists, and some about those with whom I have been privileged to serve alongside of in the work of ministry through the local church. This post is about a special couple that God, in His wise providence, melded together through matrimony for a lifetime of Christian service. Their names are Tripp and Shelli Grossman, and their identity has been “servants of Christ.” Tripp joined that heavenly hosts of servants in glory four years ago; Shelli continues serving, with significant physical limitations, to this date.
I met Shelli sometime after she had graduated from Tennessee Temple University, having received her degree in Education. Her parents were charter members of the Edgewood Baptist Church, which merged in the mid-1960’s with the Grace Memorial Baptist Church to become Thompson Road Baptist Church (TRBC). The Edgewood Church was founded in the late 1950’s in a garage a few houses from the current location of the church I pastored from 1979 to 2019, TRBC. Shelli’s parents were faithful members of the church, and they were the kind of people who loved ministry, missions, and missionaries, entertaining God’s servants often in their large, white, two-story house just a few blocks from their church.
When Ellen and I first met Shelli, she was a single college graduate and already involved in public education. She eventually became the Indianapolis Public Schools Supervisor of Special Education. She is a masterful educator, with a heart as big as a full moon for children, a head full of practical, common sense, and a mind wholly consumed with a desire to please her Lord and Savior.
That is why, when we met the man that she married, Tripp, we were a bit taken aback at first. She met Tripp in Nashville, IN, where he was selling leather goods he made. He had a business or two and had met Christ as His Savior while serving a prison sentence in California. He said the story of his parole amounted to a “God Thing,” as there was no way he should have been released by the parole board. Yet he went into the meeting with every confidence and assurance from God, through prayer, that he would be released. And he was! He grew up in Indy in a staunch Catholic home and had his fingers, shoulders, and head rapped many times by his nun teachers, who were trying to maintain order in their classroom. He ended up in California, was incarcerated for the crime of manslaughter, met Christ in his prison cell as he sought Him through reading the scriptures, and became a new creation in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:17) We lived to see the day that we gave God thanks that Shelli did not see Tripp on their first meeting as an ex-convict but as a trophy of the amazing grace of God!
Upon moving back to his hometown in Indiana, he still had some of the trappings of his old life and had not yet found a mentor or a good, Bible-believing church in which to grow. Enter Shelli. She wanted to bring him to church and introduce him to her godly, very conservative mother (her father had gone home to Heaven already), but she told him he’d have to get his hair cut, shave, and clean up a bit before she would even entertain the idea. Why would she even pursue a relationship with this man? She was young, intelligent, attractive, etc. Tripp, though gentle, kind, and personable, was an ex-convict who had ridden with the “Hell’s Angels” before being saved. He knew by experience the seamiest side of life. There was, in the mind of any reasoning person, no way these two would ever be a match. But God!
Tripp got the haircut and shave, cleaned up nicely, and met Shelli’s Mom, Ruby (who was one of Ellen’s best friends). I cannot say for certain how Ruby responded on that first meeting, but I am confident in surmising that she was less than impressed. But, in time, Tripp and Shelli married and began a journey together with Jesus that touched literally thousands of lives for Christ.
Shelli is an excellent interpreter for the deaf in the American Sign Language. Tripp was a bus driver and picked up children (along with many adults) on one of our church busses, bringing them to Sunday School. Shelli taught many of these little ones in our Church-Time Children’s ministries, with Tripp assisting. They pursued the hearts and souls of the littlest and least amongst us for many years this way. When Shelli was not teaching the children in Church-Time, she could be found interpreting a message being delivered from the TRBC pulpit to one of our deaf attendees. For several years, we had two members who were deaf and blind. Shelli and some of the other interpreters were able to “spell” into the palms of the deaf-blind the messages preached. It was an amazing service done out of love.
Tripp and Shelli bought a house east of the city and made it their home for about 20 years. It had been, I believe, a house where Jehovah Witnesses met. Well, they fixed it up with skillets, pots, and pans hanging from the rafters, old vintage machines of all kinds, and two or three beautiful big dogs watching “guard” over the place. To visit their house was like going to a Cracker Barrel. Their door was always open to guests, friends, and church members, and they had a place for bonfires, church picnics, go-carts, trap shoots, and you name it. Shelli’s mother became sick one December night when Shelli had prepared and planned for a traditional after-church (Christmas Cantata) party at their place. When the ambulance arrived to take Ruby to the hospital, she told one of the EMS workers she was “going home.” The EMS attendant assured her that they were taking her to the hospital. Ruby assured him that she was “going home,” and she did! Before they had reached the Emergency Room, Ruby was in heaven. Shelli had gotten word that her mom had “gone home,” and she hosted the party start to finish.
Tripp drove busloads of kids to camp in the summer, often with his golden retriever by his side. He loved to see these boys and girls, many of them from the inner-city, run and play, splash in the lake, and eat three meals a day—some of them like they had never eaten before. It was at these camps that a young lady from our church, serving as a counsellor, Michelle Young, was further prepared for a life of missionary service. She and her husband, Harrison Banda, are serving (and have served multiple terms) in Zambia, building lives for His Kingdom there.
I have shared some snapshots from the lives of two of His choice servants. Shelli still serves, still teaches junior church, and still teaches the Bible in our Perry Township Religious Education outreach. It has been, for Ellen and myself, a profound honor to have been fellow servants of Tripp and Shelli these past many years. To God be all the glory and all the praise.
“Unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” (Eph.3:21)
YOU and GOD 