about us

Hello! We are Jamey and Lesley Smith. We’re really glad you have found our blog, because it’s one of the biggest ways we’re able to share our story.

Jamey is from Covington, Virginia and Lesley is from Danville, Virginia, both small towns in Southern Virginia. We met during Lesley's first week of classes at Virginia Tech. Jamey was Lesley's small group leader and one of our very first conversations was about each other's hearts for missions and for ministry. We immediately knew that there was something special about the other. We also couldn’t help but notice that we were from similar areas and were the only people in our small group that liked country music. We’re told that mutual friends were already plotting to set us up before we even got to know each other.

We graduated together from Virginia Tech in May 2012, Jamey with a degree in Water Resources Engineering, and Lesley with a degree in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Stage Management. Go Hokies!! We were married shortly after graduation in August 2012, and we feel so blessed to have each other and to be starting our marriage in this ministry.

We both had the amazing opportunity to travel to Danli, Honduras with New Life Christian Fellowship (NLCF) on mission trips during our spring breaks at Virginia Tech.  Jamey had been four times to Danli & Lesley had the opportunity to go in March 2012. We both fell in love with the country and left more and more of our hearts there every time we went. We felt called to move to Danli, to the same church, as full-time as missionaries.

As an engineer, Jamey's heart is to work with their water purification and sanitation in the villages. There are so many places that have raw sewage running out into the streets and into local drinking water sources. And for the majority of places in Danli, sanitation is completely non-existent. His heart is to be sharing the love of Christ and Jesus as the Living Water with the communities as we work to bring them better sanitation solutions and drinking water quality. His heart is to use his engineering work as a tool to reach these communities with the Gospel. You can find out more about his ministry at www.totalwater.org.

Lesley is very passionate about management and communication, and in several ways those interest play out in her responsibilities here. She also has a huge heart for children, and a lot of experience working with them, and so this too is continuing in her work in Honduras. Lesley is currently working as one of the teachers at the other major social project at our church in Danli, which is the Children's Development Center, where local community children come before or after school to receive a daily hot lunch, homework help, hygiene education, biblical instruction, and English classes.

We are working daily and living life with the people in these communities. We are excited to form relationships with people in the communities and share the love of Christ with them.

We officially moved to Honduras in mid-November of 2013. We first lived in Choluteca, Honduras, where there is another, much larger, Great Commission Latin America church, in order to learn language quickly from the more highly bilingual population here, and to learn from the larger projects that GCLA has at this church, so that we could take that knowledge with us as we hope to begin new projects at the church in Danli. We then received approval to make our move to Danli at the end of February 2014, and we are settling into our new permanent roles here very nicely. Danli has that same "small town feel" that we both love so much, and we feel very blessed to be able to live, work, and serve here.

If you would like to get connected with us, please see our "contact us" page!