May 4th 2024, Stephen Modich

Meeting will be at:  
First Baptist Church
1555 Paul Bunyan Dr NW
Bemidji, MN 56601

Time; 8:00 am.   A light breakfast will be served.

Steve grew up in the town of Keewatin on Minnesota's Iron Range. My parents were the children of Yugoslavia, Slovenia, immigrates. My father was an iron ore miner and my mother was a home wife raising four children. I was raised Roman Catholic and my parents being very devout we observed all holy days of obligation and in the SO's my father took part in reaching all Catholic families in Keewatin on saying the rosary with the slogan of "A Family that Prays Together, Stays Together". We also did many of the Slovenian Traditions that centered around food, dancing (polka's), cousins, laughing and heavy drinking. I attended school in Keewatin until the Nashwauk and Keewatin schools merged in 1963 and in 1964 with the combined schools I met Susan ~ From Nashwauk!!!  We dated throughout high school, splitting up for some periods of time and we were married in September of 1969, because the Draft Board in Itasca County said I was not going to be drafted!
 
We purchased a house in Nashwauk and I was working at the Keewatin National Steel Pellet Company as an operator when I was encouraged by some of my Father's friends to study and take the welding test and successfully passed. I was placed in the plant as an operations welder with a maintenance crew.
 
Before our first wedding anniversary, we lost our first child as a stillborn and I was drafted. After basic and AIT training I volunteered to be an Airborne Paratrooper. Susan continued her college education at Bemidji State and would graduate as an Elementary Teacher. I had orders changed from going to South East Asia and was sent to the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg and after a few months went back to Minnesota to bring Susan back to Bragg with me living in Spring Lake Park, just off post. Susan and I would attend Sunday services every Sunday having some religion in our lives.

 After my discharge and a short time back in the mines I decided to ask for a veteran's leave of absence and try college on the G.I. Bill. I attended Hibbing Community College for one year and then transferred to Bemidji State U., graduating in 1977 with a teaching degree and by God's Grace was hired to teach in the Bemidji District retiring with 31 years of service.
 
Susan and I have been married for 54 years and have three grown children and six grandchildren. We were involved with church, pre-marriage weekends, school activities, Boy Scouts, Foster Parenting, Buena Vista Ski Patrol and Mission Trip Bus Driving~ mostly with the Bemidji School District and Lumberjack Sports Transportation.  My, Our, life In Christ began with agreeing, in an inebriated state, to go to Marriage Encounter with Susan and that was the beginning for me to have an Exciting Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ, later in my walk with the Lord Jesus Christ how He impressed on me Ephesians 5:25.