It has been a busy year for the Smith family! About a year ago, our church sold its old property. This was a wonderful opportunity for us since we needed larger facilities. Moving a church was quite an adventure. We were blessed with a nice place to meet while we search for a new property to buy, as well as a place to store all our extra supplies. In November of last year, God blessed us with an amazing new property that fit all our needs. Since we moved in, we have been doing a lot of projects to fit the existing building to our church’s needs. Caleb has enjoyed being able to help with several of the construction projects, especially with the electrical aspects.
Another great thing that has happened from selling our old property is that we now have enough funds to buy two buses that fit the California regulations. Unfortunately, we were forced to discontinue our bus ministry a few years ago because we would not be able to run our old buses. They did not fit the new requirements, and we were unable to afford the expensive new ones that did. Because it has been dormant for so long, it will be like starting our bus ministry from scratch. We are so excited to get this ministry going again! It is such a vital part of our outreach with the gospel. One of the things we are most thankful for, when it comes to the education we received at Fairhaven, is the training we were given on the bus ministry. As our bus director, Caleb is Especially thankful for the bus lessons from CE class since these will be so helpful for him in beginning and running this ministry.
Another aspect of the ministry that’s been exciting to be a part of it is the church choir and band. The Music ministry is something We both loved being a part of while we were at Fairhaven. Just being involved in these ministries taught us a lot. Now Caleb uses things we learned in college choir from Dr. Mitchell to help our own choir here at our church. It’s been a blessing to see several people join the choir and go from knowing very little about music, to now being important parts of that ministry. We have seen growth in this area especially in the last year or so.
Our little family has grown as well. In April of this year, we were blessed with our son Jackson. We are so thankful for him. Becoming parents is the best and at the same time scariest thing that we have done yet! We look forward to the future opportunities the Lord will continue to open for us, where we will be able to use even more of our training and continue to learn and grow.
Caleb, Cassie, and Jackson