newsletter // in case you missed it...

Here is our February & March 2014 newsletter that goes out to our friends, family, ministry team, and prayer team. If you would like to be added to this list, please feel free to email us at jamey.smith@gcmweb.org.

Click here to read the newsletter!

mission team // nlcf at virginia tech 2014

New Life Christian Fellowship Mission Team 2014

To write about this particular church's first mission trip to Danli since we have lived here is completely surreal and wonderful, because this was the trip. The trip that started it all for us. It's what brought us here. And now New Life Christian Fellowship serves as our sending church. There was a lot of excitement for us going into this trip, even though we had only been living in Danli for a week and a half before they arrived and even though we only personally knew a few of the people on the 18 person team!

We were so happy to be in the position to host two of the team members in our new home, one of which was our dear friend Steve (you know, the one who was both a groomsman and the pastor who performed the ceremony in our wedding; we kind of know him well), who has been leading this trip with NLCF for several years now. Both of our "host sons" (just kidding, that's just what the Hondurans like to say!) were very patient with us during some running water outage problems that we'd been having, and we were very grateful for that!

On Saturday (3/8) when the team arrived, we went on the church bus to receive them at the airport, headed back to Danli, and went to the regular Saturday night church service. Sunday was a church event day at the park, filled with some swimming, basketball, soccer (of course), card games, and more. Lots of hanging out, lots of getting to know people from the church, and lots of sunburn! The rays seemed to be extra strong that day, and Lesley got her first (of sure to be many) good face burn with a sunglasses outline. It's documented in many pictures from the beginning of the week. Also, the church had baptisms in the pool of the park as well, with so many congregation members and the whole mission team there to see. It was wonderful and such a blessing that we got to see one of our friends be baptized by her dad just 2 weeks after us arriving in Danli.

Church park day and baptisms.

Throughout the week, the team had the opportunity to go to several different communities on the outskirts of Danli to share the gospel, as well as give out food provisions and Spanish Bibles to those who didn't have their own. Some of the team members also got to build beds to give out to those in most need of them as well. We particularly loved getting to join the team in evangelizing because this year the church taught the team about GCLA's new vision of sharing using "Multiplica Multiplicadores". Through it, each team member was encouraged to tell a short version of their personal testimony first, before sharing the gospel using the bridge diagram in the home they visited. We both felt so blessed to get to hear so many of the stories of the team members that we normally would not have gotten the chance to hear. It added such a new dimension to sharing with others so openly as well as connecting to people on a personal level.

Also, some of the team (mainly guys) got to help with a construction project at the church, which was extending the concrete floor of the church out to meet where the roof ends. It was long and hard work, but it was so worth it! It is going to be such a blessing for the church as this was the final step before the next goal of closing in the church with 2 additional walls.  The church still needs to raise funds in order for the walls to happen.

Final product of the completed floor, far left. 

Making the beds (left), and getting having a little helper to deliver them (right). 

We also took the team to visit a local public hospital, which was a first for us too. There is a huge difference between private and public hospitals here in Honduras. You hear about the bad conditions in public hospitals, but you don't realize really how terrible they are until you are inside. Patients have to provide their own bedding, medicine, clothing/gowns, and in some cases, food, and most cannot provide these things for themselves. It is practically required that a friend or family member stay with the patient to be able to attend to them. The hospital is not clean by any means, and smells even worse. It is very hot inside the building, and everyone must share a room with 2 to 3 other people with no room dividers or privacy at all. Many of who went to visit the hospital left completely wrecked and devastated of what they had just seen.

One 16-year-old boy at the hospital that particularly made his way into our hearts. 

On Saturday, we went to visit a nursing home to deliver food and spend time with the elderly people there. It was amazing to be in Honduras and see birth dates of patients born in 1919. We talked with, prayed with, and played music for the patients. They especially loved that the musical group would come around to their bed and play a song "just for them". The NLCF team was also able to attend a second regular church service on Saturday night, and blessed the church by creating a worship band for the night made up of the musically talented members of the team, since the church here in Danli does not yet have their own live band (but they do have the instruments and are working towards having a band soon!). It was fun for us personally that we got to worship in BOTH English and Spanish! What a joy!!

Visiting the nursing home; one lady was particularly happy to see a baby around!

NLCF-ers playing worship at Iglesia Gran Comision Danli. 

As they do every year, the tearful goodbyes came on Sunday when it was time to head back to the airport. Because we have only been in Danli for a few weeks, it felt a little weird to be herding the NLCF team on to the plane (though they didn't want to leave) but then being one of those people who stays, smiles, and waves until they get to the security point where we can't see them any more. Oh yeah, we live here. We don't go back to classes and midterms, Virginia Tech, and NLCF. We stay!

Quick snapshot from the "touring" day the team had, here seeing one of the church member's fields. 

We were with the team for about fourteen hours every day, so we were as tired as they were, but we loved the busyness and joy that they brought. We also loved getting to see things through brand new eyes again, through those who have either never been here to Danli before, or who have never even left the country. Thank you, Hokies. You left you mark on this great city once again (and filled it with even more orange and maroon shirts for us to spot). We love you! Can't wait til next time.

ask anything // round 4: kids edition

The awesome children from our sending church, New Life Christian Fellowship in Blacksburg, VA, recently sent us letters to let us know that we were thought about as their missionaries. They spent the last couple of weeks learning about Acts 1:8 and what it means to be a missionary. We were very encouraged by these sweet letters, and thrilled that the kids had an avenue to ask what questions they have. So, may we present to you, our first Ask Anything: Kids Edition from NLCF Kids!

1 // Question: from Dawson 

1 // Answer: Most people in Honduras eat a lot of rice, beans, eggs, avocados and tortillas. They also eat a lot of plantains, which look a lot like bananas but are eaten like a vegetable! You have to cook plantains before you can eat them. They are very yummy! If you wanted to have a special meal here, you might have a whole fried fish (with the head still on it and everything!) and pickled onions and jalapeno peppers and cabbage. Here's a picture of plantains for you: (the right side is what they look like after they've been cooked)

2 // Question: from Hayli 

2 // Answer: Lesley's favorite colors are purple and gray. Jamey's favorite color is light blue. But we also wear a whole lot of orange and maroon. Go Hokies!

3 // Question: from Sydney 

3 // Answer: Right now, we are spending a lot of time taking classes to learn Spanish so that we'll be able to talk to everyone better. We have a teacher that comes to our house every afternoon to help us. Lesley also goes to play with kids at an orphanage and a children's nutrition clinic where kids are given good meals to make them be healthy and where they learn about Jesus. There are lots of kids and sometimes there isn't enough people to play with them all, so Lesley goes to help! Jamey does work to help make sure that people are going to get clean water so they don't get sick. We also do a lot of things with our church!

4 //Question: from Maggie

4 // Answer: Maggie, in Honduras, people do a lot of things differently than in the United States, like wash their clothes without a washing machine, and they don't have dryers for their clothes. Some people have to live in houses made out of sticks and plastic tarps with dirt floors and no electricity because they can't afford a house with strong walls, windows, a roof, and a floor. Also in Honduras, you can't drink the water that comes out of the sink in your house because it's not clean enough to be healthy for you. So you have to buy clean, healthy water at the store to bring home for drinking and cooking. We have to go buy more water lots of times every week. 

5 // Question: from Sydney 

5 // Answer: Lesley really loves to take pictures and to cook. Cooking is her very favorite thing to do and she loves finding new things to try to make all the time. Cooking has been very different for her in Honduras though, because they have a lot of different foods. Jamey's favorite activities are running and learning Spanish! 

6 // Question: from Will 

6 // Answer: It is very hot here all year long! The city that we live in is about one hour away from the beach and it's usually 95 degrees or hotter every day, and a lot of people don't have air conditioning. It is also very dry right now. It only rains here during a couple months in the year. So that makes everything very, very dusty! You have to clean a lot more here. 

7 // Question: from Josie

7 // Answer: Hi Josie! To say "hello" in Spanish, you say "Hola!" except you don't say any "H" sounds in Spanish. To say "goodbye" in Spanish, you would say "Adios!". To say "Good Morning" in Spanish, you would say "Buenos dias!".

8 // Question: from Tyler

8 // Answer: Yes, Tyler, the money is different here in Honduras! Honduran money is called "Lempiras". It takes about 20 lempiras to make 1 U.S. Dollar. Here's a picture of it for you:

9 // Question: from Hayli 

9 // Answer:  Hayli, there are different ways that we tell people about God here. We invite some people to our church and they hear the message of the Gospel while they listen to the sermon. Sometimes we go out to different communities around the city and share about Jesus with people individually. A lot of people here believe that they have to do enough good things to go to heaven and they are not saved by the Grace of Jesus. We share with them what God has told us, that it is only by our faith in Jesus and knowing that he forgave all of our sins by dying on the cross that gets us to heaven and that we are saved by Grace.


And just to get a peek at how adorable our letters were, here is one of the whole letters we got. It doesn't get much more adorable than this!

newsletter // august 2013

As always, please let us know if you'd like to join the list to have these emailed to you personally. 

If so, you can email Jamey at jamey.smith@gcmweb.org.

(Click the photo to make it a readable size!)

bump into us // Blacksburg, VA

We're back to the first town we ever lived in at the same time... one of the places our hearts call "home"... the always wonderful Blacksburg, VA. It is no secret to anyone how much we love it here & how fortunate we feel to get to spend two weeks here before our move.

As most of you already know from reading our latest newsletter, we are spending these two weeks serving at our sending church, New Life Christian Fellowship, during their kickoff for the year (with students arriving to our dear Virginia Tech!). We are so excited to be of service to them and to get to reconnect with the church!

So far, we've been able to attend a day at the staff retreat and get to see all of the staff again, which was such a delight. Then, yesterday we were able to help with the special service for the Corps of Cadets at Virginia Tech. NLCF hosted the combined "contemporary protestant" church service with two other churches in addition to us, where all three churches were able to be a part of the service as well as share their information with the Cadets that attended. The new Cadets arrived on campus on Saturday for intensive training before classes begin, and on Sunday they were permitted to pick between four different genres of services to attend. Because NLCF is located directly on campus in the student center, it's also a great location for the Cadets in relation to where their buildings are located.

We can't wait for the rest of the student body to arrive on campus and get this move-in week going!

As always, we love to let our ministry team, friends, and blog readers know where we're going to be because we would love to "bump into you!" Please let us know if you're in the area (Blacksburg tends to have a high turnover rate, understandably, so we aren't always aware of who is even here!) and if you'd like to meet up & see us! 

email: lesley.smith@gcmweb.org or jamey.smith@gcmweb.org
call/text: 540-968-1275 (Jamey) or 540-831-9528 (Lesley)

The roomies at the pumpkin patch, Fall 2010 (left) // Linda's wedding (right)

Also, we owe a HUGE shout out to our wonderful hosts, Justin and Linda Summers, who graciously offered to have us in their home for two weeks!! Linda was one of Lesley's sweet roommates during college (Lesley got really blessed in that department!) and we are so excited to get to connect with them again while we're here! Thank you so much again, Justin & Linda! 

church // best things about our trip to blacksburg and some [nlcf] love.

Us sharing at the 11am service. 

As we said in our last post, we were in Blacksburg, VA two weekends ago and it was such a refreshing weekend for us!  As every Hokie knows, there's just something about that town that makes you feel right at home and warms your heart no matter how long it's been since you've been there.  It was so great for us as it had been almost 6 months since we were there last! Here are a few lovable things about Blacksburg that we got to experience this weekend:


1.) the beautiful campus of Virginia Tech
2.) New Life Christian Fellowship [nlcf].  Period.
3.) that one-of-a-kind small town feel
4.) visiting wonderful friends and feeling like you're picking up right where you left off
5.) meeting a new tiny addition to our Blacksburg family
6.) shamlessly wearing so much Orange and Maroon
7.) the joyous feeling you get when you see Exit 118B
8.) overlooking the amount of people in Gillie's to enjoy the best breakfast in town (even if it is vegetarian)
9.) breathing in a crisp, cool spring morning in the mountains
10.) the feeling you get when walking by places that mean a lot to you personally

Friends and staff praying over us during the 707 service. 

During the trip, we also were given the opportunity to speak at our sending church, New Life Christian Fellowship [nlcf].  It was great to get to share how Lesley and I's desire to enter into international missions started separately before we even met and how they have now blended as our vision together. We enjoyed being able to share with the congregation how [nlcf] is involved in our ministry and how our time at [nlcf] allowed us to grow tremendously in our faith and relationship with Jesus.  I also encouraged them to to go on one of [nlcf]'s missions trips.  I have never seen anyone come back from one of them and not be changed in some way.  I think God does incredible things in people's hearts when they go on mission trips. This was also Lesley's first time speaking with me at a church service and it was really encouraging to me to have her up there beside me. I'm so thankful for her! This was such a rejuvenating time for us to connect with the staff members and the congregation.  The staff and members also took time to pray for us and "send us out" during the service which was really awesome to experience!  We also had some of our very close friends pray with them, as they also invited those in the service who knew us personally to come forward, who have watched this calling unfold in our lives over the past few years.  It meant so much to us to have them be there and pray over us.  We love our church family so much and thank them for all of the encouragement and discipleship during our time at Tech.


Jamey